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In which Rolanni is under the weather [May. 16th, 2012|09:03 pm]

rolanni
[Tags|, , , ]
[Current Mood |groggygroggy]

The trees of Maine have initiated their annual assassination proceedings.  The good news is, if I manage to outlast them, as I have for the last twenty-three seasons, I’m safe from their nefarious attentions for another year.

Catching up yesterday, for those who don’t do Facebook:  Steve and I arose at an Unreasonably Early Hour, went to the lab and saw the echocardiogram done.  The promise from the tech was that the doctor would read the results that day, and if there was any problem, would call us immediately.  Otherwise, we should get the results in two to three days.  (Jumping ahead — there was no immediate call from the doctor, so — yay.)

That chore out of the way, we retired to Eric’s for breakfast, thence to the post office, where a royalty check for slightly less than the cost of breakfast awaited (my last such check from Fictionwise), and finally to the grocery store.  Arriving home, I found the galleys for the Ghost Ship mass market paperback my inbox, with a turnaround time of before we leave for Kansas City next week, so that’s what I’ve been putzing along at , with frequent breaks for naps.

In my spare time, I’ve been reading The Prestige by Christopher Priest.  I can’t recall the last time the structure of a novel has annoyed me so much.  Happily, Mr. Priest writes a clean hand, so I don’t doubt I’ll finish reading, but I suspect that this may be one of those very rare cases where I prefer the movie to the novel.

Tomorrow, we again arise before dawn, this time to take Socks to the vet for his post-dental-work check-up and, hopefully, his rabies shot. We’ll return to the Metropolis later in the day to get haircuts, which,  in my case at least, is about three weeks overdue.  Got a definite hedgehog look going…

In between those two necessary events, I’ll be right here, reading galleys.

 

Originally published at Sharon Lee, Writer. You can comment here or there.

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half angel. half eagle. one eye on the world. [May. 16th, 2012|06:14 pm]

matociquala
[Tags|, ]
[Current Mood |chipperchipper]
[Current Music |All Things Considered]

The first volume of Shadow Unit is now available as a proper paper book with a gorgeous Kyle Cassidy cover.

It will be available through Amazon within a week, and will slowly filter its way through the rest of the online distribution system.

This volume contains the first half of Season 1. Volume 2 should be available in about a month, with other volumes to follow.

And of course, Shadow Unit in its entirety is available for free online, and as a modestly priced ebook through the usual sources.

The story began in 2007, and will end in 2013. It's not too late to discover one of the coolest collaborative serials in the genre internets!
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O! M! G! Eleventy-one!!!!!! [May. 16th, 2012|05:07 pm]

coffeeem
[Tags|, , ]
[Current Mood |bouncysquee!]

*ahem*

Has anyone out there been waiting for Shadow Unit in physical paper-type form?

You have?

Oh. Okay, then. That's good.

Because the first volume is here.

*exits, grinning*

(This volume is the first half of Season One. It'll be available on Amazon.com within a week, and elsewhere within two months. Season One, volume two will be available within the month; I'll let you know.)
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Editing Clauses in Publishing Contracts: How to Protect Yourself [May. 16th, 2012|10:45 am]

sfwa
[sfwa_admin]
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Posted by Victoria Strauss for Writer Beware

Over the past couple of days I've gotten several emails and Facebook posts alerting me to a blog post by writer Mandy DeGeit about her bad experience with a small publisher called Undead Press. When she received her author's copy of the anthology in which her story was published, she discovered, to her dismay, that not only was there a mistake in her title (an inappropriate apostrophe), but...
They changed my story without telling me.

