Mari Ness's Blog, page 5

Petals and Sometimes Heron

Accidental double publication day!

First up, a day early, The Petals, over at Daily Science Fiction, the latest in the ongoing series of flash fairy tales that I genuinely do hope to finish, with the framing story, at some point. (Glances at the Excel sheet tracking that series.) Whoops! Well, in the meantime, at least this one is out.

Second, issue 7 of Lackington's is out, with my story, Sometimes Heron.

Let's chat about this one for a bit. "Sometimes Heron" was written in 2008, when I was at the Mayo Clinic. Not a typo. I wrote it in bits and pieces. After a few rejections, it sold to a publication which closed down a few months later. A few more rejections, and it sold to a second publication - which also closed down a few months later.

By that time, to put it mildly, I felt a bit discouraged. On the one hand, I figured that the story couldn't be that awful, if editors were buying it (twice!). On the other hand, it seemed to be killing various publications, which seemed a bit unfair to said publications. I trunked it for a couple of years, and then started shooting it out here and there again.

I mention this mostly as an illustration of what the writing/publishing industry can be like. It's one reason why this can be a very depressing career - so much of writing/publishing is outside your control. I'm not just talking rejections/acceptances - though that's also outside your control - but things like this as well.

In any case, I'm very grateful that it's at last found a home at Lackington's, and I hope you enjoy both.

Proposed changes to Hugo Awards

Quite a lot of people just directed my attention to The Sasquan business meeting agenda, which will be discussing some proposed changes to the Hugo Awards. As a short fiction writer and a novel reader, I'm an interested party, sorta, I guess, but budget limitations mean that I won't be making it to Sasquan this year. So here are some initial, not necessarily well thought out thoughts.



The biggest item on the agenda is probably the E. Pluribus Hugo. I assume this proposal will get a number of reactions - complete incomprehension; a reasonable attempt to prevent future slate nominations/vote rigging (that is, groups of people all agreeing to nominate the identical lists of works, or, what happened with this year's Hugos); as an overcomplicated and doomed attempt to prevent future slate nominations; as evidence that wow, blocking slate nominations is really, really complex; as an argument that if you really need to go through this much trouble to block slate nominations maybe it's not worth it; as further evidence that the Hugo Awards are broken; or as the world's first effective cure for insomnia. I'll let others hash out these arguments.

I'm more interested in the proposal to eliminate the novelette category and add a Saga award instead.

The impetus for this appears to have been the Hugo nomination for the Wheel of Time books as a single novel, rather than a lot of books, and the thought that single novels within a series or saga can be difficult to judge as individual artworks. This has come up a lot, for instance, in discussions of the Jim Butcher novel nominated this year, which is the latest book in a very long series, but also with the Wheel of Time, with a number of voters arguing that the entire series couldn't possibly be worthy since no individual novel in the series was nominated, and Wheel of Time voters arguing that the work had to be judged as a whole unit, not by individual works.

I'm sympathetic to a lot of these arguments, while still thinking that Crossroads of Twilight, one of the many books in the Wheel of Time series, was a pretty bad book, and that while I thought Wheel of Time fans banding together to get their series on the ballot was awesome and exactly what the Hugos should be about, I couldn't exactly get excited about voting for a series that includes that particular book. But moving on. But it does raise a question or two for me:

How do you distinguish between series and saga?

When can you be sure that a series or saga is genuinely, completely over?

I'm thinking specifically of Jim Butcher's books, which I've usually heard categorized as a series of standalone novels, and which, in my one experience with listening to the audiobook of a later work in the series, do work as standalones. But I think The Dresden Files can also be considered as a saga, centered on a hero's journey, and as a series that will only end when Butcher decides to call it quits, and possibly not even then.

Even sagas with seemingly clear, obvious "endings" sometimes turn out to be not quite as "ended" as readers or even the author thought. The Belgariad springs to mind here: it made enough money that everyone involved in making it decided that it wasn't actually over even if it seemed really really over. Unless I'm really reading A Song of Ice and Fire wrong - and I may well be - I think a similar thing will happen there: some final seemingly ultimate battle/confrontation - with Westeros itself continuing, ready for another saga or at least a highly profitable HBO series.

Moving onto the "KILL THE NOVELETTE CATEGORY ALREADY!" question, well, I'm a short fiction writer, so I'm an interested party here.

