Naomi Stone's Blog, page 5

Pixelated Visions

The world around us is continually changing, but in few areas as strikingly so as in the world of publishing. One of the issues up in the air is the definition of what it means to be a professional writer.

I’ve met people for whom the definition of a professional writer or artist, musician or other creative, is someone who makes his or her living through that work. The Romance Writers of America defines its Pro writers as those seriously seeking publication (querying agents and publishers qualifies.)

I know people who make their living through a day job but devote themselves whole-heartedly to writing or art or music, who have established names for themselves and identify themselves by their artistic work. Their recognition may be in a limited arena and their monetary reward small, but as far as they are concerned, this is their life’s work and their contribution to human culture.

This article* came to my attention lately, telling how the Minnesota Department of Revenue is currently auditing Venus DeMars and Lynette Reini-Grandell, (subjects of the 2004 documentary “Venus of Mars,”) musicians who have achieved some recognition, tour regularly, and sell recordings. The auditors claim that these musicians are only hobbyists and their costs can’t be claimed as deductions because serious professional musicians would be doing more to make a profit. For instance, they should sign with major recording studios.

Seriously? When the big name publishers of music (and books) are becoming fewer and fewer? When it is increasingly difficult for any artist, no matter how talented, to win one of the limited niches offered in these limited venues? When more and more artists are reaching audiences through the internet, through small publishers, through crowd-funding, or independent publishing? When the whole model of how artists reach their audiences is in flux and no one knows what the future will bring? When books published by the Big Five have limited shelf lives and authors with back-lists can self publish and keep their works available forever? Who is to say where the most reasonable expectation of profit lies?

One of the many cool things about the internet is the opportunity it offers for all varieties of niche-interest artists (artisans, writers, musicians and creatives of all sorts) to connect with audiences who will appreciate their work.

Traditional media venues are looking for artistic products that will appeal to the widest audiences – and turn a profit despite the huge investment needed to produce and distribute hard-copy works on a national and international scale.

Major record producers will not put out albums of filk** songs. Big NY publishing houses won’t publish Brony poetry or Star Trek slash fiction. The audiences are too small, too specialized (even aside from copyright issues) – but the audiences exist, and it’s now possible to fulfill those creative inspirations and share them with the people who will appreciate the work.

As a creative-type myself, this last comes closest to my definition of what it means to be an artist. It’s much more about connecting the inspiring vision to the audience than it is about making a profit. Profit is nice. We all have expenses, and all want to know our work is valued, but creative work is about much more than that.

The vision some of us grew up with – of earning a living as a creative professional – may not be in the cards for those with small or specialized audiences – but if one can earn a living by other means, sometimes it’s enough just to have the audience that ‘gets it’ – that recognizes the special quality of one’s creative efforts.

As long as I’m doing creative work for an appreciative audience, I can be happy — even if it means I’m earning my living working some not-too-arduous part-time day job. My experience includes many temp jobs: clerical and customer service-type positions, as well as more creative gigs. I have no problem with doing honest, useful work for which I’m suited, as long as there’s room in my life for my creative work.

I don’t believe the practice of the arts is meant only for those in the tip of the creative iceberg who can find ways to make their livings exclusively through their artistic work. I believe it’s important for as many people who have a creative inspiration or vision as possible to fulfill these inspirations, and to find an audience for them.

Artistic careers can take many forms. Some artists can continue growing over time in craft and in appeal to broader audiences; some may find satisfaction in much smaller spheres.

There’s a place for work with broad appeal – even a national or worldwide forum – and there’s a place for smaller, more intimate creativity of specialized appeal in village- and family-sized forums. Some artists start with the small and move into broader arenas, others remain in the niche fitting their interests.

Artists, writers, musicians are professionals if they are making the effort to reach an audience appreciative enough to offer some financial reward. If the audience is small and/or has little reward to offer that does not lessen the seriousness of the artist’s effort.

Some people may believe that it doesn’t matter whether the ‘lesser’ artists ply their work, fulfill their inspirations or not. The reason I believe in its importance may sound starry –eyed and mystical – but I see the successful communication of many individuals’ inner visions as something that will make us wiser and better as a species.

