You can find a full list of my A to Z challenge posts here. :)
To be honest, I really don't want to write about writing. Yeah, yeah, I know I'm a writer, or at least I wear that hat sometimes, but writing and I have not been easy companions.
A lot of writers write easily, happily, joyfully, gathering massive word counts and lots and lots of finished projects. Me, not so much. When the writing is going well, it truly is awesome, but it rarely goes well.
Anyway, I've talked about writing quite a lot at conferences and writers meetings, and I'd like to link to a post I made here a year and a half ago about one of these talks. I think there's a lot of important information in there. Why do YOU write and what do YOU want? (hint: there are no wrong answers ;) )
26 April, 2012
25 April, 2012
V is for Valences
You can find a full list of my A to Z challenge posts here. :)
My favorite class in high school was Chemistry. Really. Was freaking awesome. I loved it so much I started college as a Pre-Vet Med/Chemistry DOUBLE major. Love, love LOVE chemistry. I've probably taken more collegiate Chem classes than most anyone else who ended up with an art degree. Organic, inorganic, biochem, pharmochem, applied chem... Ah, just thinking about it makes me giddy.
My high school chemistry teacher, Mr. Larry Dean, was incredible. He was a tough old bastard, but scary smart, sweet, ornery, and a quirky old coot, all at the same time. When we started Chemistry as high school juniors (I think there were about 25 of us, maybe more) and the first thing he made us do was learn our elements and valences. On the first day of class he gave us a list of about thirty elements with their symbols each with some weird numbers he said were valences. He told us to memorize it, there'd be a test the next day, then he went on to begin explaining the periodic table, which was in our book.
The next day we did have a test. He'd say the name of an element and we had to write its symbol and all of its valences. In the order he spoke them. Any mistakes, and I mean ANY mistakes, it was counted wrong. Forget a plus or minus? The whole entry's wrong. Forget to capitalize the first letter of the symbol? Wrong. Forget a valence number? Wrong. We handed our papers to the kid beside us for grading and we were to tally up the ones they'd missed, and the ones they got right. Then we took the right ones minus the wrong ones, and that was our score for the day's valence test. So, out of 30 items, if you miss 8 you got 22 right, so it's 22-8 which becomes 14 out of a possible 30 points. That's less than 50%!
Right Minus Wrong grading is a bitch kitty to endure. You either learn the stuff fast and KNOW it, or you're going to fail.
Before the first month or so was over (and we'd moved from Valences to doing the same right minus wrong thing with a blank periodic table, filling in symbols, atomic numbers, weights, and ionic numbers), we'd whittled down to eight of us, three girls, five boys. We were together for two years, through basic and advanced chemistry. I can't recall any of us screwing up an experiment because we knew our stuff, by god. It was branded into our brains. Balancing equations became incredibly easy, like breathing. So many on this side equals the same number on that side. Gotta count those electrons, baby!
What a valence shows is how many electrons a given atom has to either give up or gain to combine with another atom (and make a compound or molecule). For example, in one water compound (H2O) there are two Hydrogens (H) and one Oxygen (O) - the teensy 2 says there are 2 Hydrogens and no number beside the Oxygen means there's only one. The H's each have a valence of +1 (it has an extra electron out there all alone it wants to lose), and the Oxygen has a valence of -2 (it has a space for two more electrons to gain). The problem is how to make the plusses and minuses add up to zero.
So, H(+1) plus H(+1) plus O(-2) = Zero. Compounds that add up to zero are stable and tend to occur naturally, and they don't get much simpler than water.
Since many elements (including Hydrogen and Oxygen) don't like to be alone, they tend to pair up with themselves (or have molecules of more than 2 of that element, but Hydrogen and Oxygen make pairs). As they come together to make the compound, it still has to add up to zero, on both sides. And, since there's 2 Hydrogens for every 1 Oxygen, you need twice as much H as O.
So, for water, it's
2H2+O2=2H20
Four Hydrogens plus two Oxygens make two waters.
Mathematically, that's 2(2(+1)) + 2(-2)=2(2(+1)-2) Both sides equal zero, so it's a balanced equation.
