When Endless Rejections are Easier

It's hard to keep it going. I understand that it's tricky getting an agent, and I've managed to swallow rejection after rejection. But it's different when people very close to you aren't interested in your writing.

I feel really good about my story, but no one wants to read it. A couple family members did, because they're family.

One family member who did read it (or most of it, I think) said that it should be illustrated. To be fair, she never reads young adult fantasy, but that kind of comment means to me that my writing doesn't paint a picture - only added drawings would do that. Last time I saw her, she asked if I had illustrated my book yet. As if that's easy to do. I said that I'm nowhere near good enough at drawing - especially the kind of black and white illustrations that would go with this sort of book. Nor can I afford a professional illustrator. Nor do I ever see illustrated fantasy novels. Except in a couple rare cases. Then she asked if instead of a novel, it could be a graphic novel. I told her that would be an entirely different format for everything, and I'm even worse at comics than I am at drawing. At one point, she also said that I should start my story in the middle, when they warp home to visit the family. Then go back to the beginning and start over.Because that would be more exciting?

Again, she never reads these kinds of books.  I'm glad that she's one of only five people (all family) that have read past the first chapter. Her suggestions were confusing, but mostly they just seem to say that my book doesn't do its job, and they don't offer any valid fix.

I'm not sure if she's making herself read it, but at least she's trying.  Other family members and friends have read the first chapter, said it was great and that they wanted to keep reading. And they never touched it again. One person even said they can't edit it because they're my friend. 

When most of the people close to you don't give it the time of day, that's much harder than countless agent rejections.

Poor Magic Health

I'm not quite sure how this happened. These kind of things tend to freak me out. But when I was going through my notes on story ideas, I discovered that I have four ideas for really freaky magical diseases. 

Whyyy TT^TT 

Some of them are freaked-out versions of real-world parasites. So I blame biology. 

That being said, I have no idea how I'll end up using these in stories. I'm kinda afraid to figure that out.

They Want to Make You Cry

A while ago, I wrote a blog post about how movies often kill off some of the coolest characters. I still think it's weird that really good characters often get killed, to the point where viewers start to expect it. Like a weird underlying message that good people don't last?

But I think the reason story-tellers do this is far more simple. If they make you fall in love with a character, it hurts like hell when that character dies.

Though even characters that are jerks can make you cry if the scene is done well.

I mean, I kill off one of my favorite characters, so I have no right to talk. It kinda had to be done. So if I have to do it, I also want the reader to feel the way the other characters do.

Draft Count

I wish I knew how many drafts I've done of Evva's story. I only save them when it occurs to me. I've gone a couple years without saving a draft, according to my computer. I have six saved, mostly for reference (though originally I'd save drafts so I'd know how many revisions I did). Though I may not ever look at the older versions again.

But what counts as a draft, really? For example, I just went all through the story adding in several cultural details. Does that count as a draft? Or is it not a draft until I read through the whole thing and smooth in all those new details? 

Ah well. It doesn't really matter. But you'll hear some authors say they go through a few drafts per book, and others will have closer to 100 drafts. I'm interested to see where I fall on that spectrum. Certainly not 100.

4th of July meerkat.

This is Why I Keep Notes

I needed a term to describe a specific type of spirit. Before I started a proper brainstorm, I stopped myself and went to my "magic guidebook." I scanned through and found I had a term for it already! Yay for keeping notes on my own magic system @_@

 

Aldabra tortoises

YANovCon 2024

I went to YANovCon again this year. So I'll share some of the highlights! 

It started out with a writer's workshop by Lily Meade. She brought up some cool prompts that she has used in her writing:

Take a historical event and add a twist

Take one of your family heirlooms and give it a special power. 

Something passed down through your family that has been kept secret. 

Take an event from your past and rework it. 

Lily Meade handed out a worksheet, with space to plot out a story following one of these prompts. I chose a story from my family's past, adding a magical twist. I wrote through the given time, and a little past it. And now I want to turn it into a proper story. it's tricky, because the person died when my dad and his brother were little kids, and they know very little about him. We shared some of our ideas after. Everyone hesitated at first, so I shared my premise first. 

After that, the panels started. This year's theme was "Identity in the age of censorship." 

As usual, the authors had great things to say, and fascinating stories to tell. I liked what Ray Stoeve said: "Writer's block is an issue in another part of our life." I think that's largely true. Stress we're dealing with in some way can stifle creativity, etc. 

One of the African American authors talked her freakish editor. The editor said she should have an African American character accidentally punch a cop. What a nightmare, having an editor that asks you to include racist stereotypes in your book. 

After all the talks was the author signing. This time they handed out little notebooks that we could collect signatures in. As usual, I went around and got all of their signatures. And as usual, I bought one of the books. This time I picked out "Susie King Taylor: nurse, teacher and freedom fighter," by Candace Buford. It's about a real historical woman, but in novel form.  Signed by the author! 

When I got the autograph from Sean McGinty, he gave me one of his books! It's called "The End of Fun." He said it was bad, but I didn't think so. I got it signed too. 

AI Away

All this AI stuff freaks me out. To be fair, it has done some amazing things to help researchers solve problems, etc. 

But then you turn to the creative side. I've been on Deviantart almost 15 years, posting my art regularly. But recently artists have been leaving in droves for a number of reasons. Especially because Deviantart has pretty much turned its attention from real artists to AI artists. It features people who are selling AI art, which is made by a program built on the stolen artwork from people who have worked countless hours on honing their craft.  It's disgusting that Deviantart has become a place that supports people who don't do art, and instead steal art from others. I'd join the droves of real artists that are leaving, but I don't know of anywhere better to go. And how long would it take to transfer over ten years worth of artwork?But I still regularly consider it.

And then people are trying to use AI to write tv shows and such, which lets them fire the real writers who have always done it (previous post about it). It's at the point where there's mass speculation (no idea how much evidence there is, but I can definitely see their point) that Disney used AI to write Wish. Disney.

And of course, welcome to the world where people can use AI to take the faces and voices of other people and use them to make whatever they want. Thinking of people making videos using me, or using AI to copy my writing style makes my skin crawl. 

It's such a freakish world we live in where anyone can fake anything.