Think of an iceberg: ninety percent lying below the surface. The greater the number of the ninety percent of unknown artists, the higher the ten percent rises above the ocean of obscurity.

 

 

Think of those mosaic-collage images in which many disparate photos are placed side-by-side like pixels in a larger image. Looked at from a distance, they create a larger image, one that may or may not be related to the smaller images comprising it. [Image]
[Image] Consider the work of every creative artist in the human community as a pixel in some vast meta-work, revealing to us the state and nature of the larger human soul – or the human portion of the world soul.

We learn from the arts what it means to be human, what matters, what is important enough to move us to action, or to tears, or to strive beyond hope.

The more of our creative-types who fulfill their work, the higher the resolution of the meta-image, the more clearly we can see, the more clearly we can understand, and the greater our wisdom – as a species. The profit here is not one to be measured in dollars.

* http://www.minnpost.com/minnpost-asks/2013/04/talking-taxman-about-poetry-and-deductions
**filk music is music specific to science-fiction & fantasy fandom

Naomi Stone’s latest release: ‘Spirited!’ from Champagne Books: [Image]

Blogging with the Roses of Prose

Thanks so much for having me here with the Roses of Prose today. I thought I’d talk about a lifelong interest of mine: Fairy Tales.

 I’ve read a lot of fairy tales in my time. The complete collection of Lang’s colorful fairy books (‘The Red Fairy Book,’ ‘Blue Fairy Book,’ etc., through a spectrum of twelve colors) more than once. I’ve read  ‘The Thousand Nights and a Night,’ both abridged and in the complete Burton translation, the Grimm Brothers collection, Hans Anderson and many lesser-known folklore collections from cultures as diverse as Gypsies and Polynesians. I’ve read modern retellings of the old tales, from Disney to Tanith Lee and read the articles of folklorists such as Terri Windling, Jane Yolen and.Jack Zipes.

Based on all this reading, I could enumerate countless examples (but will spare you) of fairy tales all leading to a happy ending in which the happy ending is thanks to the poor but good-hearted (simpleton, youngest son, shepherd, wood-cutter, etc.) winning the hand in marriage of the beautiful princess — or the beautiful, good-hearted (goose girl, orphan, youngest daughter of a peasant or merchant) winning the love and hand in marriage of a handsome prince.

The sheer prevalence of this trope tells me that there is a deep-seated longing in human hearts for an ideal match – for a mate combining physical attraction with social success (position, wealth and power). In days of old, fairy tales expressed and offered vicarious fulfillment for this longing – just as romance novels do today.

Fairy tales are the age-old root of modern romance. Fairy tales address a deep-seated human longing that still exists today. Fairy tales offered blatant, unapologetic wish-fulfillment in a world where life was harder than we can even imagine who live in a world with modern plumbing, electronics and health care.

But, in the evolution of fairy tales, a time came when fantasy and romance grew apart.

Romance eschewed magic for more realistic settings, with rational modern day men and women for heroes and heroines. Romance grew in its comprehension of what constitutes a happy ending. It taught us that there’s more to a hero than a princedom. That actual individuals are involved in marriages and their individual personalities and feelings offer challenges as mysterious as any found in a fairy tale quest.

Romance moved away from the realm of the fantastic and vice-versa. And while her followers might do so, Jane Austen did not write of zombies or eldritch monsters. If Mary Shelley and Bram Stoker did, well ‘Frankenstein’ and ‘Dracula’ were not romances. During the Age of Reason and for long since, Fantasy set aside Romance, pulled on its Grown Up Pants, embraced the machine age and gave birth to Science Fiction.

Both genres have grown and matured through the time they spent apart, but they have been coming back together in recent decades.  At first, when romance and the fantastic met in modern times, romantic fantasy sneaks back in its horror-tinged vampire fangs and howls at the moon. Coolly logical SF often dismisses the happiness of two little people as not amounting to a hill of beans in this world with its larger, world-spanning concerns. Yet, story-telling has room for more than our limited genre-expectations can imagine, and all the old fairy tales are with us still, reminders of a natural affinity between romance and far-flung fantasies of magic and adventure.

