End of year wrap-up, Part deux

I know I already posted my publications for 2016, but then three more came out in the past week, SO . . .

"Last Call at the Hypothetical Tavern" in Liminality #10

and

"Fimbulheart" in Helios Quarterly, Volume 1 Issue 2

and

"Across a Storm-Dark Sky" in The Pedestal #79.

Ta-daaaa!

2016 Publications

“Between Dog and Wolf” (poem) in Star*Line 39.1, Winter 2016

“Fox Children” (poem) in Dreams & Nightmares #104, September 2016

“God’s Bones” (short story) in Not One of Us #56

“Apocalypse Reunion” (poem) in Eye to the Telescope 

“Death and Taxes” (poem) in Topology 

“Love, and the Merciless Sea” (poem) in Mythic Delirium 2.3  

“ Saint Nothing” (poem) in Through the Gate 

“Automaton” (poem) in Liquid Imagination 

“The Book of Forgetting” (poem) in Uncanny 

“ Fallen to Witches” (poem) in Mithila Review 

Guest Blog: A Nontraditional Foodie Christmas

Please welcome Diamante Lavendar, my guest blogger for the Giftmas Blog Tour!

Food during the holidays. Hmmm. What do I write about?

Well, the holidays have been sort of a rough time for me for a while. And this year, they got rougher. I lost two children before Thanksgiving: one in 1990 and one this year. Food? Well, I can't help to think about the meal we ate after each funeral.

Food has a way of lending some comfort to pain. In 1990 my food choices were different. Now, I think the most comforting thing I've eaten since my daughter passed was a hash brown casserole. Comfort food. You know, the warm kind the settles in your belly and whispers to your blood, “You can calm down. Everything's okay for the moment.” I realize this may seem macabre, but honestly, the holidays aren't all glitter and glamour for some of us. So….if you're one of the many who is hurting this holiday season, try this casserole on for size:

1 pkg. Hash browns

1 green pepper

½ c. mushrooms

1 onion

2 c. shredded cheddar cheese

6 eggs, scrambled ( I leave these out because I'm a vegetarian)

3 T. olive oil

salt and pepper to taste

Chop the green pepper, onion and mushrooms. Fry with the hashbrowns in 3 T. olive oil. (You may add more if you need to, to prevent veggies from sticking to your pan). In a separate pan, scramble your eggs. When the veggies are cooked and browned, put the eggs on top and cover with the shredded cheddar cheese. Allow the cheese to melt completely. Salt and pepper to taste.

This recipe is easy and quick. It's perfect comfort food that is still healthy. And it helps to ease the pain of the holidays for those of us who are suffering. I know it's not traditional Christmas fare, but when it comes to tough situations, that really doesn't matter. What matters is it tastes good and takes little to no time to make.

In remembrance of those who are needful this season, please consider contributing to the food bank below. Giving to others always makes the world a better place. Merry Christmas. Please make it a good one.

To help out the Edmonton Food Bank, follow this link.

Diamante Lavendar has been in love with reading since she was a child. She spent many hours listening to her mother read to her when she was young. As she grew older, she enjoyed reading novels of all genres: horror, fantasy and some romance to name a few.

She began writing in college and published some poetry in anthologies over the years. After her kids were older, she wrote as a form of self expression and decided she wanted to share her stories with others.

Most of her writing is very personal and stems from her own experiences and those of her family and friends. She writes to encourage hope and possibility to those who read her stories.

Diamante believes that everyone should try to leave their own positive mark in the world, to make it a better place for all. Writing is the way that she is attempting to leave her mark—one story at a time.

You can find Diamante's blog here.

Her book Breaking the Silence can be found at Amazon. Her chapbook Poetry and Ponderings will be published soon. There's more information here.

Blog tour--I'm away today!

Over at Beth Cato's blog, I've told about one of my favorite memories of Christmases past. You can read all about it here.

Attention everyone!

Join us for the 2016 Giftmas Blog Tour! We're raising money for the Edmonton Food Bank, and there's a chance for you to win a prize, too.

Everything (important) I've learned about publishing (so far)

Today a friend asked me to tell her everything I know about the publishing industry. This is a tall order. But I distilled the key elements down to what has been most helpful to me, and she gave permission for me to share it with you, too.

The entire publishing industry is a big territory, and a lot of what I've learned (focusing on poetry and SF/fantasy/horror) may not transfer to other genres or sectors of the industry. But there are some general ideas to keep in mind.

Everything here should be taken with a grain of salt. Or a bucket of salt.

1. There are a lot of scammers out there. If you are submitting to editors/agents, a good rule of thumb is that MONEY SHOULD FLOW TO THE WRITER. That means, reputable places do not charge reading fees, or fees to publish your book or get it on store or library shelves. If someone asks for an upfront fee, or tells you that they'll publish you IF you pay their associated editing group to spruce up your manuscript, they're not legitimate.

