It's Easier to Pretend in the Dark: Redux

If there's one thing your published story shouldn't do, it's surprise you.

I'd think most writers would agree it's a worry, though.  When I have a new story out, I always find myself skimming through with a mixture of pleasure and vague dread, glad to see something I laboured over out where other people get to poke at it but fearful I'll find some dumb mistake I missed - or worse, much worse, some dumb mistake an editor decided to slip in.

That second one has only happened once before.  And really, the two changes that had been made were, while both bizarre and erroneous, so subtle that I'd like to think no one else could have spotted them as mistakes.

In the case of It's Easier to Pretend in the Dark, as recently published in the Escape Velocity anthology, the changes were more drastic.  Considering that it's only a little over a thousand words, finding about a dozen significant changes I'd never agreed to was a bit of a blow.  Most of them were, in fairness, pretty minor in the scheme of things, a dash replaced with a semi-colon here and a few line breaks removed there.  None of those seemed to add much, but none of them did any significant damage either.  Stuff like that, I could live with, even if I didn't much like it.

Two, however, were a lot more significant.  One cut three lines and forty four words for no apparent reason.  The other, on first reading, seemed to break the story entirely.

I took these concerns to co-editor Geoff Nelder, who I'd met, and liked, both in person and online.  Considering we'd worked together to hammer out a redraft based on his suggestions when the story was first accepted, the changes seemed all the more strange.  We batted some e-mails back and forth.  It turned out that some of the alterations were the result of a reedit I'd never received, some were likely made by the anthology's second editor Robert Blevins.  A couple were probably just mistakes.  Geoff was very nice about it, and promised to try and fix what could be fixed.  He also pointed out that I was seeing from an author's point of view, and that readers seemed to be managing to enjoy and make sense of It's Easier to Pretend regardless.

I felt better.  A bit.  But not a whole lot.

When I first noticed the changes, my gut instinct was to wash my hands of the anthology and of the version of my work it contained, as being so far from what I'd intended that I didn't really want my name on it.  If I thought all the stories in the collection had been messed with so extensively, that's exactly what I'd have done.  But right now, based on what Geoff has said, it looks like I just got really unlucky.

Still.   It's Easier to Pretend is out there, it's a bit of a mess and as far as anyone knows, I wrote it that way.  So, what I agreed with Geoff is that I'll make the two major changes public here.  That way, when ten years from now some lunatic comes up to me raging about how my story didn't make any damn sense and starts threatening me with their Ebola-gun, I can point them to this blog post.  At which point, they'll probably shoot me anyway for referring to something as hopelessly outmoded as a "blog".

Anyway ... obviously, this won't make a heck of a lot of sense to anyone who hasn't already read It's Easier to Pretend in the Dark.  Or for that matter, to anyone who has no intention of doing, or just plain doesn't care.  To those people I say, well done for getting this far, but you might want to give up on the post at this point.

Are they gone?  Right!  Here's major change number one:

After the line, "With that realisation the illusion broke.  But by then it was already far too late", there should be a section break.  That's to say, time passes - a few hours worth.  Stuff happens.  If you were wondering why one minute they're in bed and the next minute they're fully clothed and the protagonist is mentioning how he's just been somewhere else for the last few hours and talking like he's just arrived when you know full well he hasn't - well, that's why.  It's probably not a big deal unless you really think about it.  But if you really think about it, it makes the whole first half of the story pretty damn stupid.

Secondly, the end of the middle section should read as follows.  The excised lines - the ones that were kind of intended as a coda to the entire piece - are the ones in italics.  As should be apparent, the alternate spelling of maid, which was also removed, is deliberate and also pretty crucial.  And no, I have no idea how he's managing to pronounce it like that.  Maybe in the future they have special speech organs that let them verbally distinguish consonants or something.

He struggled for something, anything, that might remove this man from his house.  "It’s my wife.  I don’t think she’d want another mAID."
 

