Eagles Over the Kennebec

Rant.

So, I've gotten those two chapbooks, plus the paper editions all lined up to go live on Monday at all The Usual Suspects, and comes the, by now, Usual Letter from Amazon, demanding that I prove that I have the right to publish said stories.  They cannot accept my word for it, because Copyright! but need a reversion letter from my previous publisher (not applicable in the case) a copyright registration, a signed contract between myself and the author (author being Sharon Lee and Steve Miller), an email from the address of the agent representing these stories certifying that I have the right to publish, and a couple other pieces of Utter Nonsense that only shows a Profound Non-Clue about How Publishing Works.

It might be a little easier to bear if Sharon Lee and Steve Miller; Sharon Lee; and Steve Miller haven't been publishing echapbooks on Amazon since the early days of 2011.

All That Said. . .

Ahem.

Please pay close attention, as this is complicated.

Cultivar: Adventures in the Liaden Universe® Number 25 contains a short story, "Out of True," and a novelette, "The Rifle's First Wife."  Both of these stories were published in A Liaden Universe® Constellation, Volume 3 by Baen Books in August 2015.

Heirs to Trouble:  Adventures in the Liaden Universe® Number 26 contains two novelettes, "Roving Gambler," and "Code of Honor."  Both of these stories were published in A Liaden Universe® Constellation, Volume 3 Baen Books in August 2015.

Now, you might say, with some justice, Why are the authors bothering to publish chapbooks containing stories that have already been collected?

And the authors would say unto you -- In fact, this is a matter of Basic Housekeeping.  We have been trying to be certain that all Liaden stories are collected into chapbooks.  Some people don't like to have big collections on their ereaders; some people just prefer the chapbooks; some folks only want to try a story or two, to see how they like 'em.  Whatever.

Now, three of the stories above were first published on Splinter Universe; "Out of True" was published to Baen.com.  In the usual way of things, we would have aged the stories off of Splinter Universe and into chapbooks back in 2013/2014.  Somewhere in there, "Out of True" would have passed its six-month exclusivity period, and been chapbooked, too.

But! Baen made an offer for the third Constellation, and those stories, instead of going into chapbooks, were all swept into the collection.

So, now they are all properly in chapbooks; and Pinbeam Books, at least, is in Balance once more.

Now, for the details.

In Beautiful Theory, the echapbooks will all Automagically Appear at Baen Ebooks, BN, Amazon (unless they lock us out for crimes against copyright), Apple, Kobo, and a couple other outlets on Monday, December 4.

Also in Beautiful Theory (unless they lock us out for crimes against copyright), Amazon will be taking pre-orders for the ebook editions of Cultivar and Heirs to Trouble.  If you pre-order the books, they will appear on your Kindle on Monday, December 4.

Also Also!  Paper editions of both titles will be available for purchase from Amazon (unless they lock us out for crimes against copyright), on Monday, December 4.

Paper editions are only available through Amazon; pre-orders are only available through Amazon.

Everybody confused now?

Good.

Dear Google.

Please stop writing to me from a no-reply address to tell me that GoogleTalk is dead.  I know GoogleTalk is dead and I mourn its passing every day.  No, Hangouts is not just as useful, only cooler; Hangouts is an annoyance and a sham, and I would be delighted to tell you in-depth exactly how I feel about it and its non-functionality, if you had the guts to write to me from an address I could reply to.

But, no.  Anonymous scolding is all you know.

No love,

Me

* * *

Dear Eset.

First, you tell me I need to buy a new license.  Then, I decide if I still want to use your product, and, if I do, I pay you.

Downloading the product to my laptop under the guise of an "update," then telling me that in order to "activate" it, I have to purchase a license?  So uncool.

No love,

Me

* * *

Dear Internets.

Please stop repeating this silly, insulting question: "How do I write believable women characters?"

The correct question is, "How do I write believable CHARACTERS?"

The answer to the correct question is, "By observing people and by exercising imagination and empathy.  These three things are your most powerful tools, as a writer.  Keep watching, keep dreaming, and keep writing until you get it right."

Also, know that you aren't going to get it right the first time, or the fifth time, and by the lights of some, you will never get it right.  Do the best you can.  You can start writing without knowing how to do All The Things.  Writing is a lifelong learning process, with many, many accomplishments to unlock.  The only way you can start unlocking is by starting in to work.

Frustratedly,

Me

* * *

Dear Backbrain.

Thank you.  I believe that did in fact improve the story and moves things along more quickly.

Worth every bit of lost sleep and gnawed fingernails.

Keep up the good work,

Me

* * *

Dear Trooper and Sprite.

Boy, are you guys workaholics.

