Somebody get on me to do this more often, land's sakes!
So here's an editorial I printed in this Spring's On Spec issue. Cross-posted from the website!
"Capitalism, Writers, and the Tangled Web" Editorial by Cat McDonald
Web publishing is a hell
of a thing. You probably knew this already; you’ve probably already read
fiction online, maybe read a comic or watched a web series. Maybe a
family member or coworker has emailed you a cute picture or an
interesting article. You might even follow a blog, a comic, a YouTube
channel, or some other web product. Even if you’re not a regular
internet user, you’re probably pretty used to being told that the
internet is the wave of the future and that books are going out of style
any day now. Well, that may or may not be true. But, whatever happens
to books, web publishing is changing the face of literature in a lot of
exciting, terrifying, unexpected ways.
Let’s start out by saying that there’s stigma against web publishing,
especially in the literary world. Many people see web publishing as a
cop-out. Why is this?
There you go, guys! I'm working on a novel I called "Here There Be", so up there is me giving a short reading from the first draft. I've always really liked its concept, even though the plot seriously suffered from the fact that I wrote it super-fast. That's what happens, isn't it? That's what editing is for.
Hence the editing I'm doing. I put together my scene list, and that really helped me see that, even though this novel followed two different groups of people, I totally neglected one! Seren and Nahe, the girl she meets on the beach, more or less disappear until the very end of the story in favor of a much more intense setting, Greater Stag Island. It's a tense post-revolutionary society where Idris, a former priest, works as an executioner to surreptitiously give prisoners their last rites. I think I got so wound up in the intrigue that I drifted away from the girls and their adventure! (It's a shame, because the girls spend a lot more time around that big old red snake)
I know, I said that I'd upload as soon as I felt less groggy. Welp. Took me a while to feel less groggy! Yeah, I know, I am a giant baby.
So, I went to a convention this weekend. (Pure Speculation, by the way, is a blast every year.)
I guess by now it's kind of a thing I do. I got to meet some really interesting people, but more than that this was really a year of reconnecting with people. I got to see all the Convention Friends that I only see when con season rolls around, and I ran into a dear friend I hadn't seen for months. I spent a lot more time socializing than I did actually attending panels!
Oh I know, I know, it's dreadful. But, I went to some wonderful panels on sex and gender issues in speculative culture, including a really surprising talk on sex and videogames from Bioware's head writer David Gaider. And then despite knowing I had to give a reading from Tesseracts 15 the next morning, stayed up until like 4 AM with my friend talking about our hopes and dreams like sitcom characters in the series finale. Except it didn't, you know, end.
The reading went wonderfully! Shen Braun, who I met for the first time that weekend (and who was Tess15's third first-timer), gave a really fantastic reading. Kind of glad he went right after me, because if I'm any good at this horror thing, then maybe the audience could have used the kind of laughs they got hearing him say "HALLOWEEN" in big verbal capslock. "Feral" made me choke up a bit even though Nicole and I always give readings together so I've even got her delivery memorized! ("Oh, does he?!") I don't think that one will ever stop choking me up. And of course Kate Boorman was there delivering her flawless futurism. She's got just such an ace grasp of slang.
And then Victor told me to get him "something fatty" from Wendy's so I brought him a Baconator.
Basically I spend the weekend acting like a bigshot, and now it's time for me to get back to work on this novel editing! I re-read it (I wrote it in 2009) and while it's pretty strong, damned if it's not obvious the thing was written in a month. Gotta think my plots through to the point where I don't have to write "Or something, I dunno" in the margins with red pen.
Since I wanna do a lot of audio content in here (because I love the sound of my own voice), I'm going to read a section from the novel I'm editing! I'll upload it when I'm less groggy. Because I need to learn not to stay up that late before I do readings.
Hello there, everyone!
Yes that is right I have started a blog. Don't look too surprised; most people do at some point. It's one of the inevitabilities of our perplexing modern age or something. On the upside, however, my blog has a very direct name, so it will be very easy to look in your bookmarks and know exactly what this blog is. I make no apologies for how blatantly 90s it is.
And, I'd like to start off with some very good news! My short story, "The Road of Good Intentions" appeared in the latest addition to the Tesseracts series of anthologies! I seriously couldn't be more excited about this. First of all, the first Tesseracts anthology was published before I was even born. Second, such absolute legends of Canadian speculative fiction as William Gibson and Margaret Atwood have been printed in the series. When I think about the history of it all, I feel melodramatically faint!
So here's the story about it. I was at a book launch chatting with Brian Hades, and he made me promise to send a short story in to Tesseracts 15. He made me promise! Brian's a hard guy to say no to, you know. So, I promised.
And then I found out that my On Spec coworker Susan MacGregor was one of the editors. And, well, I was terrified. Because Susan's a pro down to the ground, so I knew there was no way I was getting kid gloves from her. She's very definite about she wants, and since I'd just started working with On Spec and didn't know everyone as well as I do now, that was terrifying to me! (Even now, I've got a much looser, more touchy-feely hippy style of editing than hers. I'm kind of a baby.)
But, I had promised Brian. So, I finished editing this story I'd whipped up based on a character I'd been using in some other stuff. I guess I had just felt like describing the place, and when I re-read the story I realized that it had some okay things going for it. Then my dear friend Robin Carson (Another On Spec coworker, who taught me a lot about editing) had a look at the story, pointed out the (many) places in which it made no sense, and helped me shine it up for Tesseracts.
And then I sent it in. By the time I sent it in, I wasn't as scared as I was before, partially because I'd got to know Susan better, but I was still nervous because I'm kind of an enormous pessimist, and none of my fiction submissions had come to anything before. I was so shocked to hear that it had been accepted! Susan said that the most important thing about YA is never to talk down to your reader, which was a big part of why she'd accepted my (only technically safe for young adults) story.
So, here we are! I suppose I've got no choice but to keep working. I've got novels to edit, after all; just because I've published a short story doesn't mean I'm not a novelist at heart! I finished National Novel Writing Month yesterday, so instead of loafing about for the rest of the month I've decided to take my query letters more seriously. I'm also going to go through my fiction and probably run a web serial.
COMMENCE THE BLOGGING.