"Oh?  Because we could get your appliance back on its feet if you wanted to discuss it with her?"
 

"No ... no, thank you."
 

"Well.  It will be a couple of days."
 

"The woman I talked to said..."
 

"We’re a little busier than expected."
 

"Oh."  Henrietta would be back tomorrow.  What could he possibly say?
 

"If that’s everything ...  Android Interactive Domestics thanks you for your custom."
 

The engineer gave him a disinterested nod, and--when Jefferson made no move to do so--let himself out.  Moments later, Jefferson heard the whirr of an engine.  Jane would be in the back: foam-packed, laid out, inactive or comatose or whatever you’d call it.  What would you call it?
 

What the hell word is there for that? 
 

He’d asked when they’d first hired her, "What does the "m" stand for?  Why is it mAID?" 
 

"It doesn’t stand for anything, sir.  That’s why it’s in lower case." 
 

Yet somehow, that letter turned a machine into something you could almost believe was human. 
 

What could he say to Henrietta?

Well, there we go.  Here's hoping I've saved myself from a nasty future bout of Ebola.

In fairness, I should point out that I haven't had a chance to dig too deeply into my copy of the Escape Velocity anthology, but I've enjoyed what I'd read so far, there a heck of a lot of talented authors involved, and all told, I'd hazard a bet it's a damn good read.  For that matter, it's also really bargainously priced in its e-book format.  So I hope nothing I've said here puts anyone off buying it.

Thanks once again to Geoff for treating my complaint seriously, for whatever future efforts he makes to put it right, and for agreeing for me to sum up our conversations here.

My First Fantasycon, Part 2: All the Stuff That Is About Trying to Sell My Novel

For Fantasycon this year, I decided to try something a little different.

In fact, I decided to try plenty of different things, I guess - actually attending being the main one - but for this post I'm just going to focus on one, since I covered the rest in the first part (Buying art!  Spending £20 on a book!  Staying in a hotel that had clearly been designed by Stalinists!)

For a variety of reasons, most of them to do with my day job, I ended up going almost directly from finishing my first novel, Giant Thief, to beginning my second, currently known as Funland.  That meant I didn't have much time or energy with which to submit or promote Giant Thief - and the more time passed, the more my enthusiasm waned.  With novel number two out of the way, I knew I had to turn that around, but even when I started tentatively submitting my heart wasn't entirely in the process.

I'd been telling myself for months that if I made it to Fantasycon, one of the justifications for the expense would be trying to sell Giant Thief.  I had a few ideas, but one in particular stood out, something Rafe McGregor had suggested.  Rafe's idea - perhaps influenced by the decidedly unconventional theories of self-promotion ninja J. A. Konrath - was to print up a promotional sampler via a print-on-demand service like Lulu, and to hand that out in place of the leaflets, bookmarks and such that authors tend traditionally to go in for.

Now, before Rafe accuses me of trying to pass the blame for my dumb ideas, it's worth mentioning at this point that I'd completely misremembered the conversation.  In fact, Rafe had been considering the samplers as a method to promote an existing novel, not as an alternative to the traditional submissions process. This, of course, makes far more sense than my version, which possesses very little logic at all.  Unfortunately, by the time Rafe reminded me of this, and pointed out what a potentially terrible idea it was, I'd already decided to go ahead.  I figured that the risk - of alienating publishers by appearing to buck the traditional submissions process - was worth the potential gains.  It wasn't that it seemed like a particularly great idea any more, or that I thought for a second it might lead to a sale.  But thinking about my samplers had done far more to rekindle my passion for Giant Thief than cobbling together synopses and sending out sample chapters had.  For the first time in months, I felt excited about it, and could remember why it had consumed me for the better part of two years.


