Kyell Gold's Blog, page 32

What Happens Next-New Argaea story!

Argaea fans! Want a new story? I wrote one just for you. So there was this fox, okay? He lived in a medievalish world and he was a spy. And he had some adventures and had two novels and a couple short stories written about him. And he had a couple cubs, and one of them (the younger one) had a novel written about him too.

So then the older cub got all annoyed because nothing had been written about him (even though he was totally in one of his father’s novels, but you try talking to a pouty teen). So I had to write this story, ALL ABOUT VOLYAN.

It syncs up with Shadow of the Father and will be featured in FurPlanet’s “What Happens Next” anthology, out at AC! Also there is lovely art by Argaea’s own artist Sara Palmer! Who also did the cover!

I will get back to Argaea with a novel soon, but in the meantime, have a novelette (it’s like 12,000 words). I wrote it for you! And Volyan.

(I am sorry for this post but it is 4:30 am and I am at an airport and probably things that seem amusing to me now are really not! But the story is real, and I kinda like it!)

Blog Changes

I have updated WordPress and am trying to work it to post to Twitter and Facebook, which involves some necessarily public trial and error. Sorry about this!

Winter Games, Again

In light of the upcoming release of Winter Games (and Divisions!) to e-book tomorrow, a little more about the story.

The band Valhalla (styled after Nirvana, if you didn’t pick that up) was originally just a background theme to the book, a musical cue for the story. But when going through edits, several people suggested that Sierra have another adventure that would emphasize both the upside and downside of his friendship with Carmel. And so I picked the band I had mentioned briefly in the story elsewhere, a concert that was never brought back, and I made them a little more important.

They have a little bit of thematic relevance to the story: the signature lyrics are about escape, which is what Sierra wants more than anything, but the band themselves are unable to escape or even, it seems, enjoy what they’re doing. And we hear later that one of them–well, if you know about Nirvana, you know how that story ends.

I often put music in my stories, some real, some not (Kory of Waterways has an ELO album), but even when I make up music it’s usually based on something in reality. I was never a fan of Nirvana when they were around–I am more of one now–but their story is a compelling one and I thought it suited this story well. So Valhalla was born, and lived, and died, all in the background of one story. The good news is that having created them, they are around for me to use in any future stories.

 

Authors Be Aware

There is plenty of advice out there on the Interwebs for authors signing a contract, and a lot of it is “have an agent look over the contract before you sign it.” In the furry and self-publishing world, we generally don’t have agents; as a sort of balance to that, we also don’t usually have very complicated contracts.

On occasion, though, you’ll get someone who grabbed a boilerplate contract from somewhere and did a few modifications, or who had a big intellectual property contract modified for their company. In this case, it behooves you to really read through the contract, definitely ask questions, and don’t sign it just because “the publisher knows best.”

One of the things that I’ve now seen in a couple contracts is a clause granting “perpetual and irrevocable license” to the publisher (to distribute, market, etc. the work). There are reasons you might want to specify that the license is irrevocable for the term of the contract. Or irrevocable except under certain conditions. But a perpetual and irrevocable license, without any qualifying language, can be interpreted to mean that even if the contract is terminated, the publisher can keep marketing and selling and making money off your work forever (“perpetual”). There is really no reason I can think of to sign a contract with that clause in it. Here, if you care to read further, are some reasons you might want to include ‘revocable’ or ‘irrevocable’ in a contract–and the appropriate language to put around it.

Another thing to look out for is the publisher’s contract claiming the right to sub-license your work. This is often simply tossed into the list of rights, a single word that sounds reasonable–your publisher can give your book to other people to sell, right? That’s cool. Only no, it’s not. Selling your book to a retailer to resell is distribution, and that should definitely be included in a license. Sub-license means that the publisher can give your work to another publisher for a fee and let them publish, market, and distribute it. Again, this might not raise red flags–you’ll still get paid for it (or at least you should–sub-licensing clauses should include very specific terms, usually a 50% split, of how the revenue is apportioned, and if the right to sub-license is in the contract without those specifications, that’s another red flag). But especially in the furry community, it’s worth talking to the publisher about why they want that clause in the contract. They may have a particular market in mind, or they may simply have included it because it came with the boilerplate.