. . .apparently the next in a series of posts about history.  Who knew?

Asyouknowbob, I do some wandering up and down the internets, and I read a lot of strange and beautiful and inspiring and awful* and puzzling and infuriating stuff, just like you do.

Lately, in the course of my passage up and down, I've come across some essays, written by different people, at different times, reacting to different impetuses, all earnest and heartfelt, and every one taking as their theme:

I read fiction and I'm increasingly depressed, because I don't see myself anywhere.

Now, on one level, I can relate to this frustration.  After all, when I started reading science fiction, back in the 1960s, I didn't see me there, either.  By which I mean, not me, specifically, because who would want to write about me?  But girls and/or women with an adventurous spirit who were aching to get out there and buckle some serious swash; solve their own problems; pilot their own damn' spaceship; or, yanno, run the family carousel.

Now, the way I handled this problem was, when I got old enough, and good enough, I wrote stories with me in them -- by which I mean, not me, specifically, because I'm even more boring as an adult than I was as a kid** -- but stories in which girls and women take care of business, and who are just as smart/capable/funny/sexy/scary as their male colleagues.

I know this isn't a route that's open to everyone, and herein lies the problem.  You might think that writing a blog post appealing to authors to put you -- transperson, man of color, Thai woman, whatever -- into stories would, yanno, move writers to do that.  I mean, I know a lot of writers, and we're a pretty decent lot, all told, and mostly we write in order to make people happy, by which I mean satisfied, so why wouldn't we oblige the people making such simple, and on-point requests?

Well. . .because there's an obverse side to every coin.  And for this one, for every person who wants to see themselves in fiction, there's at least one other person of the opposite view, who will fall like fifteen tons of granite paving stones onto the head of writers who are seen to be "appropriating" their lifestyle, culture, society. . .

The point of these folks is that writers who are not authentic, who haven't lived in the culture, for instance, are going to automatically Get It Wrong, and besides that, they have no business writing about something they can't possibly understand.

Writers aren't necessarily any fonder than anybody else of having fifteen tons of granite paving stones dropped on their heads.  Just sayin'.

Lest you think otherwise, I actually have some sympathy for the obverse point of view, too.  But, truthfully?  Not much.

Because, see, every time I write about somebody who isn't me -- by which I mean me, Sharon Lee, nearsighted, overweight, manic-depressive scifi writer -- I'm writing about someone I don't fully understand.  I'm not, for instance, a man, though I've met a lot of men, and happened to have married a man.  I'm not a norbear; I'm not a ghetto kid turned mercenary soldier; I'm not a sentient spaceship -- Look.  There are just an infinite number of things in this universe that I Am Not, and never will be, 'k?

And yet I have the moxie to try to write about some of those things that I will never be.  Can never be.  I bring certain skills to the task of trying to capture those things and relate them convincingly:  Imagination; research skills; a technique called If This Goes On; and another called, What If?  . . .basic tools, but, used properly, they go a long way toward helping a story and/or character achieve verisimilitude.

"Verisimilitude" means "the appearance of being true or real."  In terms of fiction-writing, it means that the story I'm telling you has to hang together, and feel real while you're reading it.  That's the contract between the writer and the reader, that the story will deliver while it's being read.  Second thoughts after you're done is only Monday morning quarterbacking.

So. . .the middle ground here is. . .what?

I think the best that might be done is to ask that writers try their best to write stories that include people like you, and that they do their research and not perpetuate racist/sexist/ageist/whatever-other-kind-of-ist-there-is-this-week stereotypes.  I mean, I think we can do that, as a group; hell, many of us are doing that.  But I think, too, that some of you could take matters into your own hands.  Write you.  Join the club.  Teach us.

I think, too, that we're just going to have to take it as a given that writers are going to get things wrong.  We know that, better than anybody.  I mean, y'all have seen the little disclaimer on the acknowledgements page, where the author calls out by name all the people she asked for help?  And then she says, "If there are any mistakes in this book, they're mine"?  We know that we're gonna get something wrong, despite having done the best we can.  None moreso, I imagine.

Granite paving stones are not really productive; the only thing you're going to accomplish by dropping them on the heads of writers is writers who will retreat into writing what they know.  *yawn*  So, sure, tell us what we did wrong.  Teach us.  And, if you really believe that only authentic people can Get It Right, I can't see anything except that you're stuck -- write it the Right Way, and show us how it's done.

-------

*in it's original meaning, "inspiring reverential wonder"

**Though I did write a character who was living in kind of the same place in her family that I lived in my family, before I got old enough, and moved out. But that wasn't so much writing me as it was using my experience to make the character real.  Which is different; Aelliana isn't me; I just lent her some of my history.