Let’s see: They turned a non-gendered character into a boy, they named the best friend, they created a memory for the main character about animal abuse. They added a suggestion of rape at the end…
When she complained about, among other things, the gratuitous addition of sexual content, she received this delightfully professional response from the publisher, Anthony Giangregorio:
on the contract, it clearly says publisher has the right to EDIT work. you signed it. are you saying you are a dishonest and immoral person and will now try to deny you signed the contract? well i have a copy right here
and as for the story. the editor had a hard time with it, it was very rough and he did alot to make it readable. despite what you think, your writing has a long way to go before its worthy of being printed professionally.
we did what we had to do to make the story printable. you should be thankful, not complaining. ah, the ungrateful writer, gotta love it
Ms. DeGeit's bad experience with Mr. Giangregorio, unfortunately, doesn't seem to be an isolated incident. Similar complaints are appearing in her comments thread, and other writers have reported the same kinds of problems with Undead Press and other publishing ventures run by Giangregorio--who, among other exploits, has apparently published and sold several unauthorized sequels to George Romero's Dawn of the Dead.

As egregiously unprofessional as Giangregorio's behavior is, however, that's not what I want to write about today. Today, I'm looking at editing clauses in publishing contracts, and how they can lead to the kind of situation in which Ms. DeGeit found herself. (I haven't seen an Undead Press contract, by the way, so I can't comment on it specifically.)

Editing clauses are one of those contract areas where there needs to be a balance between the publisher's interests and the writer's. A publisher needs a certain amount of latitude to edit a manuscript to prepare it for publication (assuming it's professional enough to do editing at all--you might be surprised how many small press contracts I see that don't include editing clauses). It also needs to have the right to final approval--it doesn't want to be forced to publish a manuscript that the author can't or won't revise to the publisher's satisfaction.

A writer, on the other hand, needs assurance that they will be a partner in the editing process, and that their work won't be changed in major ways without their permission.

Whether you're publishing an entire book or a story in an anthology, the editing clause of your contract should ensure that content editing (the kind of serious editing that focuses on plot, pace, structure, style, and content) includes your cooperation (ideally, the editor will provide revision suggestions and you will carry them out yourself), and that substantial alterations can't be made without your consent. For copy editing, on the other hand, the publisher usually has discretion--but you should have a chance to see and approve the copy edited manuscript before it goes to press.

Here's an example of an editing clause you don't want to see (this and other clauses quoted below are taken from actual contracts in my possession):
Publisher shall have the right to edit and revise the Work for any and all uses contemplated under this Agreement.
What's missing here? Any obligation on the publisher's part to seek your approval before making the edits and revisions. A clause like this allows the publisher to edit at will without consulting you or asking your permission. If you sign a contract with this kind of  language, you are at the publisher's mercy, and shouldn't be surprised if the publisher takes advantage of it.

The next clause is more elaborate, but has the same effect (this language is fairly common, by the way; I've seen it in a number of contracts):
The Publisher shall be entitled to develop, alter, edit, and proof the content, usage, format, capitalization, punctuation, and spelling of the Work to conform to the Publisher's style, the subject matter, and intended audience previously agreed upon by the parties of this Agreement.

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Rose tint my world...or tint it some other color, whatever. [May. 16th, 2012|05:39 pm]

cmpriest
Over the last few days, I've learned a valuable lesson about whiteness. As in "what shade of white is this damn trim?" and "who the ever-living hell knew there were this many KINDS of white?"

See, for some reason the window frame/sill in my office is left partly unpainted. No idea why. Didn't notice it on the house's walkthroughs, but once I'd seen it, I couldn't un-see it - and anyway, there were a number of places in the molding and trim that really needed a good once-over. Most of the problem areas occurred in the wake of some distant electrical updates, and the more recent smear mistakes some clumsy moron amateur* made while painting over an Unfortunate Yellow room with a Pretty And Sensible Lavender/Gray.

Since our home is an older house, and the previous owners were all about doing "period appropriate" stuff, I went to Lowes and found an "antique white" that was allegedly certified in some ridiculous fashion as being historically valid (no doubt some kind of marketing scam, I know) ... and it looked about right. I mean, it's white, right?

Ha.

