Don't Wait for "The Right Time"

My Prototopia fantasy work is on its third rewrite, and I've received some interesting feedback.  Valuable, I think.

In the story, my two young main characters are very rapidly attracted to each other.  The woman, an escaped sexual slave, can only relate in the way she's known for all the past years.  So she doesn't even recognize the feelings.  The man has just lost someone very close to him, and is escaping the memory by crossing a desert called The Waste.  He doesn't want to lose again, so he's fighting it.

In my story up to now, their relationship deliberately stagnates as they cross the desert.  Without spoiling the story, something happens on the other side that triggers a new view of their future, and that's when I have the relationship progress.

But those who've read the story say that the story is flat through that progression.  They get my logic, but don't enjoy the story.  Defending a plot point as "It really happens that way!" doesn't work.  I've heard that over and over.  If the reader doesn't enjoy the story, then the realism is irrelevant.  They still won't read it.

So what I've discovered is that putting a plotline on hold for "the right time," doesn't seem to be working.  It's got to progress in some way.  Or I've got to find a better way to set it aside.

So I've got a bit of a rewrite ahead of me.  Excuse me while I get back to work.

More MacHypocrisy

It's interesting to watch MacAllister Stone take such offense to banned books considering her arbitrary and capricious "standards" for banning people.  She STILL has provided absolutely no explanations for her actions.  One would think that someone claiming to have professional standards would act professionally.  Challenge her at all, and get banned, without explanation or any standard at all from her.

She's been provided source after source that explains to her why standards of customer service can and should apply to how her forums are run.  She doesn't acknowledge that, even though in the Newbie Guide she wrote she states that she is willing to discuss what people believe worthy of discussion.

She contradicts herself.  She violates her own posted standards.  And, most of all, she ignores well-documented professional ethics for people who engage in this kind of activity.

This *will* result in loss of her standing one day.  And it should.  And she will have no one to blame but herself.

Value of Openness, and Paranoia of Not

You know, I'm a paranoid old cuss.  I know that.  I'll divert from my intended path if a car stays behind me for more than two turns.  And I notice cars that stay behind me.  Sometimes, though, my "spidey-sense" gets going.  And I just have to dig to find out if it's working right.

I recently got an email sent to me offering a webinar on "The Value of Flexible Dedupe."  Presented by a site saying that their mission is "getting IT professionals unbiased, truthful information about their environments and the products that they might use in them."

Oh, really?  Well I'm going to change names but something tickled my brain about that claim.  Their presenter is listed as, "[J William Smith] is an expert in backup & archive systems; a space he has been working in since 1993. He has written three books on the subject, Backup & Recovery, Using SANs and NAS, and Unix Backup & Recovery. Mr. [Smith] is also an independent consultant and writer and has spoken at over 300 seminars and conferences around the world."

So imagine my surprise, or not, that a WHOIS lookup for these people wanting to provide "unbiased, truthful information" from an "independent consultant" named J William Smith, shows that the domain's name is registered by one "John W Smith."

Uh huh.

Mr Smith may, in fact, be a perfectly legitimate expert in Backup technology.  Maybe he's worked at it since 1993.  But, Mr Smith, I will not be attending your webinar.  To me, that hardly qualifies as independent *or* unbiased.  Consider yourself and your domain a permanent occupant of my spam filter.

Am I Up to the Challenge?

As a wannabe writer, one of the most valuable assets I can have is an idea.  From an idea can spring characters, a plot, that masterpiece work that lifts us into the ranks of a JK Rowling or Stephen King or Henry David Thoreau.  I seek them out all the time.

I've had the good fortune and the torture to have found what could be just such an idea.  A retelling of a classic story in open domain.  I don't see any tellings along this line.  I'm excited, itching to go...

And completely convinced that I don't have the talent to pull it off.

Don't get me wrong.  I'm going to try.  I can't not try.  But I'm scared into trembles that this great, terrific, earth-shattering idea isn't meant to be mine.  OR, this isn't the fantastic twist on a classic tale that my head tells me it is.

Inspiration can be a bitch of a muse, sometimes.  But I have to try.

Uneasy Feeling

Those of you who haven't noticed, I'm a wannabe author.  Got a whole novel written, currently going through third revision and being shopped to agents.  I'm also getting some good feedback from a local critique group.

I was somewhat disturbed, however, when a representative for a publisher called Greyden Press.  I don't mean to sound alarmist, but I can't help thinking that a publisher who has to come searching for authors, authors that would pay them to publish... well... that just doesn't feel kosher to me.

So I went looking at Greyden Press from Dayton, OH.  The domain is registered by one Jeffrey Relick, of Promatch Solutions.  A POD (Print On Demand) printer.

A search for Greyden Press through the Better Business Bureau reveals one complaint, and Greyden did not respond (could not, in fact, be found for a response).  Greyden's own site has a title proclaiming it in Dayton, yet the BBB lists it in Columbus, and with a disconnected number.

You know what?  No thanks.  Maybe this is a legitimate publisher, but I'm not going to pay someone if my work is at all able to stand on its own two feet.  And there's some red flag flying going on here that I wouldn't put money in even if they could guarantee sales of my book.  I'm not sure I would buy that guarantee, either.

I really don't think I could recommend them, either.

Selective Enforcement

And so the lovely folks over at AW jump on one guy (post quoting him, since his post is deleted), and the same powers-that-be that are so concerned about thread derailment are now silent when the thread about women's suffrage then proceeds to trash the Roman Catholic church.

Because that's what women's suffrage is all about, right?

Customer Service Should Be for Everyone.