Yeah, there's a LOT of math in Chemistry and it's not possible to do the math correctly if you don't know your valences. I first took Chemistry more than thirty years ago and I STILL know them, they were burned so brightly into my brain. :)
Fwiw, Inorganic Chemistry (what lots of kids take in high school) is comparatively simple, it's just straight equation balancing with simple, straightforward bonds. For example, Iron Oxide (common rust) is Fe2O3 and looks like this. Organic Chem is a LOT harder and more complicated, because there are so, so many different kinds of bonds between the atoms and they make very convoluted shapes. As an example, simple Glucose (table sugar) is C6H12O6 and looks like this. Still pretty simple. Really. How about insulin? Its formula is C256H381N64O79S6 and it looks like this. Imagine balancing those equations!!
All of the chemicals, compounds, molecules and structures in the universe exist because of valences. If atoms weren't wanting to get rid of or add on electrons, nothing would bind together. So we owe those little loose electrons a lot. :)
My favorite class in high school was Chemistry. Really. Was freaking awesome. I loved it so much I started college as a Pre-Vet Med/Chemistry DOUBLE major. Love, love LOVE chemistry. I've probably taken more collegiate Chem classes than most anyone else who ended up with an art degree. Organic, inorganic, biochem, pharmochem, applied chem... Ah, just thinking about it makes me giddy.
My high school chemistry teacher, Mr. Larry Dean, was incredible. He was a tough old bastard, but scary smart, sweet, ornery, and a quirky old coot, all at the same time. When we started Chemistry as high school juniors (I think there were about 25 of us, maybe more) and the first thing he made us do was learn our elements and valences. On the first day of class he gave us a list of about thirty elements with their symbols each with some weird numbers he said were valences. He told us to memorize it, there'd be a test the next day, then he went on to begin explaining the periodic table, which was in our book.
The next day we did have a test. He'd say the name of an element and we had to write its symbol and all of its valences. In the order he spoke them. Any mistakes, and I mean ANY mistakes, it was counted wrong. Forget a plus or minus? The whole entry's wrong. Forget to capitalize the first letter of the symbol? Wrong. Forget a valence number? Wrong. We handed our papers to the kid beside us for grading and we were to tally up the ones they'd missed, and the ones they got right. Then we took the right ones minus the wrong ones, and that was our score for the day's valence test. So, out of 30 items, if you miss 8 you got 22 right, so it's 22-8 which becomes 14 out of a possible 30 points. That's less than 50%!
Right Minus Wrong grading is a bitch kitty to endure. You either learn the stuff fast and KNOW it, or you're going to fail.
Before the first month or so was over (and we'd moved from Valences to doing the same right minus wrong thing with a blank periodic table, filling in symbols, atomic numbers, weights, and ionic numbers), we'd whittled down to eight of us, three girls, five boys. We were together for two years, through basic and advanced chemistry. I can't recall any of us screwing up an experiment because we knew our stuff, by god. It was branded into our brains. Balancing equations became incredibly easy, like breathing. So many on this side equals the same number on that side. Gotta count those electrons, baby!
What a valence shows is how many electrons a given atom has to either give up or gain to combine with another atom (and make a compound or molecule). For example, in one water compound (H2O) there are two Hydrogens (H) and one Oxygen (O) - the teensy 2 says there are 2 Hydrogens and no number beside the Oxygen means there's only one. The H's each have a valence of +1 (it has an extra electron out there all alone it wants to lose), and the Oxygen has a valence of -2 (it has a space for two more electrons to gain). The problem is how to make the plusses and minuses add up to zero.
So, H(+1) plus H(+1) plus O(-2) = Zero. Compounds that add up to zero are stable and tend to occur naturally, and they don't get much simpler than water.
Since many elements (including Hydrogen and Oxygen) don't like to be alone, they tend to pair up with themselves (or have molecules of more than 2 of that element, but Hydrogen and Oxygen make pairs). As they come together to make the compound, it still has to add up to zero, on both sides. And, since there's 2 Hydrogens for every 1 Oxygen, you need twice as much H as O.
So, for water, it's
2H2+O2=2H20
Four Hydrogens plus two Oxygens make two waters.
