R.B. Lemberg's Blog, page 45

ST 5 submission period

 cross-posted from  stonetellingmag  

Dear Friends of Stone Telling,

I hope that you are enjoying the Labyrinth issue, brought to you by  shweta_narayan   and  seajules   . Meanwhile, the reading period for Issue 5 (mythic/international) is open. Generally speaking, I am looking for poems that work with myth and folklore around the world. I originally intended to name this the "mythpunk" issue, but after the roundtable discussion in our third issue (link and link within the roundtable), I am opting for the more general "mythic" for now. Another word I used to describe this issue is "international". Every issue of ST is, ideally, international; but for this issue specifically I'd love to see non-Western mythology and folklore referenced cluefully. Poems inspired by Brothers Grimm will be a hard sell (as usual).

For this issue, I am also hoping to accept some poetry that is not, strictly speaking, mythic, so please send me your best work!

Another thing: I am planning for Issue 6 (December 2011) to showcase Science and Science Fiction poetry. While this is still far away from us, if you have S/SF poems that you think might fit, and would like to send them sooner rather than later, by all means go ahead and submit these, just be advised that it will take me longer to decide on these pieces, as I will be dealing with Iss.5 first. (to clarify: please do not send more than three pieces per submission, regardless of whether you're submitting S/SF poetry or not).

Kosher pigs fly! ROSE MAKES A PRO SALE! Mechanical locusts swarm!

So, remember how I kvetched about my writing, and Birdverse, and LGBTQ stories, and how nobody buys, etc, etc, etc?

My people, I sold Vendelin's Venture*, a 14,000 word young adult fantasy/clockpunk novelette set in Birdverse and featuring three gay teens, and a Bird deity, and secondary world Jews, and a mechanical locust... to Beneath Ceaseless Skies after a rewrite request.

This is the first market to which I sent this story. This is the first time I sell anything a story on first try.

This is also the first time I am selling a piece of fiction with LGBTQ characters, and not for the lack of trying.

This is also the first time I am managing to sell a piece of writing set in Birdverse, but my people, it is an awesome, difficult, glowing, multicultural world I've been dreaming up these past four years, and I am happy, so happy, so very happy to finally be able to share it with you. It is also the first installment of my YA novel in progress. It is also, if you remember, the second product of Ten Days in December (follow the tag "that epic thing"), the first of which had been the Cycle epic poem, which has recently sold to Strange Horizons.

People. People. This is like I am finally selling things set in secondary worlds, and all my life I've been constructing secondary worlds, and, like...suddenly editors want this. A pro editor is buying a story 4k over his limit.

*runs around*

For the record, this is my second pro sale. The first one was 860 words long.

Is this real? Is this real?

--------------
*title is "Their names held close in syllables of light," but I am not happy with it at the moment, so I am sticking with Vendelin's Venture (the working title) while talking about it.

It's alive!

STONE TELLING FOUR is here!   
 Kudos to shweta_narayan   and  seajules  who have put together a fabulous issue! Yippee! Many thanks to the tireless and meticulous dormouse_in_tea  ! My eyes are a bit crossed from all the digitizing, but I hope you like this issue, and please let the poets and guest editors know what you think, here at the community.

Selfishly, I would like to point out  sovay  's Shnirele Perele, which has been written for ME and which I now can quote. When the guest editors asked my opinion about this poem, I had to tell them I was biased and could not advise them one way or another, but I am very glad they bought it, because I love it. 

I also love C.W. Johnson's Sistern, Emily Jiang's Monkey, Trapped (and its awesome recording), Nisi Shawl's devastating Transbluency, and Amal El-Mohtar's powerful Pieces, to name but a few. Hope you enjoy!

Imaginary audience

 When you are just starting out AND writing from any kind of a marginalized or non-standard perspective, you will, more often than not, get surprising reactions from your randomly acquired readers.

For example, I once posted an excerpt at a writer’s forum, and some self-proclaimed liberal dude  was intrigued and asked to read the next scene. Well,  in the next scene, a seventeen-year-old boy is kidnapped and raped. The reader got very angry because he felt affinity with my character, and therefore thought the scene was horrible. His suggestion to me was to change the boy’s gender, because my character felt “like a girl” to him.

I guess he felt that if a person is shy and underprivileged, and comes to harm of a sexual nature, that person should be a woman.
Perhaps he just didn't think about it.

I wasn't any good as a writer back then. I was just starting out. In the same time period, I got flak for writing from various kinky PoVs, various LGBTQ PoVs, and for writing flowery literary drek (that was for Geddarien).

I also met some amazing allies who loved my work when it was raw and broken and gave me advice that helped me grow. At this point, I am pretty sure that what I'm writing is not drek. It's not where it should be. I am still learning. It's odd and hard to sell. But drek it is not.

Getting there was hard though, because every single time I sat down to write from marginalized perspectives - from *my* perspectives, damn it - the Greek chorus of my past naysayers raised their voice in a litany of no's. Nobody will want this. Too weird. Too painful. Not genre enough! Too kinky. Not kickass enough. Too passive. Too gay. Too poetic, too flowery, too literary, too whatever. 