Increasingly, modern writers such as myself seek to bring the best of both worlds together again. I’ve been pleased with reviews telling me that the romance in my stories doesn’t get in the way of readers coming from the world of science fiction, and that the science fiction elements don’t prevent romance readers from finding the fulfillment of a satisfying love story.

I’d like to ask your readers today to tell me about their favorite fairy tales as children, and whether they can still find something meaningful in the tale.

Blogging today with Calisa Rhose

http://calisarhose.wordpress.com/2013/04/12/friday-fanfare-welcomes-naomi-stone
Tell us three things about you readers wouldn’t typically know.

1. I’ve never been diagnosed, but I figure I have some kind of adult ADHD – a friend calls it ‘shiny object syndrome,’ but it’s more than that for me, more than simple distraction. I become deeply fascinated with all sorts of different subjects. I will devote hundreds of hours to various arts and crafts – inventing a dozen different styles of beaded bookmarks, (I am a bookmark Geek!) turning a tattered paper parasol into a refurbished Steampunk lace parasol, painting a whole series of watercolors inspired by mudras (reading books and doing the research to learn about the mudras), etc. The dark side of this is the hundreds of hours spent building a kingdom in Castleville, or furbishing a house in SimsSocial.

2. I love to filk. For those who think that’s a typo, it did start life that way. Filking is the folk music of the science fiction fan community.  Early science fiction writers and fans started a tradition of re-writing lyrics to familiar tunes – and some original tunes. Think: Crazy Al Yankovich. The tradition continues to this day with people gathering to share their songs at each others’ houses or at science fiction conventions. I participate in a monthly gathering and in song circles at our local conventions. The songs are written by a wide range of fans and authors. Our local group still sings songs written by golden-age writers Gordy Dickson and Poul Anderson many years ago. My favorites include such titles as ‘Cats in Zero-G’ and ‘Smaug the Magic Dragon.’

3. I once illustrated a complete coloring book inspired by a made-up religion based on worship of the Goddess Eris. In the early 1980s Robert Anton Wilson and Bob Shea wrote a set of books known as ‘The Illuminati Trilogy’ inspired by all the conspiracy theory letters they encountered while working as editors at Playboy Magazine. The books include plots by the Bavarian Illuminati, space aliens, and everything else one could think of, including a cult of Eris worshippers whose goal is to balance the principles of chaos and order. The Principia Discordia sets out a philosophy supporting silly and creative disorder as a counterpoint to excessive, stifling degrees of control. My coloring book illustrates these principles and Discordian Catma such as ‘The conclusion you jump to may be your own’ and ‘Is the thought of a unicorn a real thought?’

Blogging for ‘Spirited!’

Below is an excerpt from my upcoming interview with Calisa Rhose on Friday, April 12th at http://calisarhose.wordpress.com

It all began when…

Two seeds of thought came together and gave birth to an idea. The first seed sprouted when I learned about certain Harlequin guidelines requiring that the hero of a romance must be at least a millionaire.

 I was out of work at the time and going through a very difficult period of life, facing bankruptcy and foreclosure on my home. I had problems that could be solved by money, so yes it would be wonderful if some multi-millionaire fell in love with me. I should be able to build a wish-fulfillment story about that … but, something in me rebelled at the thought. The second seed sprouted from my feminist/science-fiction fan sensibilities. I didn’t want my problems solved by some rich man. And, while I was dreaming, why stop at the problems money could solve? Why not dream bigger? What I wanted was magical powers that would help me solve my own problems. If I had the kinds of power a magical djinni might have, I could turn lead into gold, cash it in, and solve the monetary problems – and I could create things not found in any store, help clean the air and water, provide food and housing for the homeless, cure diseases… the possibilities were endless.

Thinking about those possibilities inspired me to write about them. But where would my heroine acquire such magical powers? Okay, I’d go Harlequin one better with a hero possessing vast magical powers. My heroine would encounter a djinni who would fall in love with her. He’d make sure she had the powers to take care of herself, whether she liked it or not.