Here’s why you should pay attention: it gives the publisher the right to make decisions about where your work appears without consulting you. Yes, in general, they are going to want to make money from your title, and you’ll share in the money, but complications can easily arise, especially where e-books are concerned. And there’s this to consider: what if the publisher goes bankrupt? Book rights are an asset used to pay off creditors, and sub-licensing to the highest bidder is the quickest way to make them liquid. You don’t get a say in that.

Most contracts in the furry world are short and based on good faith in the community, and I really believe that no furry publishers are out to scam their authors. But that doesn’t mean you should just sign whatever is put in front of you. There’s legal advice online, and in extreme cases there are services you can hire to look over your contract before you sign it. Most publishers will be happy to discuss language that worries you, and either strike it or come up with some compromise that satisfies you both. Don’t be afraid to ask for changes in the contract, especially in the furry community.

On Complacency and Hollywood Endings

This is about today’s landmark SCOTUS rulings, really. Give me a moment here. Most of my chat has been on Twitter this morning and I’m still thinking in 140-character chunks.

Okay. So about…yeesh, just under fifteen years ago now, in 1998 (back when civil unions were barely a twinkle in the eye of the Vermont state legislature), there were a couple movies out you might have heard of: “Patch Adams” and “Pleasantville.” They didn’t have much in common except for a first letter; I like Robin Williams, but it was scenery-chewing Bad Robin on display in “Patch Adams,” while “Pleasantville” was a beautiful, poetic story of artistic (and sexual) awakening.

[WARNING: Spoilers for both movies ahead, but only sort of because there was no real surprise and also they are both teenagers now.]

The other thing they had in common, though, was something that drove me crazy: the “courtroom ending.” This is something that was briefly a trend for some reason, and I’m sure film historians would be able to pinpoint why it was a Thing in 1998, but I’m just glad it’s pretty much over. Both films ended with some authoritative body (a court, the town council) being asked to mull over the central question of the movie and then decisively ruling in favor of the Good Guys.

See, it’s not enough for the individual people to triumph. The WORLD must acknowledge their triumph and affirm for ALL PEOPLE that their way of life is best, and that the people who stood in their way are BAD and WRONG.

You see why I don’t like those endings much?

Fast forward fifteen years, past Vermont’s civil unions and Massachusetts’ marriage laws, past Prop 20 and Prop 8 and Iowa and the rest of New England and the 2012 elections and Minnesota, to this morning, when the Supreme Court ruled on whether the US Defense of Marriage Act (passed the year before Patch Adams and Pleasantville) could in fact allow the federal government to deny same-sex couples federal marriage benefits if they were legally married in their state, and on whether California’s Prop 8, restricting marriage to unions of a man and a woman(*) was constitutional.

* Sidebar: one reason the California proposition system needs to be overhauled is that anyone can write a proposition, and they are terrible at it. Prop 8 literally reads “Marriage shall be between a man and a woman,” or something simplistic like that, which allowed one completely legal law that recognized same-sex couples from other states and required that the state confer on them “all the benefits of marriage save only the designation “marriage.”" Now, while I and Kit benefited from this law–we are considered a married couple except we can’t use the word, which is annoying but not a huge deal–I have to recognize that it makes the proposition a joke from a legal standpoint. If we’re going to have laws, there should be some standard as to how well they’re written. It benefited us in this case, but the next one might not, and it makes me wonder how many well-intentioned propositions are easily skirted by corporations because the language is poor.

As you have heard by now, I’m sure, that provision of DOMA was ruled unconstitutional under the Equal Protection clause, and Prop 8 was dismissed for lack of standing. This is a Good Thing, broadly speaking. The Prop 8 ruling doesn’t do much; really it only says “private individuals can’t continue to clog up the legal system by appealing state laws that even the state officials don’t want to defend,” which is in and of itself a pretty good ruling–I mean, when you consider that the trend nowadays is toward state governments allowing marriage and private right-wing individuals having deep pockets to keep the issues alive in court. The DOMA ruling affirms the status of gays and lesbians (or, rather, people wishing to marry someone of the same gender) as a protected class and recognizes that DOMA’s purpose was basically to deny these people the same rights as other citizens.