Mathematically, that's 2(2(+1)) + 2(-2)=2(2(+1)-2) Both sides equal zero, so it's a balanced equation.
Yeah, there's a LOT of math in Chemistry and it's not possible to do the math correctly if you don't know your valences. I first took Chemistry more than thirty years ago and I STILL know them, they were burned so brightly into my brain. :)
Fwiw, Inorganic Chemistry (what lots of kids take in high school) is comparatively simple, it's just straight equation balancing with simple, straightforward bonds. For example, Iron Oxide (common rust) is Fe2O3 and looks like this. Organic Chem is a LOT harder and more complicated, because there are so, so many different kinds of bonds between the atoms and they make very convoluted shapes. As an example, simple Glucose (table sugar) is C6H12O6 and looks like this. Still pretty simple. Really. How about insulin? Its formula is C256H381N64O79S6 and it looks like this. Imagine balancing those equations!!
All of the chemicals, compounds, molecules and structures in the universe exist because of valences. If atoms weren't wanting to get rid of or add on electrons, nothing would bind together. So we owe those little loose electrons a lot. :)
23 April, 2012
U is for Underwear
You can find a full list of my A to Z challenge posts here. :)
Hmm. A few days ago I'd mentioned that I had posted about religion, politics, and money, but my S wasn't for sex.
Instead, I shall talk about underwear today, mostly because my husband suggested it, and he probably suggested this particular topic because he thought I wouldn't do it.
Ha ha, babe I am! So there! ;)
Don't anyone ever say I don't have guts. Or a sense of humor. ;)
Anyway, as we all know, underwear covers up our, ahem, naughty bits. Gonads. Genitals. Privates. Uglies. Yee-haws. What have you. It was originally created so that we humans could wear our clothing longer since most people didn't have more than one or two sets of clothing and laundry was a PITA. Don't have to wash the trousers so much if they're not getting skid marks, right? While we still wear undies to help protect our clothing, it's also become a whole category of clothing on its own.
Disclaimer: Some of the following links might not be safe for work. Or your computer screen if you're drinking a beverage. Many of the links are ADULTS ONLY.
Underwear can be sexy, comfortable, lacy, shiny, funny, saggy, tight, uplifting, loose, cheap, expensive, absurd, redundant, or totally absent. You can go for the traditional, or something a bit more modern. Total coverage, or minimal, or somewhere between. Sometimes, people even wear underwear on the outside of their clothes and there's a whole series of children's books dedicated to an underwear super hero!
So there you go. Underwear.
Wait. Don't go in your underwear, take them off first. ;)
Hmm. A few days ago I'd mentioned that I had posted about religion, politics, and money, but my S wasn't for sex.
Instead, I shall talk about underwear today, mostly because my husband suggested it, and he probably suggested this particular topic because he thought I wouldn't do it.
Ha ha, babe I am! So there! ;)
Don't anyone ever say I don't have guts. Or a sense of humor. ;)
Anyway, as we all know, underwear covers up our, ahem, naughty bits. Gonads. Genitals. Privates. Uglies. Yee-haws. What have you. It was originally created so that we humans could wear our clothing longer since most people didn't have more than one or two sets of clothing and laundry was a PITA. Don't have to wash the trousers so much if they're not getting skid marks, right? While we still wear undies to help protect our clothing, it's also become a whole category of clothing on its own.
Disclaimer: Some of the following links might not be safe for work. Or your computer screen if you're drinking a beverage. Many of the links are ADULTS ONLY.
Underwear can be sexy, comfortable, lacy, shiny, funny, saggy, tight, uplifting, loose, cheap, expensive, absurd, redundant, or totally absent. You can go for the traditional, or something a bit more modern. Total coverage, or minimal, or somewhere between. Sometimes, people even wear underwear on the outside of their clothes and there's a whole series of children's books dedicated to an underwear super hero!
So there you go. Underwear.
Wait. Don't go in your underwear, take them off first. ;)
T is for Truth
You can find a full list of my A to Z challenge posts here. :)
Webster's has several definitions for truth (btw, you have to boggle at the circular logic of the English language and its frequent use of having a given word be part of its own definition) but the one I like the best is 1b: Sincerity in action, character and utterance.