A Word to the Wise

Words are not the most important thing to a good author. We use words to engage our imaginations and hearts with characters as they care and strive, face obstacles, frustration and loss, return to the struggle, and continue ever on until the end. We use words to evoke an experience calling on all the senses; we use words to engage every faculty of reason, memory, aspiration, empathy and humor. We use words to create stories, and the words are important to the extent that they serve the story – to that extent and no further.

Love in the Land of Lakes

Yesterday many of the authors and editors involved in the anthology project, ‘Love in the Land of Lakes’ got together at a meeting of the Midwest Fiction Writers’ and talked about our roles and inspiration for participating. Why donate our stories, our time and professional abilities to MFW?

Most people know what it means to want to give something back to an organization or to a community of people who have supported them in one way or another.

Midwest Fiction Writers is an organization that has accepted, encouraged me as an aspiring writer, recognized me as a professional since I first started seeking publication, and has provided me with programs and work shops to inspire, inform and help me build my skills as a writer – and best of all, it has provided me with a place to meet a wonderful community of fellow writers and accomplished authors. Through MFW, I’ve met good friends and people to admire and inspire. I’ve met the wonderful critique partners who give serious consideration to the troubles and issues of the imaginary friends I bring to life in my stories.

These people and this organization were with me for at least five years before I sold my first novella-length story, and the two novels that sold shortly thereafter. In fact, I might never have written ‘Sweet Mercy’ – the novella released in December by Champagne Books, if my CP, Nancy Holland hadn’t told me about an anthology looking specifically for romances involving Superheroes.

Nancy had been reading and critiquing the first draft of ‘Wonder Guy’ – a full length novel featuring a young man given super powers by his fairy godmother. Apparently she figured this assignment wouldn’t be too much of a stretch for me. ‘Sweet Mercy’ wasn’t chosen for the anthology, but found a home with Champagne Books as a stand alone story, and lately Ive been working on a sequel.

I could go on for pages, listing the small acts of kindness and encouragement my critique partners and fellow members of MFW have contributed to my career as a writer. I’ve done what I can to return the favor, participating on the board, joining discussions, reading and critiquing for others – and when this anthology was proposed, I was only too happy to volunteer to contribute a story and my professional services.

Looking back, it seems to me that most writers – and most artists of all sorts (visual, musical, dramatic, etc) are moved in part by a need to give back to human civilization and culture. Generations before us have created works that inspire and inform and move us, works that help us understand what it is to be human. I’m glad to be part of this proud tradition.

This time for sure

The original release date for ‘Wonder Guy’ was to be January 2013, but my original editor fell behind on the production schedule and when she left, I had to start over with a new editor and the release date was pushed back to August of 2013.

Now, after pushing hard through five *more* rounds of editing, and the galley proofs, we’ve gotten ahead of that schedule and I’m happy to announce that the new release date has been moved up to June!

Close enough, without being too close to the April release date for ‘Spirited!’

The plural of genius is genii, or genie

Having participated in Midwest Fiction Writers since 2006, I’ve had a chance to get to know many of our members, at least casually. I’ve learned that our writers are not only an incredibly talented group, but are also, individually, each a warm and caring human being. We are all concerned with telling stories that help deepen our understanding of the human heart.

I don’t recall who first proposed the idea of an anthology at one of our monthly meetings; it came up more than once and it always seemed to me like a great way to support not only our organization, but to raise the profiles of the participating writers as well.

When the proposal came up most recently, I was one of the first people to step up and volunteer to make it happen; I knew I could at least handle the production side of book cover-design and formatting. Fortunately, Laura Breck, who had more project management experience, stepped up too and I was happy to bow to her expertise, but I would have stuck with the project even if she hadn’t offered her help, because I’m a great believer in the value of working together to support great causes like this.

My story, ‘The Wind from the Lake’ is a quiet little story in which worlds of differing beliefs collide. It may seem like a contemporary romance, but it includes just a hint of magic. It may only be the magic that arises between people who care about each other, but it might also, possibly be more. Most of my stories contain at least a hint of magic of the sort we can believe might really be out there.

