Sorting things out (706 words)

[ritaxis]

Actually I've been futzing around with the plot for this chapter. There are things I originally planned on happening and I think I klind of spiked them with the things that ahve already happened, and I don't want to further the labor dispute aspect of the story until I figure that out. But I have sort of felt out an alternation between the family life part of the story and the labor dispute part of the story. Cast of thousands. But it's that kind of story.

One of these days I have to write a story without a kajillion supporting characters and walk-ons, or maybe not, since the stories are all kind of about the shapes of communities, among other things.

I've been writing a new query letter aimed at an editor who is "interested in hard SF, epic F (most popular is realistic made-up history), romantic F, SF with heavy romantic elements." Since the Chuy book has hard sf elements and also heavy romantic elements, maybe he will like it. I am telling myself that the same-sex aspect of the romantic elements, and the communal-household aspect of the happily ever after dreams of the protagonist, are not hurdles -- it's science fiction and in science fictionyou're supposed to expect strange worlds with strange cultures and social organizations.

But isn't that a funny combination of interests for an editor? I think it's not his personal reading preferences but what he thinks his various readerships are looking for. Which makes it not odd at all.

So, I wrote a little on Afterwar and I've got most of the query letter written and now I have to get things ready so I can leave town. It's been raining. I just hope it's not raining when I'm on Highway 17. Oh dog, do I hope it's not raining on 17. It will be bad enough if it's raining on the other freeways, but 17 is crazy making at the best of times. One of the reasons I don't go places much without the nice fellow along to drive.

Comments

[julesjones]

I was pretty sure you'd read the same thing I had. :-)

I do the "run in circles scream and shout" thing every time I try to deal with sending this book out. It's actually easier to cope if I assume that it will be rejected, partly because I know that the content *is* going to make it trickier to place. (Trickier, but not impossible.) Helps distract me from the possibility that it will be rejected because it's unmarketable for other reasons. :-) But it's also easier to go ahead and do a draft letter for the *next* place I'll send it while I've still got the momentum going from this one.

Glad to hear the Baen rejection doesn't sting so badly once you've had a chance to assimilate it. The trouble is, you open the letter and see that they don't want the book, and no matter how helpful they try to be in their comments, at that point it's just a list of reasons why This Book Sucks. I had one of Weird Tales' trademark Weird Rejections a couple of years ago, and although I knew they were trying to give me useful information, it took me a few weeks before I could go back and reread the letter and *use* the helpful comments.

[julesjones]

Incidentally, I would not send mine to Baen, and one of the reasons I would not send mine to Baen probably applies to yours, so yes "wrong place" rather than "bad book" for yours.

[ritaxis.livejournal.com]

Same-sex? They didn't seem to care. They were quite clear that it was the wrong kind of protagonist for them, and even suggested recasting the book so the kid was more of a go-getter, though I did not take that seriously, since that would sort of entail writing an entirely different book.

It was an honest mistake. I had gotten it in to my head that they had published China Mountain Zhang.