Marsha Altman's Blog, page 8
August 20, 2011
Jane Austen ad Me – Part 2
(this is a continuation of my previous post)
Jane Austen ad Me – Part 2
This post is about how Jane Austen and I are different. It was a much easier post to write.
Ways We Are Different:
(1) Tea and scones. I don't actually know that Jane liked this. I just presume it of all British people. In actuality, the concept of high tea – drinking tea and eating cakes and scones – wasn't invented until the Victorian Period, well after Austen's time, when tea was cheaper and the British ere by custom drinking alcohol a lot less and needed something to replace it with. It's not that I dislike stones, I just prefer other pastries. And as for tea, I don't like drinking things that might burn me. Seems silly.
(2) Dancing – Jane, despite being rather sickly at times, loved to dance. It was required of people in her social class to not only dance but to learn long, complicated dances that could last up to 15 minutes and were like square dances without the help of a guy in a ten-gallon hat telling you what move was next. Spending hours being tutored on all of these dances was part of Regency life. Meanwhile, not only do women not dance with or in front of men in Orthodox Judaism because it's too seductive, but when we do dance (at weddings, mostly), it's a lot of running in circles. There's a couple variations to the running in circles bit, but only the person who teaches Israeli dance at camp remembers them. Everyone else just runs until we get tired/dizzy.
(3) Writing long letters to relatives detailing every events in our lives. This was a form of entertainment – both writing and reading the letters whiled away the hours, and the upper classes had a lot of hours to while away. Meanwhile, my emails to my mom and are downright mono-symbolic.
(4) Dying at 41. Man, I hope I don't do this. Jane, I'm not with you on this one.
Jane Austen ad Me – Part 2
This post is about how Jane Austen and I are different. It was a much easier post to write.
Ways We Are Different:
(1) Tea and scones. I don't actually know that Jane liked this. I just presume it of all British people. In actuality, the concept of high tea – drinking tea and eating cakes and scones – wasn't invented until the Victorian Period, well after Austen's time, when tea was cheaper and the British ere by custom drinking alcohol a lot less and needed something to replace it with. It's not that I dislike stones, I just prefer other pastries. And as for tea, I don't like drinking things that might burn me. Seems silly.
(2) Dancing – Jane, despite being rather sickly at times, loved to dance. It was required of people in her social class to not only dance but to learn long, complicated dances that could last up to 15 minutes and were like square dances without the help of a guy in a ten-gallon hat telling you what move was next. Spending hours being tutored on all of these dances was part of Regency life. Meanwhile, not only do women not dance with or in front of men in Orthodox Judaism because it's too seductive, but when we do dance (at weddings, mostly), it's a lot of running in circles. There's a couple variations to the running in circles bit, but only the person who teaches Israeli dance at camp remembers them. Everyone else just runs until we get tired/dizzy.
(3) Writing long letters to relatives detailing every events in our lives. This was a form of entertainment – both writing and reading the letters whiled away the hours, and the upper classes had a lot of hours to while away. Meanwhile, my emails to my mom and are downright mono-symbolic.
(4) Dying at 41. Man, I hope I don't do this. Jane, I'm not with you on this one.
August 15, 2011
Jane Austen and Me
Since beginning this series, my name was been intertwined with Jane Austen, having written fan fiction about her most famous novel and published it. Many reviewers have commented that I'm "nothing like Jane Austen" (were they expecting that? People always surprise me in this regard) and I'm not. I have my own writing style, I'm not a classic British novelist, and I don't try to be her in the text and emulate her style. I can't. I don't think anyone can; the closer people try to get the more ridiculous they tend to sound. The best authors of fandom out there took what they want from her style and then went their own way, in my opinion, in an interesting fashion. You can't make your dialogue sound like her dialogue, and things seem to work out better when you don't, but still manage to capture the characters as they are, so they feel real.
There are some ways in which we are similar:
(1) We both tried/try very hard to sustain ourselves on our writing. Jane made a good amount of money for most of her books, until (amusingly) she self-published one of them when the publishing company didn't give her a high enough advance, and on that particular one (it wasn't Emma or Pride and Prejudice) she actually lost money. But by the end of her life she had 600 pounds to leave her sister Cassandra, which was enough for Cassandra, who wasn't married, to live on. Meanwhile, I won't state what my numbers are, but I am barely squeaking by on a combination of my writing and my two part-time jobs.