Got the paint home and it was, in fact, not nearly the right white. So I fussed and fumed, and wandered up to the attic to stash my now-useless quart of not-the-right-white paint, and I discovered a row of old paint cans. Hooray! These must be the colors used in my house! Thank you, previous sellers!

Of course, all these paint cans were dry as a bone, but that was okay. They had the formulas on the top - and when I found what MUST be the right white for pity's sake, I copied down all the info on the top label. Yes, all of it - all the little numbers that made no sense whatsoever to me, but clearly indicated a color formula to a better-educated eye than mine.

Then I went to Ace, because it's much closer than Lowes. I asked the nice (actually, rather amusingly cranky) lady at the paint counter if she could help me.

She said, "Nope. That's a proprietary brand and formula for Home Depot. You'll have to take it to them - unless you can get us a paint chip about the size of a quarter, in which case we can color-match it, but we might not be able to match the texture, depending."

So I went out to Home Depot, figuring this would be a slam dunk. I had the paint's brand. I had its weird number formula-thingy details. I had a debit card and a willingness to fork it over.

Ha again.

When I got there, the paint woman was being badgered by an older lady who couldn't be compelled to understand that she could not merely describe a color she totally saw this one time and expect the paint woman to pull it out of her ass. This conversation went on for probably fifteen minutes, during which I did verily salute the paint woman for her continued patience, because if it'd been me, I'd have grabbed a rifle and climbed a tower.

But finally the old lady wandered off in a dissatisfied fashion, having learned nothing except that the paint woman wasn't a wizard, and behold: It was my turn. Smugly, I thought that I would be an easy customer. A pleasant chaser to a difficult situation.

Eh.

The paint woman agreed that I had copied all the appropriate information required for her to recreate the paint in question, except that (a). they no longer made that precise type of paint with its attendant qualities, and (b). the paint can from which I'd copied this intel had apparently been whipped up during the last ice age - for it was so dreadfully old that the entire system was now on a different set of formulas.

But thank God for paint woman, who (it turned out) actually was kind of a wizard. She jiggered the formulas around, found me a comparable paint, and then sought about shaking me up a can of The Correct White.

At which point the machine locked up, and had to be rebooted/restored/reprogrammed with help from some specialist from some other end of the store.

Long story short, it took over an hour for me to get my gallon of paint - which I now cherish with an unreasonable fondness, because get this: It's The Correct White.

Or if it isn't, bugger all if I can tell the difference.

Since I was on now a roll ... back up into the attic I went, hoping to find matches to the rest of the spots in the house which required touching up - namely, the kitchen and The Nice Bathroom.** Nope. Just dried up gallons of Unfortunate Yellow and a rusted-out pail of whatever someone had used in the living area.

But encouraged by my hard-won success with the Correct White, I went back to Ace (they're close, remember?) with a peeled strip of bathroom paint.

(Why was the bathroom paint peeling? Suffice it to say there was an incident involving a clumsy moron amateur,*** a mirror, some double-sided sticky tape, a cast iron tub on which one should not balance whilst wearing socks nor at any other time, and the house's previous owners who apparently didn't prime before using glossy latex in a bathroom. Ahem.)

The adorably cranky paint woman at the Ace counter performed some magic, and gave me a quart of paint. Ladies and gentlemen and the otherwise affiliated: IT WAS PERFECT. I did a little dance, right there in the bathroom. (But not on the edge of the cast iron tub. In socks. Fool me once, etc. etc. etc.)

And then I turned right around and went hunting for a place from which to swipe a paint chip in the kitchen, which is a pleasant shade of green - yet featured an unpleasant, unpainted set of plastered-over bits left over from some electrical work. Eventually, back behind the washing machine (laundry nook = same color) I found some painted-over tape buckling up. EXCELLENT.