First, I'll note that there's some precedence for this, with the World Fantasy Award which does not offer a separate category for novelettes. Second, I am deeply sympathetic with the complaints of voters who do not want to check the word count for the short fiction they've read, and that the dividing line between novelette and short story has issues because of where it lands (at 7500 words) and that really, novelettes are just long short stories and should be treated like that. Not to mention the complaints that the Hugo ballot is waaaaayyyyyyyy too long as it is. I've made that last complaint myself. My understanding is that the novelette category has historically gotten fewer nominations than other categories, so even as a short fiction writer, I fully get the keeeeellll it! keeellllllll it dead! feeling here.

But.

The first problem is the number of eligible short fiction works versus the number of eligible works in most of the other categories. Novels possibly come close, and, with blog posts eligible for the catch-all category of Best Related Work (which this year includes a nominee that isn't even particularly "related"), that category does as well. Novellas are currently experiencing a resurrection, so those numbers might creep up.

Otherwise - the number of eligible podcasts is in the double digits. The number of semi-prozines and fanzines is also in the double digits; the same names keep popping up in those categories for a reason. The number of eligible graphic novels probably in the triple digits. Films are in the double, maybe triple digits. Television episodes, including cartoons, might pop up to a little over 1000.

The number of eligible short stories, in that category alone, is conservatively around 6000. Expanding that category to include works up to 10,000 words will just expand that number.

Again, I'm very sympathetic to "THIS BALLOT IS TOO LONG" arguments. But if we're going there, I can think of some other categories that could be eliminated. Best Graphic Story, for example, historically doesn't seem to have gotten as many nominations or votes as other categories, and the artform itself is pretty well covered by the Eisner Awards, and the argument I just made regarding series/saga also tends to apply to webcomics. The Best Editor categories were apparently meant to replace Best Publication, which, fair enough, but from a reader perspective, it's not necessarily all that easy to tell who edited what novel, making this a tricky category.

But wait, I hear you saying. Weren't you the person who went on Twitter to suggest various Best Editor nominations?

Yep, I did, because I'd been complaining that the nominations for the Best Editor, Short Fiction category hadn't varied much in years, and various people suggested that I try to do something to change that, so I did, and LOOK WHERE WE ARE NOW I'm genuinely sorry everyone.

So, those are the first, not really caffeinated enough, very biased thoughts.

A note found beneath a moonstone

The latest issue of inkscrawl, one of my favorite poetry zines, just went up, with my poem A note found beneath a moonstone. Enjoy!

A place without bookstores

This month, the local Barnes and Noble - a place that, in the winter, I could reach via my electric trike - closed down. According to the employees, this particular Barnes and Noble was doing well - better, they said proudly, than the Barnes and Noble up in Altamonte Springs (which is still open). And presumably less well than the Barnes and Noble down in the Dr. Philips area. The store had originally benefited from being only the second major bookstore in the west Orange area. Once the Borders in Ocoee closed, it was the only major bookstore in the west Orange area, benefiting from the expansion of Winter Garden and Clermont and the quiet wealth of Windermere. The other bookstores are all twenty, thirty minutes away at best from this area - a Books-A-Million up in Leesburg, which is more or less the equivalent of the moon for me, and another one in Altamonte Springs - less moon like, but four buses is a bit much - and the previously mentioned Barnes and Noble. Some customers said they would trek there anyway. Others said they would use Amazon. No one, despite hopeful hints from Barnes and Noble employees, said they would use the Barnes and Noble website.

(This is more about physical bookstores than websites, but I'll say it here anyway: Barnes and Noble, speaking as someone with a Nook who really wants you to succeed, your website is very difficult to search/browse through, both online and through the Nook, and Amazon's recommended feature leaves yours far behind. Kobo is sending me better, more targeted emails and I don't even visit their site. I'd work on this.)

Apparently, the company behind Forever 21 agreed to pay three times the rent that Barnes and Noble is paying. The outdoor mall management loved this idea. Barnes and Noble balked at a rent increase, and here we are.

I'm not sure what, if any, effect this will have on that particular mall, which is an outdoor mall in one section and a line of huge, big block stores like Lowe's and Target in another section. Bitter Barnes and Noble employees claimed that the idea was to bring in more teenagers with the Forever 21. The place does seem rather short of teenagers, but then again, I'm usually there on weekday mornings in winter, not a peak teenager shopping time, so it's entirely possible that in the afternoons, teenagers pop up everywhere, eager to spend. Or not. What seems to be more of a concern, specifically to the employees of the Bath and Body Works, was that Barnes and Noble tended to draw a relatively upscale crowd that was happy to wander over to Bath and Body Works and spend money there. Also, this now means that the Bath and Body Works people either have to cross a large, and, in the summer, painfully hot parking lot, or a six lane street in order to reach Starbucks, which means, they guess, they're stuck with Panera which isn't as good for coffee.