(2) We both never married. Jane probably would have if the right man had come along, because who wouldn't? But nobody did, or nobody she could marry (we don't really know what happened between her and Tom LeFroy, but it's definitely been exaggerated). Or we don't really know if she had other infatuations, because Cassandra burned the majority of her letters after Jane died. Meanwhile, I'll marry if the right man comes along, but that has happened yet. And being an Orthodox Jew, my circle of potential mates isn't much bigger than hers, though I am less likely to die in childbirth.
(3) We both have/had auto-immune disorders. Jane had Addison's Disease, which today is treated with cortisone shots but in her time was untreatable but not deadly. (She died of something else, we don't know what) I have Crohn's Disease, which is also treated with cortisone, but there are now additional treatments like Remicade and surgery. One of my favorite charities to give to, in honor of Jane, is the American Autoimmune Related Diseases Association, which does general research on a host of diseases and disorders affecting the immune system. I recommend this charity, by the way, not just because it's a charity, but because immunology is one of the few areas in medicine where we're constantly making huge strides (as opposed to cancer, where we've more or less hit a wall). Today diseases are treated, but in the next generation they will probably be cured. We basically have a cure for Crohn's now – Remicade – which wasn't available when I was diagnosed in 1996, it just doesn't work perfectly on everyone and we don't know how to use it, but the next generation of biologics of it will knock it out.
Next time, I'll discuss ways that we are different – Well, not all of them. The internet only has so much space in it.
There are some ways in which we are similar:
(1) We both tried/try very hard to sustain ourselves on our writing. Jane made a good amount of money for most of her books, until (amusingly) she self-published one of them when the publishing company didn't give her a high enough advance, and on that particular one (it wasn't Emma or Pride and Prejudice) she actually lost money. But by the end of her life she had 600 pounds to leave her sister Cassandra, which was enough for Cassandra, who wasn't married, to live on. Meanwhile, I won't state what my numbers are, but I am barely squeaking by on a combination of my writing and my two part-time jobs.
(2) We both never married. Jane probably would have if the right man had come along, because who wouldn't? But nobody did, or nobody she could marry (we don't really know what happened between her and Tom LeFroy, but it's definitely been exaggerated). Or we don't really know if she had other infatuations, because Cassandra burned the majority of her letters after Jane died. Meanwhile, I'll marry if the right man comes along, but that has happened yet. And being an Orthodox Jew, my circle of potential mates isn't much bigger than hers, though I am less likely to die in childbirth.
(3) We both have/had auto-immune disorders. Jane had Addison's Disease, which today is treated with cortisone shots but in her time was untreatable but not deadly. (She died of something else, we don't know what) I have Crohn's Disease, which is also treated with cortisone, but there are now additional treatments like Remicade and surgery. One of my favorite charities to give to, in honor of Jane, is the American Autoimmune Related Diseases Association, which does general research on a host of diseases and disorders affecting the immune system. I recommend this charity, by the way, not just because it's a charity, but because immunology is one of the few areas in medicine where we're constantly making huge strides (as opposed to cancer, where we've more or less hit a wall). Today diseases are treated, but in the next generation they will probably be cured. We basically have a cure for Crohn's now – Remicade – which wasn't available when I was diagnosed in 1996, it just doesn't work perfectly on everyone and we don't know how to use it, but the next generation of biologics of it will knock it out.
Next time, I'll discuss ways that we are different – Well, not all of them. The internet only has so much space in it.
August 10, 2011
Austen Extravaganza Post
(This post is for Austen Extravagantaza)
I really didn't know what to put here. I asked Meredith, who's hosting this event, and she said, "Anything." I thought about what was currently going on in my head, then decided to hone the topic a little down to "Jane Austen related" because who wants a discussion of various ways to give your wife a divorce in second-century Middle East? Me, that's who, but you are probably more interested in Mr. Darcy (though you can actually write the bill of divorce on a cow's horn and give the wife the cow*). I am a bad Austenite, not constantly filling my head with all things Austen.
By the way, the Rabbis eventually ruled that the cow shouldn't be living. It's not really a "bill" of divorce if it's on a living creature. (What? This Mishnah Gittin is interesting!)
Anyway, I was asked to speak not because I'm good at talking about Jane Austen (clearly not) but because I wrote a bunch of books. Ten of them. Four have been published, plus one free eBook of short stories related to the fourth. There's a lot of awesome books out there, so I thought I should mention some features to help me pick me out of a lineup.
14 Things That Are Distinguishing Features About My Books
(1) Swords, swords, swords.
(2) Swordfights.
(3) The first book is the Kama Sutra one. (No it isn't. That was a mistake on the publisher's part to label that book as such. ARGH.)