Let's face it, part of a novelists job is telling lies. The characters, their thoughts, their actions, their place of being, their everything is a lie. There aren't real people in novels, they're constructs on a page. They're imaginary. False. Mere illustrations and whimsey. As are the events that unfold around the characters. While a novel may reflect a specific real person, place, or event, the actuality of fiction is falsehood.
However, another incredibly important part of fiction is telling the truth. In some ways, I think it's more important than the lie of fiction itself, in fact, writers use the lie to show the truth.
A character, regardless of their place in a narrative must ring true or the reader is less likely to follow them through the story. For example, if you're writing a powerful business magnate, he or she is not going to sit at a table with the board of directors and whine about how life is so unfair, everyone hates them, and they really wish someone would ask them to the homecoming dance. A teenager with low self esteem, maybe. A corporate CEO at a board meeting, um, no, not unless they've ingested some pretty extreme pharmaceuticals. But it goes deeper than that. The truth of a character is in the little things. How do they treat others? How do they carry themselves? What's their internal dialog like? What's hidden behind their outer shell?
Let's say a female character spends their spare time - what little they have in the busy fictional life they lead, ha ha - curled up on the couch with a sappy romance novel. What does that illustrate about her? Pretty standard stuff, right? What if, instead, she sits on that same couch drinking cheap beer while cussing at the Westminster Kennel Club Dog Show finals on TV? It's a completely different picture and, in some ways, a lot more true. Human beings tend to be complex. Characters should reflect that, they should showcase their own inner truth, their own unique sincerity.
A character might lie, cheat, steal and murder, but in their heart of hearts are they despicable without any redeeming quality at all? Are they struggling? Are they lashing out in pain? Are they hopeful, determined, jaded, or on a noble mission? Or do they find mayhem and sadism a sexual turn on? Find that inner truth, that sincerity of that character's actions, inner motivations and utterances, then show readers that shining core.
I believe that fiction, good fiction at least, should have a truth at its heart while telling its lie of a story. A reader will take that truth and make it their own. Often that truth varies from reader to reader. For example, is Stephen King's THE STAND about humankind's quest to exterminate members of its own species? Is it about listening to your dreams, regardless of how impossible they seem? Is it about snarling at the bad and embracing the good? Is it about the corruption of power? Hope? Death? Armageddon? Balance? Redemption? The contagion of religion? The power of friendship? The cost of delving where we should not have gone? I've heard people insist it's about those things and others because, in the book, there is an essential truth a lot of readers have connected with.
I don't know precisely what Mr. King truly intended to illustrate in the novel (he's mentioned he was intrigued by how we can't close pandora's box once it's been opened) but I am certain that whatever he intended to do didn't hit most of his readers. They found something else there instead. The readers found their own truth.
In my novels, I have consistently had a goal in mind, a topic or concept, a specific truth I want to examine and I tried to show this truth from as many angles as possible. So many angles and so much slamming the internal truth of my vision against the narrative that I thought it was blatantly obvious, that I was beating readers over the head with it.
Nope. Didn't happen. Readers consistently saw something else there. Something I hadn't intended, something they alone could see. But when a book is written with sincerity, when it's approached with the humbling task of showing the truth within the lie, when the writer really isn't talking about a murder or a plague or getting a date to the dance, but about something deeper and more true, a novel and its characters can come alive. There's no better story than one built around a hard core of truth.
Webster's has several definitions for truth (btw, you have to boggle at the circular logic of the English language and its frequent use of having a given word be part of its own definition) but the one I like the best is 1b: Sincerity in action, character and utterance.
Let's face it, part of a novelists job is telling lies. The characters, their thoughts, their actions, their place of being, their everything is a lie. There aren't real people in novels, they're constructs on a page. They're imaginary. False. Mere illustrations and whimsey. As are the events that unfold around the characters. While a novel may reflect a specific real person, place, or event, the actuality of fiction is falsehood.
However, another incredibly important part of fiction is telling the truth. In some ways, I think it's more important than the lie of fiction itself, in fact, writers use the lie to show the truth.