I snipped the tape, ran to Ace, and was home again in twenty minutes with a quart of Precisely The Right Green. Or, again - if it isn't Precisely The Right Green it's The Green Which Is So Freaking Close That Cherie Isn't Running Back To Ace Anytime Soon Because She Sure As Shit Can't Tell The Difference.

And anyway, that's what I've been up to. Driving all over town trying to Do It Right, and eventually getting it About 99% Right Which Is Probably The Best I'm Going To Do And I'm Okay With That.

If you're curious about how the office turned out, well, that probably means you don't follow me on my Twitter feed - where I've posted about it already. But that's okay. Here's what the room looked like in progress, half lavender/gray and half Unfortunate Yellow.

And here's what it looks like now - two views: one, and two. (Yes, I have a daybed in there. I have back problems, and prefer to work with my legs/feet propped up - and with a lot of lumbar support. So I improvised.)

Anyway. That's all there is to tell about my painting adventures (for now), except that I am very lucky the previous owners used the same semi-glossy white on just about everything they wanted white. So there's that. And now I have the correct and modern formula, so if I run out, I can ask the nice Home Depot paint woman to wizard me up some more.

And now I'm going to see about making myself some supper. In my kitchen that still smells very, very faintly of paint.


* Me.
** As opposed to the other one. See previous post.
*** Me again.

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Anthony Giangregorio—beware, for real! [May. 16th, 2012|02:26 pm]

nihilistic_kid
Remember the other day, when new writer Mandy DeGeit found her story substantially rewritten, with errors introduced, by a small press editor/publisher Anthony Giangregorio, who proceeded to act very unprofessionally when DeGeit complained about the added bestiality and outrageous introduced copy errors (e.g., the story is now called "She Make's Me Smile")?

Well, another writer, Alyn Day also came forward to describe a story she had placed with Giangregorio being substantially rewritten and retitled without her permission or even awareness.

And apparently, Giangregorio is upset enough about these revelations to invite himself over to Day's house. A Facebook screencap-you'll see that the conversation begins last year, and was updated 22 hours ago:



Is there a way to read this as something other than a threat against Day-especially as Giangregorio had previously told DeGeit that he would only communicate through lawyers? I tend to think not. Please spread the word.
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There's no cure for the common cold. [May. 16th, 2012|04:14 pm]

coffeeem
[Current Mood |apatheticbleagh.]

There are, however, things that make life easier to endure while one's immune system is fighting the battle of Helm's Deep against the snot-orcs and the congestion cave trolls and the giant sore-throat spiders. (No, Bear, these are not good spiders. They are icky metaphorical spiders, and I am allowed to kill them if I want to.)

For two days I've flung zinc tablets and decongestants at the problem. They've helped, but they haven't really made me feel better. At last, today, I have something that makes me feel as if I wouldn't rather die than have this cold.

1 tablespoon fresh lemon juice
1 tablespoon honey
8 - 10 ounces of hot, but not boiling, water
1 shot whisky (Jameson's would probably be perfect. I have Highland Park single malt 12yo, which is probably pearls before cold-swine, but I don't care)

Combine the above in a mug. Drink. Repeat as necessary.

No, you won't be cured. But you won't care.
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The Official Timeline of the Avengers. [May. 16th, 2012|01:51 pm]

telophase
For those of you interested in Avengers fic writing, as my f-list appears to have exploded in Avengers squee. (I assume it's useful, but I'm on my phone right now and the text is not easily read.)

http://i.imgur.com/61GmV.jpg

You can comment here or at the Dreamwidth crosspost. comment count unavailable comments at Dreamwidth.
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(Character) Class and The Game of Life [May. 16th, 2012|11:50 am]

nihilistic_kid
John Scalzi has a good post comparing life to a video game, in which being a straight white male (SWM) is akin to playing a video game on the "Easy" setting. Being of color, queer, a woman, etc. is like playing on a harder setting. There are many many other variables of course, including class, which he touches on by writing "If you start with 25 points, and your dump stat is wealth, well, then you may be kind of screwed." I think this is both a factual and rhetorical error, and that class should be fully integrated into Difficulty as opposed to stats, to make the analogy more apt.