So, at great expense, and with much screaming and throwing of furniture at Lulu's bewilderingly obtuse cover-designing software, I put my samplers together.  I compiled three chapters, my bio, and a short story - Imaginary Prisons, as published in issue #29 of Theaker's Quarterly Fiction - the latter partly because I was still hanging onto my misremembered version of Rafe's theory, and more rationally, because I thought I might conceivably peak the interest of anthology-only publishers.

The end results, pictured left, weren't exactly mind-blowing, and were a million miles away from what I had in mind, but at least they looked half decent.  I was particularly lucky to discover that Francisco Goya had been decent enough to illustrate an image from my first chapter in his 1818 painting "The Giant".  Unfortunately, neither of us banked on Lulu's deciding to reproduce it approximately thirty-seven shades darker than it had originally appeared, but it still looked just about okay.  I was armed and ready.

Now, it's worth pointing out at this point that I'm not the most naturally gregarious of people, and even if I was, I doubt that attending a conference on my own and then harassing complete strangers with samples of my novel would have been an entirely pleasant or relaxing process.  Despite encouragement and interest from the likes of Alisdair Stuart, Alison Littlewood and Geoff Nelder, the Saturday proved less than productive, and most of the samples I got rid of ended up with friends and acquaintances.  By five o'clock, I was a little despondent, not to say exhausted, and I'd barely shifted one in three of my Giant Thief booklets.

Sunday, however, went a little better.   Perhaps I was still drunk from the previous night - it's physiologically unlikely that I could have sobered up much from four hours sleep - and it definitely helped that the seller's room was much quieter.  Maybe more importantly, I was a little clearer on what I wanted to do ... that being, get rid of samplers, say 'hi' to complete strangers and learn a little about the publishing scene.  With my expectations realigned, I found that I was actually enjoying myself.  The highpoint of the whole experiment came from Nicky Crowther of P S Publishing, who was kind enough to actually be impressed, and to point out that my pamphlets would be much easier to read in bed than normal submissions.

So would I recommend this approach to other writers?  Not hardly.  It was expensive, time consuming, stressful and probably won't be in the least productive -certainly no one's expressed any interest yet, despite me including my contact details not once but twice!  But it did open my eyes to a lot of things that as a writer I can and perhaps have to be doing.  I can see now that it's vital to take the opportunity to talk to publishers - too often the only communication between our two camps is submissions and rejection letters, which gives each side a false impression of the other.  It's no bad thing to look at my work with fresh eyes, and failing that, in a fresh form.  I don't think anyone was grossly offended by my unusual take on submitting, so I guess it's okay to push the envelope a little.

Anyway, thanks for everyone at Fantasycon who encouraged and took interest in my mad endeavour, and especial thanks to the publishers who accepted my samplers.  It would have been a much, much less fun weekend without you.

Now to think of a crazy scheme that actually succeeds in getting Giant Thief published...

My First Fantasycon, Part 1: All the Stuff That's Not About Trying to Sell My Novel

So I not only went to but survived, and not only survived but enjoyed my first Fantasycon - that being, for anyone who doesn't know, the annual conference organised by the British Fantasy Society - and it seems only right that I say a few words about it.

I went to Fantasycon with a few ulterior motives - to be discussed in part 2 - but I mainly went because it seems to be the UK event that people consistently rave about.  I had no idea what to expect, but as a miserable cynic, that didn't stop me expecting the worst: perhaps me and and two other people in a room slightly smaller than the average broom cupboard, forced to debate the relative merits of the Silmarillion and the Lord of the Rings for thirty two hours straight.

That didn't happen, (believe me, I wouldn't be taking the time to post about it), but tons of other stuff did.  That said, because I missed the first day and it took me a few hours to tune into the whole thing I suspect I missed more than I saw.  I completely failed to go to any readings, for example, and I only made one panel, though at least it was thoroughly interesting - Robert E. Howard discussed by folks including the prodigious Ramsay Campbell and Stephen Jones, who edited the excellent Gollancz volumes of Conan that really got me interested in Howard.  Similarly, although I only went to one signing, I picked a good one: the Never Again anthology from Gray Friar Press, including too many great writers to name but specifically from my point of view my friend Alison Littlewood, whose work never fails to impress me.

