Janet Harriett is often an editor, sometimes a writer, and occasionally a groper of meteorites. She is the senior editor at Apex Publications and copy-editor-for-hire.
First, an explanatory note: I have never been able to keep my shoes tied. Velcro only gets you so far in life, though, so eventually my mother resorted to telling me that she would have to tie cowbells to my shoestrings to alert me to loose laces. The threat got pulled out so often that, over time, it got shortened to simply "Cowbell." And let me tell you, you get some bewildered looks from people at the supermarket when your mother says "Cowbell" and you immediately drop and tie your shoe. It's a perfectly logical development of language, but at the same time, completely baffling if you weren't in on the intermediate steps.
Turns out, there was a good reason that my shoes never stayed tied. I was tying them wrong.
I still prefer not wearing shoes at all when I can get away with it, though.
Mo*Con was last weekend. I've been terrible about posting con reports this year, but I really must say All The Things about this one. Mo*Con is put on every year by Maurice Broaddus, and people describe it as a weekend-long room party held in the basement of a church. It's very relaxing and amenable to nurturing friendships. There's a lot of chatting, interrupted by a few panels and a lot of really, really good food. But it really is all about making and solidifying connections.
This year's theme was The Mind and Spirit of the Artist. Writers and artists have a bit of a reputation for the crazy (see my Road to Mo*Con blog for a longer discussion of why this is both logical and undeserved), and this was a weekend of us talking openly about our struggles with mental illness, both in life and in how it affects our work.
I wish that everyone dealing with depression or other mental illnesses could have an experience like this weekend, conversing with people who have been there, and treating our respective mental struggles like a normal, integrated part of who we are, but just a part. I realized how unique a situation I was in when it dawned on me that five of us were sitting around a pizza discussing our antidepressants like one might discuss the cuisine at a new restaurant. Like it was a perfectly normal conversation to have in the middle of a pizza parlor. Like we didn't have to hide it.
The suicide conversations, we saved for in the church, because for all the openness many of us have about our experiences with mental illness, suicidal ideation and attempts are still a sensitive topic for many. But we talked about that, too. And it was comforting to know that others had been there, and that the place they'd been at the time was similar to the place you'd been, which is not at all like the way it is often seen by people who haven't been there.
Mo*Con wasn't all laugh-a-minute talk of suicide and depression. We had some fabulous readings.
And yes, that is dropping an F-bomb in a sanctuary. Lots of light and happy conversation. Excellent food. Drinking for those who are so inclined. Douglas F. Warrick released his debut collection, Plow the Bones.
I don't remember when my mother introduced me to the hug box. For all I know, it might be one of those stories she started telling before I was old enough to remember. It's the box where you keep hugs for later, and I always pictured it as an internal organ that simply wasn't on any anatomical diagrams. It was the size and shape of my musical jewelry box with the twirling clown instead of a ballerina (and damn if it doesn't frustrate me now that I can't remember what that music box played, but I'm getting off topic here), and it was very, very important to always keep it full of hugs. When we visited Grandma and Grandpa, they could give us extra hugs we could use later. And if someone else's hug box was running low, you could fill theirs up. I was not a particularly tidy child, and am still not a terribly neat adult, but my hugs were always folded and stacked neatly in my hug box, ready for whenever I needed to take one out.
I don't know why this has been on my mind lately, but keep your hug boxes full, folks.
I learn a lot of interesting tidbits in my line of work. Today's odd fact: Fish pedicures are illegal in California. That would be pedicures using fish, not pedicures on fish, which as a group tend to lack feet. I'm going to skip over why fish are giving pedicures and head straight for: the California Board of Cosmetology and Barbering had to give active consideration to the question of whether to allow fish to give pedicures.
Regulation 979(a) states, "Before use upon a patron, all non-electrical instruments shall be disinfected by cleaning with soap or detergent and water and then immersing in an EPA-registered disinfectant with demonstrated bacterial, fungicidal and virucidal activity." The Board has concluded that fish cannot be properly disinfected before used on each patron.
Regulation 981(a) states, "All instruments and supplies which come into direct contact with a patron and cannot be disinfected shall be disposed of in a waste receptacle immediately after use." The Board has concluded that if fish cannot be disinfected than they must be disposed of after each use.
I would love to see the transcript of the meeting where they decided that the problem was the current state of fish disinfection technology.
Haralambi Markov has started a hashtag, #womeningenre, to run through April. The hashtag itself would seem pretty self-explanatory, but it may require an extra notation that this is not meant to be a discussion of how few women are in SF/F/H and how to promote their inclusion. Rather than focusing on the lack of women, this is highlighting the women who are here.
I don't talk much about being a woman in genre, because I usually don't feel like a "woman in genre." I'm "in genre," and 99.5% of the people I interact with professionally treat me as a fellow editor, writer and publishing professional first, and gender doesn't factor into it. It's no more remarkable to be a woman in genre than to be a man in genre. Granted, this is as much because I gravitate toward those sorts of people to spend my time with. I was brought on to one project because the editor was looking to improve his gender balance, and after fulfilling my commitment to the project, I have limited my involvement because being related to as "the girl" was awkward for everyone. Now, I spend most of my time with Apex because being a kick-ass lady of genre is simply another day at work there. As it should be.
So, in April, I will be writing about some of the women I work with in genre. Not because it's remarkable that they are women, but because it isn't. If it helps women and girls who are new to genre tp know that they're not going to be alone in a Boys Club here, so be it.
