Today's physics lesson: An object in motion will stay in motion

Careful auditors of this journal will recall that yesterday in these parts, it snowed. After it snowed, it sleeted (slet?) for a while, then rained. It is currently snowing again, quite prettily.

This means that, despite the best efforts of the City of Waterville and the college grounds crew, the streets are covered in -- anybody? Yes, you in the back -- Yes, thank you, very good.

The streets are covered in SNOW. Snow, for those of you who live in the Warm Lands, is slick.

So, I'm driving up the hill, keeping well back from the car in front of me, and thinking that the little green Subaru is champion, when what should happen but that a Citizen of the Campus, without even looking, steps into the street, dangerously close to the lead vehicle. The driver slams on the brakes, not wishing to bag a student out of season -- and the car slides.

The kid -- is a lucky, lucky kid. The driver probably aged twenty years. The kid, alas, does not know his luck; as far as I could see, he never turned his punkin' haid.

Now, yes. The Rule on campus is that walkers trump vehicular traffic; we in cars must stop to let those on foot cross the street. But, honestly, it might not be a bad idea to, yanno, consider conditions, and cut the poor, lumbering automobiles some slack.

I belong in the service of the Queen

Sigh.

The recent internet slap-fight about pay-rates has, predictably, I guess, degenerated into the tired old saw, "The Pros are deliberately keeping new writers Out."

I. Am. So. Fracking. Tired. Of. This.

Years ago, I was on an RWA list that served (for values of "serve" encompassing both frustration and abuse) what the romance writers charmingly called "unpubs" and "pubs". Every so often something Life Shatteringly Terrible (like, a book got rejected without! even! a personal! note from the editor!), and an aspiring writer would lose it all over the list, and accuse the "pubs" of "keeping new writers Out" from, one assumes, Jealousy. And Greed. And broad-spectrum Meanness.

So, now, John Scalzi dares to criticize a market for paying one-fifth of a cent a word (that means, for the math-challenged, that for every five words of your story, you get a whacking whole PENNY). And somebody gets her feelings hurt and tells the internet that Scalzi -- and Pros Everywhere -- are "pulling the ladder up" behind them and trying to exclude new writers from getting published.

First of all: Are you listening? I'm going to try to put this in the Simplest Possible Terms, so --
FIRST OF ALL: I have no such power. What, you think I email editors and say, "Psst! Hey, that woman over there working on her MFA? Don't buy any of her stuff, 'k? She might make it big and where would I be then?"

Second of all: One-fifth of a cent a word is pretty lousy pay. I think I sold a story once for a half-cent a word. (Steve reminds me that I sold a story for a quarter-cent-a-word and a hand-painted t-shirt that I wore for years. Ghod, I loved that t-shirt...) Would I do it today? Glad you asked, because that leads right into my...

Third of all: The last short piece we sold was to Jim Baen's Universe, in 2007. We did a couple of commission pieces for anthologies in... 2006, maybe? and 2005. Mostly, I don't submit short fiction on spec anymore. It's not cost-effective for me; my time is better spent writing novels.

Fourth of all: I know that a lot of people reallyReallyREALLY want to be writers. I do know that. I don't understand it, but I know it. Being a writer does not make you Important, Pretty, Smart, or Socially Apt. It makes you Strange, Cantankerous, and Egotistical. It's hard to get published, it's hard to stay published, and it's hard to earn enough to enjoy what used to be called a "comfortable middle-class lifestyle." If you write for Love Alone, you're a dilettante; if you write for money, you're gonna die broke.

Fourth of all, subsection A: There are many, many worse things in life than either (1) failing to sell a story or (2) having a novel rejected. Put your mind on it; I'm sure you can come up with a couple.

Fifth of all: Submit to whatever market you like, and sink or swim on your own. I'm really, really, REALLY tired of this.