A character, regardless of their place in a narrative must ring true or the reader is less likely to follow them through the story. For example, if you're writing a powerful business magnate, he or she is not going to sit at a table with the board of directors and whine about how life is so unfair, everyone hates them, and they really wish someone would ask them to the homecoming dance. A teenager with low self esteem, maybe. A corporate CEO at a board meeting, um, no, not unless they've ingested some pretty extreme pharmaceuticals. But it goes deeper than that. The truth of a character is in the little things. How do they treat others? How do they carry themselves? What's their internal dialog like? What's hidden behind their outer shell?
Let's say a female character spends their spare time - what little they have in the busy fictional life they lead, ha ha - curled up on the couch with a sappy romance novel. What does that illustrate about her? Pretty standard stuff, right? What if, instead, she sits on that same couch drinking cheap beer while cussing at the Westminster Kennel Club Dog Show finals on TV? It's a completely different picture and, in some ways, a lot more true. Human beings tend to be complex. Characters should reflect that, they should showcase their own inner truth, their own unique sincerity.
A character might lie, cheat, steal and murder, but in their heart of hearts are they despicable without any redeeming quality at all? Are they struggling? Are they lashing out in pain? Are they hopeful, determined, jaded, or on a noble mission? Or do they find mayhem and sadism a sexual turn on? Find that inner truth, that sincerity of that character's actions, inner motivations and utterances, then show readers that shining core.
I believe that fiction, good fiction at least, should have a truth at its heart while telling its lie of a story. A reader will take that truth and make it their own. Often that truth varies from reader to reader. For example, is Stephen King's THE STAND about humankind's quest to exterminate members of its own species? Is it about listening to your dreams, regardless of how impossible they seem? Is it about snarling at the bad and embracing the good? Is it about the corruption of power? Hope? Death? Armageddon? Balance? Redemption? The contagion of religion? The power of friendship? The cost of delving where we should not have gone? I've heard people insist it's about those things and others because, in the book, there is an essential truth a lot of readers have connected with.
I don't know precisely what Mr. King truly intended to illustrate in the novel (he's mentioned he was intrigued by how we can't close pandora's box once it's been opened) but I am certain that whatever he intended to do didn't hit most of his readers. They found something else there instead. The readers found their own truth.
In my novels, I have consistently had a goal in mind, a topic or concept, a specific truth I want to examine and I tried to show this truth from as many angles as possible. So many angles and so much slamming the internal truth of my vision against the narrative that I thought it was blatantly obvious, that I was beating readers over the head with it.
Nope. Didn't happen. Readers consistently saw something else there. Something I hadn't intended, something they alone could see. But when a book is written with sincerity, when it's approached with the humbling task of showing the truth within the lie, when the writer really isn't talking about a murder or a plague or getting a date to the dance, but about something deeper and more true, a novel and its characters can come alive. There's no better story than one built around a hard core of truth.
21 April, 2012
S is for Silers
You can find a full list of my A to Z challenge posts here. :)
I've already blogged about my husband's family, now it's time to blog about mine.
I'm a first born, and a first grandchild (in fact the only grandchild until my brother came along), in a family that counts its members in the low 20's. Sure, if you add in the cousins and such out in Oklahoma and California we might hit forty, but it's still a pretty small family, at least compared to the Joneses.
Most of us lived on the same dead end dirt road, and most of us still do (my sister, a couple of cousins, and I are the only ones who don't). We were rural and poor or close to it, for the most part, and we tend to stay put and avoid risks or upheaval. My aunt and uncle raised their kids and still live in a house they bought from my great-great uncle's family. My uncle and his wife and daughter live up the road (he'd purchased the house from a non-family member in the late '80s). We used to live in my cousin's old house (which had been my great grandparent's old house), and my mother lives in the same place I grew up, but in a new house built by my brother for his family.