(4) Samurai. And there's a ninja in book 8, but you don't know he's a ninja until he's dead, because he's a good ninja.
(5) Pretty sure nobody else has swung from Darcy's chandelier in other books. Could be wrong about that.
(6) All Kitty all the time! Psych – I spend like, no time with her. Seriously, I don't know what to do with her. She's like the Skim Milk version of Lydia.
(7) Monkey! As in, there is one. And his name is Monkey. It turns out Mr. Bingley is not very creative when it comes to names.
(8) The Alter Rebbe (zt"l) puts in an appearance. Also, contains the phrase "zt"l," which I had to explain to my publisher was not random words on a keyboard, but the English version of the Hebrew acronym for "May the Memory of the Righteous Be a Blessing.")
(9) Dialogue in Japanese, French, Spanish, Tibetan, and Romanian. Probably none of it correct. Some of the English isn't correct, either.
(10) Some vampires show up but it isn't really a big deal.
(11) Having almost every child's name start with a G actually just a Regency Period standard, not an expression of my hatred for the reader's ability to keep track of people.
( (12) Copious references to synagogue members, dermatology patients of my father, and Fanfiction.net readers who bought my books in the acknowledgments.
(13) Guest appearances by: George III, George IV, Edward IV, Napoleon, Pope Pius IX, 11th Dalai Lama, Shogun Tokugawa Ienari, Emperor Ninkō of Japan, and Saint Sebaldus of Bavaria.
(14) In the last book, everyone gets eaten by dinosaurs. You think I'm joking, but I'm not.
(*) Mishnah Masecta Gittin, Chapter 2, Mishnah 3
July 31, 2011
Free eBook!
Other Tales: Stories from The Ballad of Gregoire Darcy is now available on various websites for a free download. Check out my post about it here.
July 16, 2011
My first video!
I decided to try a video presentation. Comments are appreciated. Yes, I will try to get a better microphone.
In other news, two new reviews:
The Road to Pemberley is reviewed at AustenproseThe Ballad of Gregoire Darcy is reviewed at The Phantom Photographer
In other news, two new reviews:
The Road to Pemberley is reviewed at AustenproseThe Ballad of Gregoire Darcy is reviewed at The Phantom Photographer
July 12, 2011
I need a vacation
I am writing this on vacation.
I'm in Florida, actually, to help my grandmother pack up her apartment because she spents most of hurricane season with my parents in the north. But it's kind of a vacation, because I can go to the pool and I'm not in New York and I'm not going to two out of my three jobs. But I don't feel very relaxed because I'm not on vacation, or I don't feel like it.
The Road to Pemberley is supposed to come out this week, but so far it hasn't. The first reviews are coming out, which are always stressful, and I'm trying to get the batch of stories together that I'm going to release as a free eBook to boost the sales of The Ballad of Gregoire Darcy, because the publisher needs more time to look at sales and decide if they want to buy book 4. The requirements of social networking have almost nothing to do with writing at this point, and they are constant. For those of you who say, "Well just unplug your computer," my answer is, "Uh, on book launch week that's very irresponsible. The publisher expects me to do a lot of publicity legwork." I do unplug my computer and turn off my phone for 25 hours every week for Shabbos, which is more disconnected than most non-Amish people get, but being a writer is a constant thing.
Then there's the actual business of writing. You know, novels, not blog posts. Or revising. Or looking for people's opinions to help me revise. Or doing research. Or making sure my initial research was correct. Or looking for research books and pricing them out. Today Grandma and I found a new dollar bookstore (there's a lot of these in Florida, where people die and their kids have to donate the books somewhere as fast as possible - it's also a great place to buy furniture for the same reason). I picked up two books for two different projects which may or may not materialize in the future, but couldn't find anything Austen history-related, just mostly a lot of ancient Roman and Greek stuff, and one book on modern Chinese culture. If I was still doing research for Aristotle Vampire (which was a book that didn't sell to publishers), I would have just bought all the books on ancient Greece, but I wasn't, so I only picked up one.
I think about writing - or what I'm going to write, or what I'm going to think about as a story but not actually write - basically all the time. If my mind is not actively involved in doing something that requires my complete attention, that's what I'm thinking about. It's very hard for me to disconnect and take a mental vacation - I really have to go somewhere that's involving unto itself, like Israel (which I'm probably going to in November) or India or somewhere exotic and engaging. If you give me time alone I will basically just think about writing and increasingly, worry about my career. I like to think that if I got one book deal, a really good deal that used to be standard 10 years ago for published writers ($30K), I would stop worrying about constantly selling books to publishers, but to be honest I probably wouldn't. It's too much of a pattern now.