So, a good day, yes? Yes. And yet there are people saying they are disappointed that the Court didn’t do more. There are people talking about “complacency,” as if pausing for a moment to celebrate what is a big step forward is in some way letting our guard down, as if this decision might be a big wooden horse and Justice Scalia will leap out in the midst of our celebration and drag us back to 1850. I can’t help but think of Patch Adams and Pleasantville when I hear these people talking. I can’t help but wonder if they really believe in that Hollywood ending, where the Court smashes down the oppressors and the Bad People are shown the error of their ways, and there is nothing more left for the Good People to do but enjoy the life they’ve fought for.

Listen. I know there is more to do. There are thirty-eight states in which my husband and I are “legal strangers” (a term I heard on Twitter today). There are several international couples I know who would love to have citizenship or at least residency available to the non-U.S. partner, and although immigration law took a big step forward today, that also is not resolved. There are still states where you can be fired for being gay, or evicted, or otherwise persecuted.

But there is no Hollywood ending to this story. Nobody is going to come down from above and decide who’s right and who’s wrong. The Court today did about as much as anyone could have reasonably hoped to advance the cause of gay rights. Asking for more was unrealistic; being angry that we didn’t get more is pointless. Wars are won over a long series of battles, and back in 1997, when DOMA was passed, that was (you may remember) in response to the news that Hawaii was considering legalizing same-sex marriage (which, ironically, still has not happened). That could be considered the first battle in this modern war over gay and lesbian rights, the latest iteration of a war that has been going on for centuries. And DOMA was a loss for our side. Vermont was a win, Massachusetts was a win, 2004 was a terrible loss. But the tide has turned, the victories are piling up, and the war has, I think you will agree, decisively turned our way. Even if the court rulings had gone against us, people were talking about that merely delaying the inevitable a few years longer, because victory does not come from a Court. It comes from all of us, from the people who make up this society, and the people now favor same-sex rights by a pretty overwhelming margin (even marriage is favored by a majority).

Celebrating a victory is not “complacency.” Celebrating a victory of this magnitude does not blind us to what remains to be done. Celebrating this victory is important, because it is a victory. It is the result of decades of hard work and it is a result that fifteen years ago would have seemed unimaginable. The celebration gives us the heart to keep fighting, to move on to those next thirty-eight states, and we will do that. Already my inbox is flooding with activist group e-mails telling me what a great day this is but we still have a lot to do won’t you donate to help us keep fighting?

The war isn’t over. But today, today, we are smiling and we are celebrating, and that is okay. We’ve earned it. Hug your partner or your friend and pat yourself on the back. Enjoy the day.

Winter Games Available Soon

You guys all know already that Divisions will be coming out in e-book format on baddogbooks.com starting July 1 (exclusive until August 1). But Winter Games is also coming out at the same time, and because I’m not sure Divisions needs much more said about it, I thought I’d talk about a not-so-simple little story of a snow leopard trying to untangle his own past.

(If this becomes too long, maybe I’ll turn it into a series like the “Green Fairy” ones, which kind of ended before I’d posted the last one I was thinking about…)

“Winter Games” started on a car trip with Kit. He was asking me what animal I’d be if I couldn’t be a fox, and I said I’d be a coyote. Kit has an affection for snow leopards, and so it wasn’t long before we were kicking around a coyote and snow leopard pair, and for some reason they were reuniting after a long time apart.

I’ve always loved confidence games (“The Sting” is one of my favorite movies) and when you have a coyote, naturally the idea of playing tricks becomes part of the story. But when I started out, I didn’t know anything more than that the coyote and snow leopard had been pulled apart by circumstances and had fallen out of touch. I liked the idea that the coyote was making his living with a 21st-century kind of con game. And one con game isn’t enough for a coyote, so there had to be two.

And more than that, because the games he was playing when they first met are different from the games he’s playing now. Both stories appealed to me, so I thought, why not write them both?

I like to incorporate challenges into the stories I write other than the stories themselves. In this case, it was “can I write the same character fifteen years apart and tell two stories about him?” Sierra learns things in both 1998 and 2013 that affect how he views the world and how he views Carmel. The other thing I wanted to do was keep the incident that happened between them hidden until the end, to heighten the tension of the mystery.