When Bill and I lived in the neighborhood, my family owned four houses along a 1/8 mile stretch of dirt road. Seriously. There are good points and bad points for living so close to family. One good thing, holidays. My aunt Deanie used to host Christmas and we'd just walk up (after all, I could see her driveway from my back door). When my uncle Oscar took over hosting, we had to walk a little farther. We had almost endless connected yards. As a kid, I cold walk out of my great grandmother's house, head north, and could cross the yards of four more houses (all on half an acre or more) before hitting a non-family property line. There was a path, from my aunt Charlene at the north end, to my great grandma's back door at the south.
In small families you know everyone. There isn't any 'okay, now whose kid is that again?' like we have in Bill's family. Nope, I can easily identify every single person in my family, well, other than my cousin Tanya's kids who I barely know. She has a Tyler and a Megan, but I'm pretty sure there's a third one. I think.
I know that sounds awful, not knowing if my cousin - who I used to babysit - has a third (or 4th) child, but despite our small size, our family is kind of splintered.
After my great grandmother died, we pretty much stopped having summer cookouts together. Then Thanksgiving faded after my grandmother's death. I tried to resurrect Thanksgiving it after Bill and I married (all 22 of us us at our house), but it never caught on. Before my dad died, Christmas fell away. We all lived there on the same road, within shouting distance if you had decent lungs, and we rarely saw or talked to each other except on holidays, even when I was a kid. Now days, we rarely get together as a group unless there's a wedding or a funeral.
We all love each other, and we're friendly and have a nice time visiting when we do get together, but it's a quiet kind of thing. We're all intensely private, introverted people who are more interested in staying home than going out and partying. We have a definite tendency toward artistic personalities - my family is crammed full of artists, writers, musicians and people active in theater. We tend to have small families, no more than three children, and divorce is uncommon. We used to lean really liberal in politics, but that's changing for some of us to more libertarian views.
There is a lot of substance abuse in my family - I do not drink alcohol, at all, because 1) I really like the taste of whiskey 2) the one time I did get drunk it took me months to get the 'need' taste out of my mouth and 3) alcoholism is a bitch that I've seen it first hand. So no thank you, I'll just have iced tea. Within my family, there's been a good deal of trouble with drugs and almost everyone is (or was) a chain smoker. There's also a lot of depression. Is it the artistic temperaments? Is it our introversions? Is it because we're clannish and suspicious of outsiders - as my aunt has said, you're blood, or you're an in-law (married in and are accepted), or you're an out-law (married in and you are not)? Hell, I've been a blood member of my family for almost 48 years and I often feel like an out-law. Is it because we all lived so close together and have few secrets? Is it something else that keeps splintering us, some underlying current between us? I don't know. I do know that pretty much everyone who gets out of the neighborhood goes far, far away (often out of state) and rarely comes back. That's really sad because we are good people. We're just kinda quiet.
I've already blogged about my husband's family, now it's time to blog about mine.
I'm a first born, and a first grandchild (in fact the only grandchild until my brother came along), in a family that counts its members in the low 20's. Sure, if you add in the cousins and such out in Oklahoma and California we might hit forty, but it's still a pretty small family, at least compared to the Joneses.
Most of us lived on the same dead end dirt road, and most of us still do (my sister, a couple of cousins, and I are the only ones who don't). We were rural and poor or close to it, for the most part, and we tend to stay put and avoid risks or upheaval. My aunt and uncle raised their kids and still live in a house they bought from my great-great uncle's family. My uncle and his wife and daughter live up the road (he'd purchased the house from a non-family member in the late '80s). We used to live in my cousin's old house (which had been my great grandparent's old house), and my mother lives in the same place I grew up, but in a new house built by my brother for his family.
When Bill and I lived in the neighborhood, my family owned four houses along a 1/8 mile stretch of dirt road. Seriously. There are good points and bad points for living so close to family. One good thing, holidays. My aunt Deanie used to host Christmas and we'd just walk up (after all, I could see her driveway from my back door). When my uncle Oscar took over hosting, we had to walk a little farther. We had almost endless connected yards. As a kid, I cold walk out of my great grandmother's house, head north, and could cross the yards of four more houses (all on half an acre or more) before hitting a non-family property line. There was a path, from my aunt Charlene at the north end, to my great grandma's back door at the south.