(For those who don't know, a "dump stat" is the stat where you only put the minimum of points. It's not like you're "dumping" extra points into that stat, but that you dump your lowest score into it.)

The error, I think, can be seen in the comments to the post—and all the usual disclaimers about reading the comments on any Internet posting apply here, double. Two of the recurring themes are as follows:

1. SWMs complaining that their low class/socio-economic status/wealth means that their lives aren't so privileged after all.

2. SWMs who appear to be better off who a) want to know why they should act against their own interests by critiquing their advantages regardless of the origins of those advantages, and b) like expressing their ownership of and stake in the system built by previous generations of SWMs, and distaste for all those awful black African Jewish lesbians in wheelchairs who want to take over.

So, we have a group that feels it doesn't have a stake in the system, and is feeling the harshness of competition, and a group pleased with the rules of the system as they stand scoffing at the activities of their social inferiors. Clearly, there's a significant break in SWMdom, and it's along class lines.

This plays out in the real world in several ways that demonstrate to me that class is fundamental and thus part of "difficulty setting" in Real Life: Dragons of the Murderdome, or whatever you want to call it. Back in the 1970s, Albert Szymanski studied income and race and found that, of course, black workers made less than white workers. However, he also found an interesting regional difference—white workers in the American south made less than black workers in the American north. While the white workers in the south made more than their black co-workers in the south, they were underpaid compared to both blacks and whites in the north.

So, while whites were better off in a region of greater racism and thus greater race privilege for being white, most of them would benefit along with black workers in a region with greater equality. White privilege was paying white workers an extra dollar to keep from having to pay both white workers an extra five dollars and black workers an extra three dollars. (Clearly, we've not yet gotten any numbers from a truly equal society with no race privilege.)

What explained the difference? The north had integrated labor unions; the south, thanks to segregation, had many fewer labor unions (and those that existed were less powerful). Basically, white workers did not benefit substantially from racial discrimination, not even relative to blacks in another area with less explicit racist laws and social policies. Greater benefits would have accrued had they fought against their privilege, and in solidarity with black workers. Victor Perlo has found similar dynamics existing even today, a generation after the end of Jim Crow laws.

Sure, plenty of SWMs did benefit—managers, the highest tier of (almost invariably white) workers, factory and mine owners, people who play the stock market, etc. And sure, there is an important "psychological wage" white workers are paid—at least we're not black!, but psychology is even easier to print and inflate than fiat money. And yes, poor whites are less likely to have to deal with police harassment and the like. But they both get it worse in an environment where police are allowed to run rampant as a tool of keeping neighborhoods segregated and the property of landowners and businesses safe. Basically, the greater the race discrimination, the higher the inequality among whites.

There are similar analyses that have been done as regards gender discrimination, discrimination against gays, etc. It's not a cookie-cutter sort of thing—queer issues often have to do with the "nature" of the family itself and the need to protect certain kinds of families and eliminate other forms of families, for example—but in general there are lots and lots of SWMs that don't benefit materially from racism, or sexism, or homophobia, or national chauvinism, etc.

Of course, many white people, regardless of their own class "stat", accept racist ideas. Their perceived interests and their actual interests are two different things. Some confusion emerges when SWMs for whom racism (or sexism, or anti-queer sentiment, etc.) is beneficial declare themselves spokespeople for all the poor put-upon SWMs are who are the outrageous victims of Affirmative Action, or too many black ladies with dreadlocks being cast as wisecracking judges on TV, or women who won't have sex with the "beta males." And when discussions of intersectionality and oppression take class as a secondary issue*, the rhetorical floor is ceded to people with a material and ideological interest in racism, etc. to recruit the rest of SWMdom. Low-SES/working class/poor SWMs end up siding with billionaires who make the correct-seeming noises about "liberal elites" and competition from blacks and women and gays.