There's a new website coming, and hopefully my new roommate will be hired to help me with streamlining the publicity stuff so I don't have to spend so much time on keeping it all straight, and I have the eBook. So there's a lot of stuff coming down the line. It's good, but it makes it hard to relax.
I'm in Florida, actually, to help my grandmother pack up her apartment because she spents most of hurricane season with my parents in the north. But it's kind of a vacation, because I can go to the pool and I'm not in New York and I'm not going to two out of my three jobs. But I don't feel very relaxed because I'm not on vacation, or I don't feel like it.
The Road to Pemberley is supposed to come out this week, but so far it hasn't. The first reviews are coming out, which are always stressful, and I'm trying to get the batch of stories together that I'm going to release as a free eBook to boost the sales of The Ballad of Gregoire Darcy, because the publisher needs more time to look at sales and decide if they want to buy book 4. The requirements of social networking have almost nothing to do with writing at this point, and they are constant. For those of you who say, "Well just unplug your computer," my answer is, "Uh, on book launch week that's very irresponsible. The publisher expects me to do a lot of publicity legwork." I do unplug my computer and turn off my phone for 25 hours every week for Shabbos, which is more disconnected than most non-Amish people get, but being a writer is a constant thing.
Then there's the actual business of writing. You know, novels, not blog posts. Or revising. Or looking for people's opinions to help me revise. Or doing research. Or making sure my initial research was correct. Or looking for research books and pricing them out. Today Grandma and I found a new dollar bookstore (there's a lot of these in Florida, where people die and their kids have to donate the books somewhere as fast as possible - it's also a great place to buy furniture for the same reason). I picked up two books for two different projects which may or may not materialize in the future, but couldn't find anything Austen history-related, just mostly a lot of ancient Roman and Greek stuff, and one book on modern Chinese culture. If I was still doing research for Aristotle Vampire (which was a book that didn't sell to publishers), I would have just bought all the books on ancient Greece, but I wasn't, so I only picked up one.
I think about writing - or what I'm going to write, or what I'm going to think about as a story but not actually write - basically all the time. If my mind is not actively involved in doing something that requires my complete attention, that's what I'm thinking about. It's very hard for me to disconnect and take a mental vacation - I really have to go somewhere that's involving unto itself, like Israel (which I'm probably going to in November) or India or somewhere exotic and engaging. If you give me time alone I will basically just think about writing and increasingly, worry about my career. I like to think that if I got one book deal, a really good deal that used to be standard 10 years ago for published writers ($30K), I would stop worrying about constantly selling books to publishers, but to be honest I probably wouldn't. It's too much of a pattern now.
There's a new website coming, and hopefully my new roommate will be hired to help me with streamlining the publicity stuff so I don't have to spend so much time on keeping it all straight, and I have the eBook. So there's a lot of stuff coming down the line. It's good, but it makes it hard to relax.
July 10, 2011
Website update
Two pieces of news:
(1) I am working on a new version of the main site which is easier for me to alter as I see fit. It will be in the same location so there'll be no need to update your links.
(2) The Road to Pemberley should be in stores this week. Yay!
We'll see if Google+ makes my social networking life simpler ... or more complicated. That is all.
(1) I am working on a new version of the main site which is easier for me to alter as I see fit. It will be in the same location so there'll be no need to update your links.
(2) The Road to Pemberley should be in stores this week. Yay!
We'll see if Google+ makes my social networking life simpler ... or more complicated. That is all.
June 28, 2011
Quick updates
I am recovering from a medical emergency and don't have much to say otherwise. Sorry this post is late.
Book Rat's Giveaway - get both The Road to Pemberley and The Ballad of Gregoire Darcy! Contest closes June 30th.
New Review at A Curious Statistical Anomaly Blog
Book Rat's Giveaway - get both The Road to Pemberley and The Ballad of Gregoire Darcy! Contest closes June 30th.
New Review at A Curious Statistical Anomaly Blog
June 17, 2011
Signal Received?
I don't know who's actually reading this blog, but whatever, it's more for keeping people up to date if they need somewhere to go to do that.
Right now I'm in a holding period (hence Fallout: New Vegas, which I'm still playing but can now successfully stop doing for five minutes) with my writing. Book 5 is at Ulysses Press, and they have another two weeks to decide if they want to buy it, and also if they want to buy the other five books in a bundle, which is always on the table. It's cheaper for them (there's always a risk that the advance money will be higher if you buy book by book) and a load off my mind, but it's also a huge commitment by them as publishers, so we'll see.