In small families you know everyone. There isn't any 'okay, now whose kid is that again?' like we have in Bill's family. Nope, I can easily identify every single person in my family, well, other than my cousin Tanya's kids who I barely know. She has a Tyler and a Megan, but I'm pretty sure there's a third one. I think.
I know that sounds awful, not knowing if my cousin - who I used to babysit - has a third (or 4th) child, but despite our small size, our family is kind of splintered.
After my great grandmother died, we pretty much stopped having summer cookouts together. Then Thanksgiving faded after my grandmother's death. I tried to resurrect Thanksgiving it after Bill and I married (all 22 of us us at our house), but it never caught on. Before my dad died, Christmas fell away. We all lived there on the same road, within shouting distance if you had decent lungs, and we rarely saw or talked to each other except on holidays, even when I was a kid. Now days, we rarely get together as a group unless there's a wedding or a funeral.
We all love each other, and we're friendly and have a nice time visiting when we do get together, but it's a quiet kind of thing. We're all intensely private, introverted people who are more interested in staying home than going out and partying. We have a definite tendency toward artistic personalities - my family is crammed full of artists, writers, musicians and people active in theater. We tend to have small families, no more than three children, and divorce is uncommon. We used to lean really liberal in politics, but that's changing for some of us to more libertarian views.
There is a lot of substance abuse in my family - I do not drink alcohol, at all, because 1) I really like the taste of whiskey 2) the one time I did get drunk it took me months to get the 'need' taste out of my mouth and 3) alcoholism is a bitch that I've seen it first hand. So no thank you, I'll just have iced tea. Within my family, there's been a good deal of trouble with drugs and almost everyone is (or was) a chain smoker. There's also a lot of depression. Is it the artistic temperaments? Is it our introversions? Is it because we're clannish and suspicious of outsiders - as my aunt has said, you're blood, or you're an in-law (married in and are accepted), or you're an out-law (married in and you are not)? Hell, I've been a blood member of my family for almost 48 years and I often feel like an out-law. Is it because we all lived so close together and have few secrets? Is it something else that keeps splintering us, some underlying current between us? I don't know. I do know that pretty much everyone who gets out of the neighborhood goes far, far away (often out of state) and rarely comes back. That's really sad because we are good people. We're just kinda quiet.
20 April, 2012
R is for Royalties
You can find a full list of my A to Z challenge posts here. :)
Religion, politics, and money. I really know how to pick my topics. Thank goodness I didn't pick Sex for my S entry. ;)
When I was in the 'aspiring writer' stage of my writing career, I ran into a lot of inaccurate information about royalties and advances. What I've learned these past few years, though, is pretty simple and straight forward. I'm going to use simple numbers (which may or may not reflect actual, realistic sales) but they should give everyone an idea of how this 'getting paid to write fiction' thing works, at least in traditional publication.
Let's start with the advance. When a publisher buys the rights to publish your book, they pay an advance on future sales, also simply known as an advance.
To keep things simple, let's say you get a $10,000 advance (first novels are usually quite a lot less than this, btw, but $10k is a nice round number). Usually, it'll be split into two or three pieces. In my case, it was signing the contract (or on signing), a third when the book and its various rewrites and changes meet publisher expectations and it's accepted to head off to production (on acceptance), and the final third when the finished, printed, published book is released for sale (on publication). So, the publisher would cut three checks of $3333.33 each. If you have an agent (and, imho, if you're being traditionally published, you should) your agent gets a piece of the action, usually 15%. The publisher sends every payment to your agent, they remove their portion, then send you a check from their agency for $2,833.33 for each advance payment. An agented writer's total income from the $10k advance is $8500.
Publication contracts usually have a whole section dedicated to time, as in when various things should happen. The writer (you) must deliver a completed manuscript by a particular date, the book should head off to production by a particular date, the book will be published on a particular date, and the publisher will pay you (for the advance and any subsequent royalties) by a particular date. Usually, advances are paid within 30 days of the signing, acceptance, and publication milestones. Royalties are calculated once or twice a year (generally June 30 and/or December 31) and the publisher then has a specific time window (often 90 days) to pay any royalty income (again, to your agent, should you have one). Agencies have a much quicker turn around time - they want to keep their writers happy. I generally get a check from my agency within a week of my publisher's cut off day. The publisher will usually delay payment as long as they can.