But when class is fully integrated into an understanding of the difficulty setting of the Game of Life, I think the arguments get much clearer.

The question: "I'm a poor white guy; should I fight against systems of privilege?"

The answer: "Because you'll benefit from it. The more equal things are, the better off you are."

For rich white guys who ask the same question, well, they're clearly on the other side, so they don't need an answer.




*Class actually is complicated when it comes to intersectionality. Very few people believe that the best solution to sexism is the elimination of men, or that the best solution to racism is the elimination of whites. And yet, many people do believe that the best solution to class division is the elimination of the bourgeois class. And yet, when so many theorists of intersectionality are themselves bourgeois aspirants with privileges of their own to protect...
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It's not about winning or losing, its how you play the game [May. 16th, 2012|07:34 pm]

suricattus
I am sharing this because I think it's important, and because I think Maria breaks it down better than I could, on a wee travel keyboard. And I like the card analogy - I have a card for being raised American white collar middle-class, and I'm always aware that education dealt me an invaluable card that cannot be underestimated (and why I think a well-rounded education is still the best gift we can give the next generation). It's not "discrimination" or "blaming" to ask us to be aware of those benefits and mindful of them.
------------------------------------------------------------------------



Originally posted by [info]marialima at It’s not about winning or losing, it’s how you play the game

John Scalzi wrote an awesome post entitled: Straight White Male: The Lowest Difficulty Setting There Is.


I highly recommend you read it – including the 800 comments.


Scalzi’s post struck a strong chord in me (who, according to his game metaphor got the hardcore setting, thanks to being female, Latina, queer).


I find it fascinating and not a little disheartening to see the same old “stop blaming me”, “what am I supposed to do about it” comments from so many straight white males. As an adjunct to that, a lot of “but my life was anything but easy because [insert reason(s) here].


Dudes: you are missing the point by miles. I don’t know if my analogy will help, but here’s an attempt: (and all my points are based on US/Western Culture)


playing cardsImagine there’s a pile of cards in play for the game called Life.


The objective is how you play during your journey, not some vague “winning” of the game, since the final outcome is the same for everybody.


Each card represents points a person can play throughout their personal journey. Points can be translated into real world advantages (jobs, money, opportunities, etc.)


At birth, each person gets 1 card to play based on the fact that s/he lives.


If you’re white, you get a second card, if male, yet another. If you are heterosexual, you get another.


Based ONLY on these criteria, at the start of the game, straight white males already have the advantage in having more cards.


No, this doesn’t mean that their entire journey through Life will be easy, simple and without roadblocks, only that they get more cards to start with. Some folks will get extra cards along the way (for money, education, other aspects of Life that affect their journey). That’s a given.


What Scalzi was pointing out that, at the start, straight, white males have more cards to play. What they do with those cards and how many other cards they get are variable.


So, we’re not blaming you for this, it’s just a statement of fact. You (the straight white male) have more cards at the beginning. You can choose to use those cards to lord it over others, or you can choose to stop, think and be inclusive.


It’s up to you.


For those of you who asked “what do you want me to do?” – I will repeat Scalzi’s answer (from the comments) – What do you want to do? It’s not my call. I am not the captain of your underpants.


If you want to sincerely know what you can do to level the playing field, I suggest you start by increasing your awareness–of your surroundings, of the language you and your friends use (do you laugh at homophobic, racist jokes or do you stop them?), of anytime you can reach out a helping hand to someone who is not a straight white male.  Small steps lead to bigger ones.


Some other thoughtful posts on the same topic:


Karen Healy


Steven Brust



(Please note, discuss as you wish, however, like Scalzi, I have the Crossbow of Courtesy primed & loaded…aka, don’t be a dick or I shall have to shoot down your comment.)



Originally posted at Maria Lima. You can comment here or there.

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