I grew up reading a lot of science fiction and fantasy (along with historicals, mysteries and whatever took my fancy). I finally became interested in romances later in life. When I heard about certain Harlequin guidelines requiring a hero to be at least a millionaire, it was only natural for me to wonder, ‘what’s better than a millionaire?’ and think: a vastly powerful genie who can grant one’s every wish!

My background of fantasy reading included such classics as the Burton translation of ‘The Thousand Nights and a Night’ – sometimes known as ‘The Thousand and One Arabian Nights.’ It’s interesting to see in these stories that the limitation to three and only three wishes is not a necessary requirement of the genie mythos. Genies have vast powers by their very nature and as often as not define their own boundaries in their dealings with humanity.

So, the hero of my forthcoming light urban fantasy romance, ‘Spirited!’ is just such a genie. He is one of the Marid, the most powerful and god-fearing of the djinn. His part of the story concerns a quest for freedom, even as he helps his heroine save her friends from the threat of a succubus demon she has unwittingly released into the world.

Circling back to the anthology… once upon a time, when I was in high school and college, I studied the ancient language of Latin. That was long, long ago, and much of it has faded from my memory, but I did study the language for seven years, and one of the bits I retained is how the plural form of a noun ending in -us, is -ii. Some people today use that declension on cactus and octopus and pronounce the results as cact-eye or octo-pie – but my Latin teachers were classicists and taught me to pronounce it ee, as in tea. Following this rule, I realized that the plural of genius is genii, or genie.

The magic of it becomes apparent when we find a group of seventeen authors, each contributing the product of her individual genius, to combine into the Genie of Group Creation that produced a book now available in multiple formats: ‘Love in the Land of Lakes.’

Attitude Adjustment

At my critique partners’ meeting today we were looking at calendars, discussing potential times for a writers’ retreat next spring. I pointed out the last weekend in June as a potentially bad time for me because of the 4th Street Fantasy convention (only to realize later that I had the date wrong for that).
 
Okay; but then I said, “but I probably won’t be able to afford to go anyhow.”
 
One of my CPs said something about my optimism, and it struck me like a whomp upside my head.
 
Okay; logically, things have been financially strained for me lately (to put it mildly) and it’s true that I missed 4th Street for the past two years for lack of funds, and my lack of job-hunting success over the past five years has left me feeling dreadfully discouraged, and the past can be an indicator for the future.
 
But it’s also true that June is months away and there is no reason to just assume that things can’t and won’t improve for me in that time. When I stopped to think about it, I was even able to come up with some reason to think things might improve. At the time, I just told my CPs that yes; I needed to work on my attitude.
 
When I got home I curled up in a little ball in my bed, snuggled with my cat, and worked on my attitude.* I could say that, as human beings go, I curled up in a not-so-small ball, but as one person in the face of the whole wide world, I felt like quite a tiny little ball of a very discouraged, very frightened, very vulnerable person. It was a revelation to me to admit just how discouraged, frightened and vulnerable I felt.
 
I don’t like to admit that at all, not to myself, not to anyone. I’m an adult. I have education, skills, ambition, a work ethic and some reason to think I have something worthwhile to contribute to the world.
 
Looking at it from one perspective, the past decade or so seems like a steady downhill decline of my material standing and independence in the world. I went from owning a three-bedroom house to renting a two-bedroom duplex apartment to renting one room in somebody else’s house. I’ve had to pare down my possessions with every move and sell off items I’d like to have kept. I depend on someone else’s good will for the roof over my head and being able to care for my cat. I feel, if not totally helpless, much more helpless than I like.
 
If I had a choice, I’d choose owning my own house over renting a duplex. I’d choose renting a duplex over renting a room. I’d choose better than I’ve got – if I had a choice. Right? But the choices are never that simple. If the house came only with a job that was making me crazy? If the duplex could be kept only by walling off my awareness of the dreams that make my life meaningful to me? What would I choose then?
 