Apart from that and the stuff I'm going to talk about in part 2, I mostly spent my time browsing stalls, mingling, drinking (oh, so much drinking) and catching up with people.  Some of these were old friends that I haven't seen in ages like the multi-talented Alasdair Stuart and Angry Robot and Hub editor and all-round nice bloke Lee Harris.  Others were well-known names that I finally got to put a face to, like Stephen Theaker (who between Dark Horizons and Theaker's Quarterly Fiction has accepted more of my work than any other editor, and is every bit as nice in reality as he seems in the digiworld) and author-editor Geoff Nelder, who I hope I run into again so we can finish the conversation I rudely rushed out of.  A few were complete strangers - and I realise that isn't catching up, exactly, but it's a way of mentioning just how damn friendly most people were, and how willing and eager to share their knowledge and experience of the industry.  Of these, BFS Publicity and Events Co-Ordinator Martin Roberts particularly stands out, since I only approached him in a muddled attempt to sell my novel to PS Publishing and we ended up chatting for about half an hour.

I was determined not to spend too much money, or at least only spend it on absolute necessities like food and alcohol, but in the last couple of hours I went a little mad, and I still think I got off lightly given how much awesome stuff I could have splashed out on.  Most expensive single purchase was PS's sci-fi movie essay antho Cinema Futura (pictured left), and I also picked up The Places Between by Terry Grimwood, (right), because I was bothering Pendragon Press's editor Christopher Teague and that lovely cover kept catching my eye.  But my biggest purchase was five art prints by the astonishingly talented Les Edwards - four of these, a series based on Lovecraft's The Shadow Over Innsmouth, can be found in the bottom right of this page.  I nearly split them up to save a few quid and I've never been so glad to have defeated my cheapskate Yorkshireman instincts.  Now if only I had some frames and wall space!

Were there any low points?  Well, having to point out to Terry Martin which issue and then which page of Murky Depths he'd published me in before he remembered who I was was a sobering moment, though completely understandable in retrospect (and congrats, by the way, to Murky Depths for picking up the Best Magazine / Periodical award, it was well deserved.)  Complimenting Lisa Tuttle on a story actually written by Sarah Pinborough wasn't my finest moment, (and then I completely failed to tell Sarah I liked it either - Sarah, if you should happen to read this, Snow Angels blew me away).  There was the point where I realised that all the less miserly and antisocial people had all gone off for the banquet and that I'd have to find somewhere to eat alone amidst the sinister and alarming surrounds of Nottingham - although that ended up in fantastic take away pizza, so all was more than well.

Apart from that, the two days ranged from relaxing and interesting to flat-out great, and I know that I'll have a better time next year for knowing the ropes.  The really great bit was seeing, with my own eyes, that the British genre scene is truly healthy - definitely struggling, who or what the hell isn't these days? - but definitely alive and definitely kicking.  And the best bit?  That'd have to be getting to feel like a part of that scene for a couple of days.

Escape Velocity Magazine is grounded

PRESS RELEASE
 
Escape Velocity Magazine is grounded

By Geoff Nelder

A few years ago, a gap existed on the bookshelves of readers of science fiction, who also enjoyed reading snippets and arguments of fact. Robert Blevins was playing with the idea of a publishing venture featuring stories of adventure – mainly science fiction, but other genres too along with true-life stories of inspiration. Out of Adventure Books of Seattle came Escape Velocity: the magazine of science fact and fiction. Co-editors Robert Blevins in the USA, and Geoff Nelder in Britain were privileged to read thousands of stories and articles from amateurs and professional writers. Their model of production was unique in that instead of printing thousands of copies and sending them to wholesalers for distribution, the relatively new Print on Demand method was employed through Lulu.com. It allowed readers to select either an e-book, at the price of a coffee, or a beautiful print version at the price of a roadside lunch. Sadly, in spite of ferociously brilliant reviews, insufficient copies were purchased to make the venture worth the considerable effort involved.

