erastes

Kurt Vonnegut - Eight rules for writing fiction:

1. Use the time of a total stranger in such a way that he or she will not feel the time was wasted.

2. Give the reader at least one character he or she can root for.

3. Every character should want something, even if it is only a glass of water.

4. Every sentence must do one of two things -- reveal character or advance the action.

5. Start as close to the end as possible.

6. Be a sadist. Now matter how sweet and innocent your leading characters, make awful things happen to them -- in order that the reader may see what they are made of.

7. Write to please just one person. If you open a window and make love to the world, so to speak, your story will get pneumonia.

8. Give your readers as much information as possible as soon as possible. To heck with suspense. Readers should have such complete understanding of what is going on, where and why, that they could finish the story themselves, should cockroaches eat the last few pages.

This link (found on heart_set_afire's LJ) really helped me this morning.  I've been wallowing in something akin to self pity for the last month or so. Reason being I sent the first page of my new book to a couple of friends  - simply because I was pleased that I'd written it - and neither of them liked it. Then yesterday I sent chapter 1 of Junction X to a brand new critique group attached to The Macaronis and had a few hard truths there too.

( Read more... )

I have new babies. Don't let them die.



ETA: "Psmith in the City" is on the radio. I may have died and gone to heaven.

I've just received the following email from Iris Print. Evidently the news is to be posted up on their website and blog later.

---

"By now I'm sure there are a few rumors going around about what happened to the company. Why was BL Twist canceled? What happened to Queer Magic and Home On the Range? Why no appearance at Yaoi-con?

"The short story is, Iris Print ran out of funding. ( Read more... )

---

On a personal note, ( my two pence )

Rejected Quarterly, The. Payscale for Short Fiction: Token payment. Payscale for Poetry: Token payment. From the publisher: "The philosophy of THE REJECTED QUARTERLY is simple: We believe there exists a large body of high quality writing which is not published due mainly to market considerations and partly due to a lack of taste. At TRQ we strive to publish fiction and other forms of literature tat you won't find anywhere else. To help prove this, authors must submit at least five rejection slips with each manuscript. We try to make each issue a work of art; of course sometimes the hot weather puts a damper on our efforts. Still, a sample copy is probably worth the five dollars and ninety-nine cents..."

Some of my fics are amassing rejection slips at a healthy rate, so I may be tempted to sub here!

Am a bit aimless this morning. Do I?

[Poll #822400]