Here at the Rookery, we have our first confirmed woodchuck sighting of 2013! Until proven otherwise, I will assume it's Drina, my lady woodchuck from last year. She's out foraging on what little grass has started to green up. High time spring got here.
One of my panels this weekend at Millennicon will focus on working with editors as a self-published author. Here's a little taste of what to expect. Not to spoil anything, but I was getting ranty in an email exchange about working with editors.
Working with editors as a self-published writer is a slightly different dynamic than as an author with a traditional publisher (no matter what the size). When you're working with a publisher, you as the author have very little say in who your editor will be. When you self-publish, you get to pick your editor. Use that to your advantage. Be picky. Don't necessarily take the first editor who comes along, or the cheapest. Find one whose style works with yours. If an editor firmly doesn't believe in prologues and you write lots of prologues, you two are not a good match. Keep interviewing until you find one who is.
While you're shopping, find a competent editor. Good writing and good editing are different skill sets. A great writer may not be a good editor, especially if they're trying to make the story what they would have written. A good editor is there to make your story the best it can be, not to pee in the corner of your manuscript and leave their editorial mark. If an editor makes a change you consider ruinous to the story, STET THAT MOTHER.
A competent editor is a liaison between the writer and the reader, making sure that what the author meant to convey is what is actually on the page. We are there to make you look as good as possible. Edits are not personal. The fact that something could be improved is not an indictment of your writing. Almost no writers crap gold on their first draft. Or third.
When I was 19, I moved from Oregon to Nebraska. By USPS. Seems that when you're 19, no one will rent a moving van to you, and I was leaving my car, in part because it belonged to my parents, and in part because it was hit-or-miss whether it would make it the 8 miles to work, much less across Wyoming. Moving by the ounce meant I left a lot of the flotsam and jetsam of my childhood behind. I also left my coffee table, but that's another blog (man, was that a gorgeous coffee table!). While I wouldn't trade the clean-ish start I got to adulthood for anything, I do occasionally miss one or two of the things that I had to leave behind for practical reasons. Besides my coffee table.
One of the things I left was my globe. It was your basic student globe, antique parchment finish, which my parents had gotten for me sometime in my teens. I was a tough nut to crack, parenting-wise, since my interests diverged almost completely away from anything I picked up at home. I can't articulate why it was important to me then to have something to see where everything on our planet was, but when I moved, it was one of the things that was too big and awkward to take with me.
Fast forward (mumblemumble) years, and this came in the mail:
Not me. The thing in front of me — a gorgeous globe with mother-of-pearl oceans and individual countries carved from semiprecious stones. It was a gift to Elie, but he's letting me keep it in my office.
It feels right somehow, having a globe again. And this one is oh so very pretty. Now all I need is a table.
This coming weekend (March 15-17), I'll be in Cincinnati at Millennicon. Here's my panel schedule:
Do We Have the "Dream"? (Saturday 2 p.m.) - MLK, Jr said he looked forward to the day people would be judged by their character and not the color of their skin. Nowhere else is your appearance or background less important than at a con. So why don't more ethnic and racial minorities attend?
Devil's in the Details (Saturday, 3 p.m.) Minor factual inaccuracies can rip a reader out of the story. Common factual errors in stories and research tips to keep readers' disbelief suspended.
The Art and Science of Editing in the Self-Publishing World (Sunday, 1 p.m.) - How to find an editor and what to expect as you're contracting for editing services as a self-published writer.
I can only assume that I'm offering the Pasty White Chick perspective on the first panel. My buddy and partner in crime* Jason Sizemore is going to be on the latter two panels with me, and we'll be creating random mayhem when we're not dispensing wisdom. I'm not saying it's because of any special occasion or anything, but mayhem may happen. If, for some reason, you want to skip my panels — and I have no idea why you would want to — Tim Waggoner is holding workshops Saturday at 2 and 3. And if you want to blow all of us off entirely, That Book Place in Madison, IN is holding the third annual Authors Fair this coming weekend, too, with plenty of talented authors.
*Note to police: As far as I know, nothing we do is actually illegal.
My Neurotransmitter Death Spiral is slowing down. I still have bad days. Some really bad days. But the meds are taking the edge off the depression, and my psychologist is helping with the anxiety. Some of the anxiety-reducing lessons I have to internalize, to patch over the lifetime of bad thought processes I've worn into my brain:
I don't have to be everything to everybody at all times. There's this word, "no," that apparently one is allowed to use. Working my way into that.
Practice incompetence. Turns out, trying to do everything 100% perfectly is a recipe for a neurochemical disaster. I'm still getting used to the idea that one can intentionally aim for something below superhuman.
Be me. I know, it seems wacky to be paying a guy $200 an hour to tell me this, but one of the errant thought processes we're correcting is that I spend an inordinate amount of time trying to figure out what people want from me, and giving them that, rather than bringing myself to an interaction. Being asked my opinion on something is a special circle of hell for me. Turns out, there isn't a right or a wrong answer to questions like "What do you want on the pizza?" The flip side of not having to be everything to everybody is that when I'm not trying to be what people want, I have room to be who I am. I'm bracing for the perception of a significant personality shift when I start taking to heart the words of the wise Dr. Seuss (who is, I may add, much cheaper than my psychologist): "There is no one alive who is you-er than you."
Thursday, May 23, 2013 at 08:00PM 