It's always interesting to watch how others complain about Customer Service when, in fact, that site has no customer processes in place.  At least one moderator has responded, and no moderators there have provided any information for why I have been banned from there.

One would suppose that a site dedicated to expression would make *some* effort at remediation.  MacAllister Stone does not.  She believes herself above the standards she expects of others.  And her moderators toe the line like good little soldiers.

The Next Phase

My little crusade didn't work.  Not like it ever really stood a big chance of success.  Macallister Stone doesn't want to discuss anything with which she disagrees.  Her choice.  She's about to get a cease and desist, since she's failed to remove my works from the SYW forum there.  I told her I had two, and she pulled only one.

So I've completed the rewrite of my major work.  I'm not going to let others' lack of professionalism stop me.

Anyway, I'm down to 115,000 words from 140,000.  Progress.  But I did it by removing plot points.  I think I still need to tighten the writing.  My goal, 100K to 105K.  I'm pretty certain I can do.

Anyone wanna help?

Passion Denied

Writing is an intensely personal and private venture.  But if I as a writer want to make a living at it, at some point, I have to let the private become public.  I have to take my thoughts and my imagination, and lay it out in front of someone who will decide whether my work is worth their time.  Even if I self-publish, the reader directly decides this.  And all the love and passion that I poured into the work won't change that person's mind.

What sells, sells.  My feelings won't change that.  If I want to be a writer for my own satisfaction, that's fine.  But if I want to be a professional at it, then I have to behave professionally, and understand that my own enjoyment isn't the point of it.  If I cannot let the product and the writing stand on professional standards, then I'm in the wrong business.

So it's interesting to watch certain places and forums that deny passion and difference of opinion.  Walk through these places, and there's a commonality of thought, and a blatant disrespect for disagreement.  For these people, they are "married" to their narrow worldviews that disagreement with them is evil, obnoxious, "boring", and they don't have to put up with it.

Customer service and professional courtesy aren't halfway items.  You cannot "sort of" serve the customer.  If you elect to provide a service, a product, then you've got to be prepared to deal with disagreements with respect.

Some people believe themselves exempt from both.  That is rarely a path to success.

Customer Service is NOT Trivial

There are very few events in life that truly make me angry.  I have a stubborn streak ten miles wide, and that makes far more people angry with me than ever happens in reverse.  I get that.

One of the things that *does* get me angry is an organization that take a cavalier attitude towards serving the customers of the service/product it provides.  I unfortunately have run into that just recently.

Absolute Write (AW) is a fantastic source of information for writers, and what I'm about to describe does not change that.  Their forums are great.  The Bewares, Recommendations & Background Checks (BR&BC) forum alone is worth the visit, even if there were no other resources there.  One of the traps you'll see subjects of posts there carry out is to take professional criticism personally.

Unfortunately, the Webmaster has fallen into the same trap.  She has decided that I'm a troublemaker.  I have been banned from there.  I'm not posting to claim innocence.  I can't.  The Webmaster has refused any and all communications asking why I was banned.  If you look up my name, I'm labeled as "banned for trolling."

I have asked what it was that I did to earn the ban via the Contact Us link on their site.  I have been told that I am not owed an explanation.  And that none will be given.

This refusal to engage in basic customer service is infuriating.  I am willing to correct whatever it is that I've done.  The commonly accepted definition of a troll is:

someone who posts inflammatory, extraneous, or off-topic messages in an online community, such as an online discussion forum, chat room, or blog, with the primary intent of provoking readers into an emotional response or of otherwise disrupting normal on-topic discussion.

 No one at AW can show where I have engaged in any such activity.  CORRECTION:  They will not.

That is EXACTLY the sort of cavalier attitude that many of the subjects in BR&BC engage in when they discover themselves listed in that subforum.  It's sad to watch such an excellent community managed so unprofessionally.

Leftist Groupthink

In case you believe there's no groupthink among writers, see how this has degenerated into an anti-religion tirade, and no one challenges it?

Mix business with politics, and idiocy can flow from all sides.

My username got banned from there for saying that.

It's Professional, not Personal

As a wannabe writer, I feel a personal connection to the works I'm trying to polish up.  So if you read through writer resources like Writer's Digest, Writer's Market, and so on, you'll run into lots of stories of writers who get so personally invested in their works that they refuse to accept criticism or to have elements of their work edited.

I recently attended a seminar where a VP for a publisher told us all not to be "married" to our work's title because the title rarely makes it through to publication without being modified or completely changed.  One of the attendees argued with him for five minutes about this.  And it wasn't even her work being discussed.

I've been blessed with an inherent professional distance from my work.  I mean, when I write just to write, that's one thing.  But when the times comes that my work is ready for submission,  I understand that the work has to stand on its own merits.  I'm part of that, but my feelings won't make bad writing sellable.  It won't even make GOOD writing sellable.

In the end, it's not about me.  It's not even about my work.  Not really.  It's about the reader and what the reader will buy.  The reader doesn't know me.

Being Alone Sucks

So... first post.  And all I want to do is rant.  Got banned from a forum.

The hard part is that I don't see why.  I'm not writing this to debate the why.  It's not mine to have, it's theirs to allow or not.

It's the damn not understanding.  It feels like I'm not liked on some personal level when the real me never was the point.  That's a lonely feeling.  I don't like not understanding, and I'm feeling like me, not my posts, became the issue.  I felt like I was joining the community, participating, that I was adding something, and then it feels like it's been yanked just because someone wants to do it.

I've sent emails to the forum owner through this account.  I know how the above will seem if he takes the time to see this.  It's not accusation.  It's just how it feels to me.

And that feeling sucks.