I didn't make up the voices in my head, but I was perpetuating them. It's as if I was giving every person who ever made an inappropriate or ignorant comment a license to continue shitting on every single one of my works in progress. My imaginary audience was crippling my writing.

Then, some time this year, I got enlightened. In real life, I don't give a damn if some reader thinks my gay character should be a girl instead. I don't give a damn if some reader thinks it's unethical to write about a woman who commits a crime (I kid you not).  In the beginning I cried and got depressed and felt horrible, but now I shrug off these reactions and I carry on.

So if I shrug off these reactions in real life, why should I listen to the failytalk these people produce in my head?

Simple: I should not.

My imaginary audience now consists of my real audience. My readers appreciate my work for what it is, and they point out real weaknesses that need to be addressed. The naysayers will be there if and when my stuff will be published, and they will be annoyed, or they will ignore it, whatever. But if I want to write my stories in my voice, I need my imaginary audience to match my real one. I know who my people are, and you know me, and that is enough.

I woke up to discover that Sonya Taaffe has gracious...

I woke up to discover that Sonya Taaffe has graciously accepted "In the Third Cycle" for publication at Strange Horizons. 

This is the really long epic poem that recently won the Rannu competition.

I am very happy.

For the record,
(1) discovered that it is harder to place very long poems than it is to place shorter poems (d'oh),
(2) I have now officially sold all my poems in circulation. There's still one loose Journeymaker poem I'd like to send somewhere, but have no idea where. Perhaps SH again, now that they're publishing the Cycle (in which the Journeymaker appears prominently).

New poem at inkscrawl

Some time ago,  mitchell_hart  kindly asked if I'd like to submit something for his new journal of minimalist speculative poetry, inkscrawl. I didn't have anything to send at first, but then I came up with "If I had reb Yoel's violin." The first issue went live last night, and my poem is in it.

I have to say I'm rather happy with the fact that there's now an online magazine of very short speculative poetry that I like, and which looks aesthetically pleasing. Please check it out - the first issue has some very nice pieces. 

In unrelated news, internet will continue to be spotty until I'm back in the States on Wednesday.

Dear readers,

Please recommend a book  I could buy for the kindle (for my upcoming transatlantic flight).

What I'd like:

SFF (preferably fantasy, but will consider anything)
New or recent
Preferably not YA
clueful (you know me)
an interesting female protagonist a plus, but not a requirement

P.S. Please do not recommend Ekaterina Sedia's Heart of Iron, as I intend to buy a paper copy.

Thanks!

Slavic music mini-series #6: Folk music from the Seventh Water

This mini-series has shown me that I mostly listen to Slavic music in the following languages: Russian, Czech, and Ukrainian. I also listen to some Slovak folk music and some Bulgarian folk music, but when it came to choosing songs, Russian almost always won, which is not at all surprising. This is installment #6, with one more left. I'm not getting a lot of comments here, but I do know that a few people have been enjoying it, so it's all good. 

Today we have Russian folk music with the group Sed'maya Voda (Seventh Water). They call their style 'acoustic post-folk'. 

 I dedicate this song, "The Little Gypsy Girl," to all my writer friends. It always felt true to me in that context.




The Little Gypsy Girl

A gypsy man led a bear,
his bear danced,
and the enthusiastic spectators
threw copper coins to him.
And the little gypsy girl –
with eyes like cherries
caught the five-kopek coins
in her tambourine.

she danced like she lived,
she stomped her little feet
and shook her shoulders.

Dance, my little gypsy girl,
dance under the gentle rain,
dance for the coin
but also – for the soul.
Our existence
is somewhat similar to yours –
we dance for money,
and yet – not because of it.
If you like this, I am not averse to posting a bonus track from this group. Please let me know if you'd like another one.

Slavic music mini-series #5: monstrous laughs from Ivan Mládek

This one is for  cafenowhere  .

This humorous song about a monster from the swamps was originally written in 1978, but had a comeback in 2008, becoming especially popular in Poland and Russia. I've seen any number of parodies, including one where Jožin is replaced by Putin.

From Wikipedia:
Jožin z bažin (originally 1978) is a song by Czech musician and comedian Ivan Mládek, and is among his best known songs. He even called it the "National Anthem" of his TV show "Countryshow". In January 2008, the song became popular in Poland, winning several radio hitlists.[citation needed] It is also popular in Hungary, Austria and Russia, sporting a cult following on blogs, and several versions of various translations. The song is a surreal tale of a mysterious man-eating monster living in the swamps (Jožin z bažin, Joey from the swamps). In the song, the monster is eventually defeated with the use of a cropduster.
The lyrics about the collective farm and the cropduster, of course, are here to mock the socialist regime. 

This video has English subtltles; enjoy.

Fridayish

I've been trying to write, but it's not quite working  for me right now for one reason other. Instead, I've been doodling my characters, as well as the first generation, who are ever on my mind. My drawing is kind of lame, but at least I don't have to worry about submitting it to magazines.

How are you doing?