All in all, it seems to have worked out rather well. I’m happy with how it all came out, to be honest, and I hope you guys will enjoy or have enjoyed it as well.

That Upcoming Story

So that story I talked about a couple days ago? I posted a foreword introducing it on a Page on this WordPress site (if you are reading this on LJ, then that should be “that WordPress site”) where the story will reside and be updated.

Anyway, it’s also on FA, of course, more community-friendly, and I may toss it onto some other sites eventually, but for the moment I am going to be busy enough in July that updating two sites twice a week is plenty. Anyway, on FA I noted that although only certain parts of the story will/may be adult (it’s not finished yet and so far the most adult part is some name-calling in the first chapter), I’m marking the whole thing adult just in case. I don’t have that flag here but, you know… fairly warned, be ye, says I.

I’m planning to update Tuesdays and Thursdays and should be able to do so from wherever I am. Right now I have enough to keep updating through July, so even if I stall out and don’t write until the convention madness is over,  I’ll be okay.

But I will. I like this story and am excited about it. I hope you guys will be too.

This Is Not A Joke

I thought this was an Onion headline when I first saw it:

Exodus Int'l Shuts Down: Christian Ministry Apologizes To LGBT Community And Halts Operations http://t.co/o13uPx1OFa via @HuffPostGay #lgbt

— It Gets Better (@ItGetsBetter) June 20, 2013

I read it twice–okay, it really is from It Gets Better, it seems to be a real HuffPo link–and then clicked on the link.

It’s real, or at least the Huffington Post thinks it’s real enough to publish it as fact, which is about as close as you’re going to get on the Web these days. This is something which, if I wrote it into a story, would be met with chuckles and murmurs of “wish fulfillment”; in fact, I would never write something like this because it feels too much like the ending to a bad Hollywood movie. The villains admit they’re wrong, shut down operations, and apologize? No, no, I would write in notes to myself. One of them must be unrepentant, at least. You can’t just have them capitulate.

And yet, here in the real world, this is a wonderful thing. It makes it easier for me to believe that these were well-meaning people who really strove to help people, albeit in a completely wrong-headed way, who are now people who have reformed. People who entered Exodus of their own free will were tormented by desires they had and societal pressure to change, and now we are seeing that pressure relax, and with it the torment of our natural desires.

Yeah, I still think they’re terrible people, and one apology is not going to make up for that. Over the years, they have done a lot of damage to the LGBT community and individual people by claiming that homosexuality can be cured or “prayed away.” But also note that nobody forced this change. No government legislated the shutdown, no people voted to remove funding. This was a decision made by people realizing the error of their ways. The personal apology by Alan Chambers is worth reading. You may be suspicious–with good reason–but it reads to me as heartfelt and tragic, as the carefully considered words of someone who has finally found the courage to admit that he’s been wrong.

It’s not a farce, it’s not a movie, it’s not a joke. It is real people seeing the light and making change, and it puts a nice wag in my tail today. Thanks, Mr. Chambers and the rest of the executive leadership who made this decision at Exodus. Change comes slowly, to some of us later than others, and I hope your words and actions help to inspire change in the world, help to reconcile people with their church in a way that the past thirty-seven years could not.

Story In Progress

I really never post first drafts of my work. But I started this one story with the intention that it would be a free story online, and then the story got complicated and took a couple interesting turns and now it looks like it’s going to be longer. But I thought, heck, why not post the work in progress? You’ll get to see the story take shape, and if it ends up being something I publish later (probably as a Cupcake, if anything), you’ll get to compare the final version to the initial version. I like the story enough now that I don’t think I’ll mind showing it to people.

I’ll post it on FA, of course, but will also probably post it in pages on my blog, so the accented characters come out better. Look for the first installment in the next couple days!

Kobo Store Filling Out

I put the uncropped versions of OOP and IP up on Kobo, so the censored-image Smashwords version should no longer be the one for sale there. To determine which it is, read the whole book description and look for a warning that some illustrations have been cropped. If you do not see that warning, then you are getting the full illos with that version of the book.

(On Kobo, also look for the “(mature content)” warning in the listing right by the title. The full version has that warning; the cropped-illo version does not. Both are still on sale as of right now.)