Looking at it from another perspective, the past decade or so seems like a blossoming of a stronger, better version of myself. I’ve gone from working day jobs in very structured, sterile environments, with mostly superficial human contact and connection, to working increasingly at freelance projects with interesting people, some of whom have become friends, and to fulfilling a life long dream by writing and now publishing stories and even full length novels. I’ve improved my performance as a musician, my work as an artist, and my understanding of the feelings and drives that make me human.
 
Considering both these perspectives is only part of the attitude adjustment. The next part is a little trickier: the part where I find a way to embrace the needs represented by both perspectives and make them work together. For this I call upon the lessons learned in yoga classes I was able to take back when I had a little money. The chiefest lesson being not how to balance on my head, or even on one leg, but how to regard myself with compassion.
 
Compassion helps me look back upon the tiny curled up ball of frightened, needy human being I feel myself to be and embrace the fear. There’s the fear of ending up homeless on the streets talking wildly to myself because I no longer have a computer and word processing software to help me change the wild thoughts into fanciful stories. There’s the fear of losing the good will of friends by becoming too dependent on their generosity and help. There’s the fear of losing my beloved Tigger should he become ill when I have no funds for the vet. Never mind fears for my own health with no insurance. There’s the fear of hunger and increasing indebtedness. There’s a lot of fear, and it’s so much easier to pretend it’s not there than it is to embrace it and hold it in my arms and offer it what comfort there is in my simple acceptance.
 
Compassion helps me confront the raging frustration of being unable to provide my own needs, being unable to stand alone and independent and beholden to no one. I want to be able to pay my bills. I want my own home, dammit, with enough room for me and my work; I want my own kitchen and my own rules. I want to be able to support the causes I believe in with more than my vote. I want to do what I set out to do without having to adjust my goals to suit my petty human weaknesses.
 
I want the power. I’m sick of feeling helpless. It’s almost harder for me to embrace that need for power than to embrace the fear. The fear welcomes comfort. That cry for independence and power wants to stand alone. And I have to admit, that’s not going to happen.
 
However much I can do on my own, I can never do it all. I can’t supply myself with all the benefits of human civilization without the help of the rest of human civilization. Just not going to happen. But the frustration is something I can address, something for which I can find compassion.
 
And all of it: the fears, the frustrations, the longing for independence and capability and fulfillment – all of it helps me recognize how much I have in common with everybody else on this planet. It all helps me feel less alone. It all helps me feel that same compassion for all us folk who are trying to do the best we can in the face of the whole wide world.

* Some work looks a lot like napping

Discount Chocolate Day

Today is one of my favorite holidays. To celebrate, I went to Walgreens and got some Valentine’s chocolates for 50% off! Yay!  I may be relying on ramen, rice and beans for my basic nourishment needs, but my sense of taste has needs too.

Meanwhile, the follow-up to my pre-Valentine’s Day free download event is something I’m happy to report on and may be of interest to others trying the self-publishing experiment.

As you know, Bob, I’ve enrolled my self-pubbed short story collection, ‘Three Wishes’ in the Amazon Kindle Select program. This allows me to offer the book as a free download on occasion. The current edition includes a sneak preview of ‘Sweet Mercy,’ the e-novella recently released by Champagne Books.

Starting out this time, my Amazon author ranking was 329,156 on Feb 8, jumping to 130,844 on Feb 9 – about the time ‘Love in the Land of Lakes’ (an anthology in which I have a story) was released. It was back to 278,013 by February 13, when I ran my free download offer. Over 3,000 people downloaded the book, (incidentally putting the sneak preview into their hands – which counts as great promotion).

In the couple days since the promotion ended, 16 copies of the collection have sold at the normal price and my Amazon author rank has risen to 20,866. (More than 300,000 places higher than it was in the first week of the month.)

I can’t conclude that only 16 sales accounts for the difference. I don’t have data on sales of the anthology or on ‘Sweet Mercy’ which were published by others, and those sales would be included in my author ranking. This does suggest, though that it doesn’t take very many sales to boost an author’s rankings.