Thousands of the e-books have been downloaded, when they are offered free – and still are from the website of Adventure Books of Seattle. It seems that the world isn’t quite ready for the necessary culture shift for the paradigm of purchasing magazines via the web. People enjoy selecting and buying magazines from stores, or by mail subscription, and are reluctant to try a different approach. Nevertheless, the four issues gave flight to over 50 writers, a debut publishing experience for many. It also saw book reviews, puzzles, marvellous illustrations, cartoons, poetry from Magdalena Ball, interviews with literary agents, actors and others in the science fiction business. It’s been a blast, as they say.

The ending is not sudden. There are enough accepted stories in the files of the editors to fill an anthology – with the Escape Velocity name. Those writers are being offered a place in that anthology along with payment, as they would have had in Escape Velocity.

Apart from the online nature of purchasing Escape Velocity up until now, the magazine had a good reception at conventions in both the US and UK, and will be missed by those friends who had bought their copies annually.  Besides the effort and financial resources taken up by the magazine by the publisher and editors, their time has recently been occupied by other ventures. In particular the intriguing true life story of D.B. Cooper, who’d daringly leapt from an airplane in the 1970s with his skyjacked loot, never to be caught. Robert Blevins and P.I. Skipp Porteous have collaborated on a project to reveal the identity of the daredevil robber, and after many interviews and going over the files, have come up with not only convincing evidence of D.B. Cooper’s real identity, but a compelling adventurous read with Into the Blast.

Escape Velocity may be grounded for the foreseeable future but the editors and others involved with the magazine would like to give a heartfelt thanks to the contributors and many well-wishers, who had encouraged them along the way. 

Refs:

Adventure Books of Seattle: http://www.adventurebooksofseattle.com

Into the Blast: The True Story of D.B. Cooper  http://amzn.to/9kFlvv

Easier to Pretend in Escape Velocity

Was there ever a time when I resented editors suggesting rewrites? Yeah, I guess there was, and it probably wasn't even that long ago. Still, it's hard to remember the mindset, though I know it's pretty common amongst learning writers. "Who's this editor to tell me what my story should be like," and "what's the point of making changes when I got it right the first time?", and "yeah, that paragraph's a bit weirdly phrased but it's exactly how I meant it to be."

All of which, if we're honest, adds up to "It was enough work writing the bloody thing, you can't seriously expect me to rewrite it?"

A little older, possibly a touch wiser, and I can see that that's not how the world - let alone the publishing industry - works. I want my stories to be as good as possible, right? And editors, unless they're basically psychotic, want my story to work as well as it can before they're going to consider publishing it. It all seems pretty much like common sense.

But I think the reason for that is that the more I've written, the more my perception of what a story is has changed. Once upon a time, I believed that once I wrote THE END that was basically the thing done. These days, I would be hesitant to use the word 'finished' to describe anything I write. As long as I can make it a little bit better, it's still a work in progress. For that reason, both of the reprints I recently had picked up for anthologies (Fear of a Blue Goo Planet in Zombonauts, The Other Ten Thousand in Kings of the Realm) are subtly different from the originals. I saw that there was room for tweakage, and so I tweaked. If they ever get reprinted again, I'll probably tweak some more.

Explanation for ramble? My It's Easier to Pretend in the Dark has been picked up by science-fiction magazine Escape Velocity. I sent it in to co-editor Geoff Nelder knowing in my heart of hearts that it wasn't quite as good as it could be but not knowing how to fix it, and Geoff, bless him, asked for some changes and in so doing pointed me towards some other things that needed sorting out. As such, the version that's been accepted is a hell of a lot better than the one I first sent out. That's got to be a good thing, right?