2. If you're self-publishing, or looking for an editor and agent, and want someone to proof your manuscript or offer ideas for improvement, there are reputable people who can help with that for a fee, or with ebook design or cover art. (If I ever decide to self-publish, I will definitely get outside help with stuff like that. A good book designer or copy editor can make a huge difference in how professional the end result looks.) Approach it as you would hiring someone to put a new roof on your house, or fix your bathroom plumbing: get recommendations from people they've worked with, check out finished products, etc. Not everyone in the industry is equally skilled or experienced.

3. For that matter, do your research for editors and agents, too. Spend some time in the bookstore, and check the acknowledgments page of books you like in your genre. Many authors will mention their editors and agents, because they know good ones are worth their weight in gold. Make a list of agents/agencies who seem to have a liking for your style of story. Check out their websites and see if they're taking new clients.

4. Is an agent worth it? I have some friends who have gone without because they stick with smaller, more specialized publishers, and that works for them. My closest writer friend has hit the NY Times and USA Today bestseller lists, is going on a book tour paid for by her publisher, and has work translated and published in a dozen or more countries--and she swears by her agent. It's a complex issue, but I think having a GOOD agent can open a lot of doors. Having a sucky agent can be career-destroying. I've watched that happen to friends, too.

5. Another writer friend taught me that, when making book submissions, you should be careful to understand what that particular editor or agent is looking for, and you should not spam EVERY agent at an agency or every editor at a publisher. Many of them take the stance that, if you've submitted to one person at the establishment, you've submitted to all of them, so choose your first contact wisely.

6. ALWAYS READ THE GUIDELINES. All the guidelines. And follow them. It's pretty easy to find sites that will give you standard manuscript format (William Shunn's is the one I've most often seen mentioned), but many places will have their own tweaks or requirements. If you have an absolutely killer story, it won't necessarily be the kiss of death to make obvious mistakes . . . but lots of people write killer stories, so why give them any advantage? And there are always editors and agents who will reject you based on nit-picky issues because it's a sign that you might be difficult to work with. 

7. Revise and proofread. Do it one more time than you think is necessary. Read your work out loud--it will help you catch errors that your brain glosses over.

8. If you have a genre in mind, think about joining the professional organization as an associate member, or a full member when you have the requisite sales to qualify. In my field, that's the SFWA for science fiction and fantasy, HWA for horror writers, SFPA for speculative poetry. There's also the RWA for romance writers, the SCBWI for the writers of children's books, or the MWA for writers of mysteries and thrillers. They have benefits even for beginners--RWA sponsors a lot of conventions with classes and learning opportunities, for example. Regardless of whether you write SF, you should check out SFWA's Writer Beware site--I think Victoria Strauss is still in charge of it, and it's a great clearinghouse that warns of many scammers, sketchy dealers, and collapsing presses. 

9. Writers' groups, conventions, and workshops can be a great opportunity to network and learn, or a massive time- and money-sink. It's important to do your research, but also to consider what YOU need. Don't leap into something just because someone tells you that's the best way to become a success, even if they seem pretty successful to you. What works for them might be a disaster for you.

10. For that matter, be wary of anyone who tells you they have the One True Way to be a successful writer, whether that's writing every day, publishing their own work, or standing on their head while typing with only their big toe. Every writing career is unique, in both its successes and its hurdles. You're going to have to find your own path, to a certain extent.

11. Understand that this is a difficult field in a lot of ways. You have to have enough confidence to sustain you through the struggles, and enough humility to learn and grow from those struggles. Prepare to learn patience in a way you could not have imagined. And try to have a metric for success that does not revolve around number of book sales or autographs given. Otherwise, no matter how good you are, you will have too many days that leave you feeling like an impostor or a failure.

12. I tell people there are really only two rules: 

1) Do what works for you.

and

2) Try not to be boring on the final draft.

Good luck!

Overcoming the inertia of disappointment

I got a rejection every day for the first four days of the month. And then resounding silence for a few days. I'll admit, it shook my confidence. As much as I love to write, the business of writing can be a soul-sucking endeavor. Yesterday I struggled to do the work. I took myself out of the house to do a revision sweep on a story a friend was kind enough to beta-read, got home and wasted time online for a couple hours before finally getting to the rough draft work I'd committed to doing every day.

The whole time I kept thinking, This is one of the hard days, but if I keep working good things will happen. Maybe the universe will see how hard I'm trying and how much my heart hurts and I'll be rewarded!

So I was all, *Another* rejection? 

Or, you know, maybe once the work's all done, I'll get another rejection. Which is what actually happened, because the universe does not want me to be happy ever again.

So yesterday evening I wallowed and was bitchy. This morning, I decided that was not an acceptable lifestyle choice in the longer term, so I put together a list of markets I wanted to send poems to, and checked to see which ones were open, and what they might want.

And I sent out a bunch of stuff. I'm still cranky because honestly, rejections are never awesome. But I've been caught before in the inertia of disappointment, where a few rejection letters lead to months of sitting on all the new material I've written, or not bothering to revise stuff because that's the hard part, and all that effort seems pointless.

Which is not to say that I'm suddenly immune to the inertia of disappointment. Just that, today, even though the universe doesn't want me to win, I'm not going to sit quietly and take it. Not today.