Peeking into the rock

I'd really like to be able to initiate a discussion about the thing I wrote about the other day--how language about inclusion can either support or undermine inclusiveness--but there's no actual venue for doing that now. Either you have a widely-read blog, or you talk to five people. The problem with usenet was, of course, that if I started such a thread, on, say, rec.arts.composition, within two days some person would be saying that what I really wanted to do was Regulate Language and Institutionalize Literature and, of course, Execute Kulaks (I am not kidding. I once said that I approved of better traffic planning and it was not long before a particular person who many remember as "the reasonable, polite, and humane conservative" was drawing a connection between the statement and Stalin's actions in the Ukraine, not at all subtly accusing me of complicity in the latter  by my support of the former). Which is why we've become atomized.

I could say something on an open thread at Making Light, but the format for comments is only amenable to short notes. And I think a comment to the extent of "Some of these publications have really murky and unwelcoming language which I thnk undermines their expressed determination to bring underrepresented writers into the fold" is really not enough.These ideas need more room for developing. So, here I am, hoping that someone with a wider-read blog will become interested in the subject and bring it up, so that we can all talk about it.

The example I brought up the other day was not the worst. There's one out there which is so specific in its demands, and yet so long-winded, that I gave up before I had read the whole thing. Many guidelines are simply too long, which dilutes their message. Others include in-jokes or unlinked references to possibly famous pieces of critique. Excessively specific peeves and favorites are not as helpful as the editors think they are.

I do have some positive suggestions. It would be nice if I had any way of talking to the editorial world in general, because I'm certainly not going to copy this and send it off to all the editors who inspired this. I'm not out to pick a fight, I just want to have a better time submitting things.

Here are the things I've been thinking about, which I think would make things better:

One: write short guidelines. You do not need to write out a detailed and descriptive list of every trope you don't like very much if you're going to write over and over again that you could be persuaded by the right story, You could list maybe three things you really don't want to see, and three things that are "hard sells," but don't go on and on about them. The reason is not that writers don't want to know whether you want to see the kind of story they write: it's that all of that stuff runs together when there's too much of it and they end up confused. Just like it does in fiction, see?

Two: if you want to include your critical or political jargon to send a message about the tone and aspirations of your work, don't assume that everybody knows it as well as you do. You don't have to be condescending in defining the terms, just scaffold them (that is, embed the definitions in the text).

Three: when you post your formatting demands, try to make them possible. One venue out there demands that the writer use style sheets, which I don't think very many writers know how to use. Yes, Word does them. But most writers only use them passively by way of the automatic scripts that Word employs by default. Writers who use other word processing programs may not be able to use them passively like that. Along that line: don't demand docx. Not everybody can give it to you. Accept doc or rtf files too, and you're golden.

Other publications which have been accepting (sometimes only) electronic submissions still talk about the manuscript format as if it were on paper. This can be frustrating as the writer tries to figure out how to translate your directions into what's going to happen in the text file.

That's the most important part. On thew tone front, some of these guidelines sound like the person who wrote them hates writers and also like they hate other publications in the genre. That's a little daunting. When you've got an idea for a theme you think is underrepresented, why not just say "We can never get enough of this" or "We want to see more of this" or "This is what moves us," along that line, instead of saying it's never been done before, or never been done well before? Because you're most probably wrong on that front. When you talk about what you do and don't want to see, try not to make it sound like you have only seen two good stories ever.

Anyway, that's what I would be saying to the SF community in general, if I had a way of addressing the community in general. I'd want to talk about how the writers most vulnerable to the discouraging effects of these things are the writers that we've lately been talking about wanting to recruit in larger numbers, and I'd want to say that my suggestions are not difficult to implement.

I haven't changed my mind about not doing very much promotion here, but every so often I'll link to where I'm doing it. Today I have something a wee bit different. The wonderful Heather at the Rose Garden here at livejournal has graciously included a guest blog from me about why I do real-world research for secondary-world fantasy.

I think most of my friends already know her, but if you don't, you should head on over there and read her journal. Especially of interest is her substantial Lesbian Historical Motif Project, in which she examines the literature to tease out material for the goal of constructing reasonable lives for fictional lesbians. It's fascinating from every angle. Looking at the way the goals, methods and structures of prose (and poetry, sometimes) have changed over the years: teasing out the complicated worlds of women's lives: figuring out what maps to lesbian in different times and places: and even what the word "lesbian" has meant, is all just riveting. I'm in awe of Heather's vast reading and the work she's done in making sense of it.

Also you should read her posts about her series of secondary-world semi-historical lesbian-oriented fantasy novels (I wanted to throw in other categories, like mystery, etc., but decided that was unnecessary).

Back on the subject of promoting my work, I have another post up at the wordpress blog. By the way, I'm aware the banner is ugly. It's supposed to be!

I'm not going to devote my livejournal to promotion, so here's a link to the wordpress blog where I do all that.

Meanwhile, I have a better-than-lukewarm (but only just!) review at Amazon!

And I also have a pile of tomatoes and quinces and no time to process them before I leave for the weekend, but they'll keep.

The details are here.

I promise this livejournal is not turning into All Book Promotion All The Time. I just feel I must do my job.

On another front, I have a pile of Prague posts backordered due to the internet issues while I was there and being occupied with other things since I have returned. But expect posts on: "How (not) to eat like a Czech" (the secret is that Czechs don't eat that much Czech food), the Opera in the Forest, Hiking in the City, and how to choose what season to visit.

Also I may tackle topics I have no expertise on -- why not? everybody else does it -- like what the communist legacy is and isn't in Prague (I see a lot of people ascribing aspects of Czech life to communism, which were present before Marx was even born).

Also regular daily life, of course. Did I mention that it rained here the other day? Really. Very unusual for the time of year, and not just a drizzle. You should have seen how happy everybody was.

So I have a freind who is an experienced editor and caught in the Vast Swirls of Unemployment and Underemployment that afflict the young folks these days. He applies to a lot of jobs.

Dreamspinner has an ad on their website claiming that they're looking for more editors. You take a test and they hire you or don't. My friend took their test. It was a four-page piece of terrible writing. He got back an assessment that said he had missed a whole long list of in-house quirks, and they weren't going to hire him, but they would deign to employ him as an unpaid proofreader. They hire from their unpaid proofreaders, they said.

Unpaid. Proofreaders.

Did I mention that the pay for editors is terrible anyhow?

John Scalzi has interesting things to say about the changing landscape of writing here. I'm not going to argue with it, because I think he's right (though I hope there are other things going on too because I don't want to self-market, okay?). But I have some other thoughts that I've been having for a long time that I haven't seen other people talk about.

Used books, libraries, borrowing, inheriting . . . there are lots of ways that old-fashioned conventional books pass from hand to hand without being paid for. But I never saw anybody trying to pass a law against second-hand books or lending books. The most action I've ever sen anybody take is that for some kinds of books and magazines, libraries pay more than individuals.

Somebody tell me where to draw the line? And tell me why the same people who are so worried about piracy now have not been worried about libraries and the vast networks of book lending among individuals?

I had to use the windshield wipers yesterday. It's supposed to be summer by now. Should I be worried or stoked?