I was really OK with the wait for the first two weeks, and now I'm getting closer to going crazy. Normally I am pretty adjusted to waits, because publishing is all about that. Waiting to hear back from agents. Waiting to hear back from publishers. Wanting for the contract. Waiting for the book to come out. Waiting for the royalty statement. Waiting for the check to clear accounting and get to me. But every once in a while, it gets to me.
Publishing is crazy. If I don't sell a book, I only get paid twice a year, when the publisher reports royalties and provides a check if I've earned royalties (which I always do, thanks guys!). If I sell a book, there's an advance check, which is split up sometimes over the signing of contract and the publication, so you get a $1500 check once and then another like 10 months later. Or they split it up three ways: contract signing, delivery of manuscript to the publisher, publication. That hasn't happened to me yet because my advances haven't been big enough for the publishers to use that to hold on to the money for longer; publishers love holding on to money for as long as possible. It's part of their business model. Eventually I will get my money - emphasis on eventually.
I was once at WorldCon, a sci-fi convention with a lot of writers, and someone told me an old adage about writers: "Amateurs talk about craft. Professionals talk about money." Which I've found to be pretty true. I don't have much to say about the craft of writing. I sit down, I write, usually starting around midnight. Either I need to do it because I have a story in me or I don't, and then I go do something else like paint while watching movies until 5 am. I don't think that much about it. It's a physical need, something I have to do because I have a story in my head, or I don't have a story and I don't need to do it. It's like thinking about breathing - people don't think too much about breathing. I don't think too much about writing. This paragraph might seriously be the longest amount of time I've ever spent talking about it on a pure craft level.
Reminder: If you would like a review copy of The Ballad of Gregoire Darcy, email me. The same goes for the upcoming anthology The Road to Pemberley, which I put together with Ulysses, but the book will not be available until the first week of July.
Right now I'm in a holding period (hence Fallout: New Vegas, which I'm still playing but can now successfully stop doing for five minutes) with my writing. Book 5 is at Ulysses Press, and they have another two weeks to decide if they want to buy it, and also if they want to buy the other five books in a bundle, which is always on the table. It's cheaper for them (there's always a risk that the advance money will be higher if you buy book by book) and a load off my mind, but it's also a huge commitment by them as publishers, so we'll see.
I was really OK with the wait for the first two weeks, and now I'm getting closer to going crazy. Normally I am pretty adjusted to waits, because publishing is all about that. Waiting to hear back from agents. Waiting to hear back from publishers. Wanting for the contract. Waiting for the book to come out. Waiting for the royalty statement. Waiting for the check to clear accounting and get to me. But every once in a while, it gets to me.
Publishing is crazy. If I don't sell a book, I only get paid twice a year, when the publisher reports royalties and provides a check if I've earned royalties (which I always do, thanks guys!). If I sell a book, there's an advance check, which is split up sometimes over the signing of contract and the publication, so you get a $1500 check once and then another like 10 months later. Or they split it up three ways: contract signing, delivery of manuscript to the publisher, publication. That hasn't happened to me yet because my advances haven't been big enough for the publishers to use that to hold on to the money for longer; publishers love holding on to money for as long as possible. It's part of their business model. Eventually I will get my money - emphasis on eventually.
I was once at WorldCon, a sci-fi convention with a lot of writers, and someone told me an old adage about writers: "Amateurs talk about craft. Professionals talk about money." Which I've found to be pretty true. I don't have much to say about the craft of writing. I sit down, I write, usually starting around midnight. Either I need to do it because I have a story in me or I don't, and then I go do something else like paint while watching movies until 5 am. I don't think that much about it. It's a physical need, something I have to do because I have a story in my head, or I don't have a story and I don't need to do it. It's like thinking about breathing - people don't think too much about breathing. I don't think too much about writing. This paragraph might seriously be the longest amount of time I've ever spent talking about it on a pure craft level.
Reminder: If you would like a review copy of The Ballad of Gregoire Darcy, email me. The same goes for the upcoming anthology The Road to Pemberley, which I put together with Ulysses, but the book will not be available until the first week of July.
June 13, 2011
Out of Office
Just a reminder that the sunshine sale on The Plight of the Darcy Brothers (Kindle Edition) ends on the 15th of June, so go pick up your copy today! And I would say other stuff but literally every moment that I am not actively playing Fallout: New Vegas is living agony. So, back to that.