Which brings up another slight issue: that area did have three - count them, three - Starbucks in a very limited location: the one at Barnes and Noble, the one at Target, and the actual Starbucks just across the road. I wondered how sustainable that was.

Then again, this complex is located directly north of a very well to do area, and south of a patchily well to do area - some streets are very well to do indeed, and then there's my street, which isn't, but can afford the occasional stop at Starbucks, and east of a solid, rapidly growing middle class suburb. Who knows.

Anyway, everyone agreed that the Barnes and Noble was an anchor store that brought in customers, and was a place for people to meet, and study, and talk books, and this sucks, and the hospital going up across the street is not a substitute for any of this.

For me, this is personally painful for another reason: with the exception of my first months here, before I got my electric trike of awesomeness, it's the first time since I was 11 or so that I have not been able to get to a bookstore on my own. Granted, reaching one in a Connecticut winter was nearly impossible on a bicycle, but the bookstore was there, and I knew it was there, providing a certain comfort. Afterwards, I could always reach one. Two decent ones easily available my first year of college; three my last three years. Several in South Florida; several in Tokyo (overpriced English language bookstores, but definitely there. You can buy anything in Tokyo if you have the money.) The all too short lived Here Be Dragons bookstore, and this Barnes and Noble.

And now, without a ride, nothing but online bookstores. Which, for all of my severe addiction to the Orange County Library's ebook selection, just isn't the same. You can't feel a book on a website. I don't get the same sense of reassurance. Of home. Of books.

I'm going to be resenting this new Forever 21 for awhile.

The Dollmaker's Rage

My latest little story, "The Dollmaker's Rage," up on Daily Science Fiction this morning.

Inhabiting Your Skin

My latest short story, Inhabiting Your Skin, just popped up over at Apex Magazine, along with an interview with me.

In the interview, Andrea Johnston asks questions about why so many of my stories - including this one - don't have character names. Usually it's because I can't think of names, to the point where I deliberately wrote an entire story around that. In the case of this particular story, however, I knew from the first sentence that nobody would have a name - you'll see why as you read it, I think.

The actual problem I had with this story was with the title. I went through 30 different titles for this story, all worse than the last. "Inhabiting Your Skin" wasn't, as it happened, the final title - by mistake, I sent Apex the story with an earlier version of the title. By the time they responded, I'd realized that the final title was even worse, and told myself I would just try to think of a new title before the story was published.

Which didn't happen. Oh well. I can only say now that in my opinion - for what that's worth - the story is a bit better than the title. Enjoy!

SFWA Cookbook now available for preorder!

The The SFWA Cookbook is now available for preorder. I am, to be honest, slightly embarrassed about my own contribution to this, but then again, this has resulted in probably your one and only chance to see me in a Table of Contents with Jerry Pournelle and Larry Niven. I know.

Beyond that highly unlikely combination, the book also contains recipes from Octavia Butler, Barbra Hambly, Jane Yolen, Carole Nelson Douglas, Charlene Harris, Jim Hines, Tim Powers, Mike Resnick, Spider Robinson, Nancy Springer, Connie Willis - that is, it's quite a list. It sounds like a lot of fun.

A genuine puzzle:

For Christmas, my brother gave my mother a jigsaw puzzle comprised of old family photos. She loved it, but had just one tiny, tiny problem putting it together: the puzzle was missing one piece. Finally, she took it back apart without finding said piece, and passed the puzzle over to me.

I, in turn, had just one tiny, tiny problem putting it together: the puzzle now has one extra piece.

This is more puzzling than the jigsaw puzzle itself.

Hugo awards, continued: About those "no further revisions"

Black Gate has withdrawn itself from Hugo consideration.

Black Gate was nominated in the Best Fanzine category.

Hugo nominations, updates, continued

The Hugo ballot has changed again, with a press release for this that includes the hopeful phrase: "The ballot is now going to the printer and there will be no further revisions."

I feel we all should, as a group, respond to this in two ways:

1. Buy the poor SASQUAN committee, who did not ask for any of this, a round of drinks.

2. Watch this again:



Edit: SF Signal has the final list of nominees here.