So, that $8500 is spread over three payments that might take as long as two years to get fully paid to the writer.
Unlike a lot of rumors I heard when I was working on my first novel, a writer does NOT have to pay back the advance should the book be a sales dud. The publisher uses the advance as an Advance on Future Sales, and they're essentially making a bet that the book will sell enough copies to make that much money back, if not more. If it doesn't, their gamble didn't pay off. You still get to keep the money.
Okay, finally we're to Royalties.
When a writer signs their publication contract, there's a whole section dedicated to the amount of royalties each book will earn. They're sometimes broken down into sets of units sold (so the writer's royalty rate increases as they sell more than 100,000 copies or a million) and there are usually different royalty rates on hardcover, trade paperback, mass market paperback, and ebook versions.
To keep things simple, let's put a 10% royalty rate on a mass market paperback that the publisher has decided to sell for $8.00 cover price (actual royalty rates for mass market are usually around 6-8%, but 10% is an easier number). With every single book that sells, the writer gets 80 cents. So a thousand sold books earns the author $800. However, the writer was already paid an advance on sales, so, at 80¢ per book, it will take 10,625 books sold before the author has paid off their $10,000 advance (this is referred to as 'the book has earned out'). After that, and only after that, does the writer start getting royalty checks.
Does that make sense? Every book counts toward paying off the advance, but once the book's earned out the author will receive a royalty payment for subsequent sales.
Publishers usually calculate royalties once or twice a year, then they have their grace period (usually 90 days) before they have to pay the writer and, sometimes, it's within 60 days of the 90 days or other crazy delaying tactics. Frankly, this is a major reason why writers need agents. They will negotiate much better terms for royalty rates, payment speeds, cover prices, and what other rights the author keeps (like foreign print, audio, film, etc) because without an agent the publisher might keep pretty much everything and only pay out 120 days after the 6 months after the end of year. So it might take 2 years to get paid for book sales. It's crazy.
But, anyway, our writer's book earns out! At the end of year royalty calculation they've sold a thousand copies more than the 10,625 break even point and the publisher sends a payment of $800 to the agent some time the following spring. The agent then sends our writer a royalty check for $680. Yay!
As long as the book is in print and selling copies, whether it's for six weeks or twenty years, it will continue to receive royalties. Publishing contracts stipulate under what conditions the rights revert to the author or their heirs (common ones are stalled sales or a specific time limit). The book can then be re-sold to that same publisher (with a different contract), another publisher, or simply fade from publication.
Most writers never hit the big money of bestseller lists and, frankly, most books don't earn out at all, but even a small royalty check is nice when it comes. :)
Religion, politics, and money. I really know how to pick my topics. Thank goodness I didn't pick Sex for my S entry. ;)
When I was in the 'aspiring writer' stage of my writing career, I ran into a lot of inaccurate information about royalties and advances. What I've learned these past few years, though, is pretty simple and straight forward. I'm going to use simple numbers (which may or may not reflect actual, realistic sales) but they should give everyone an idea of how this 'getting paid to write fiction' thing works, at least in traditional publication.
Let's start with the advance. When a publisher buys the rights to publish your book, they pay an advance on future sales, also simply known as an advance.
To keep things simple, let's say you get a $10,000 advance (first novels are usually quite a lot less than this, btw, but $10k is a nice round number). Usually, it'll be split into two or three pieces. In my case, it was signing the contract (or on signing), a third when the book and its various rewrites and changes meet publisher expectations and it's accepted to head off to production (on acceptance), and the final third when the finished, printed, published book is released for sale (on publication). So, the publisher would cut three checks of $3333.33 each. If you have an agent (and, imho, if you're being traditionally published, you should) your agent gets a piece of the action, usually 15%. The publisher sends every payment to your agent, they remove their portion, then send you a check from their agency for $2,833.33 for each advance payment. An agented writer's total income from the $10k advance is $8500.
Publication contracts usually have a whole section dedicated to time, as in when various things should happen. The writer (you) must deliver a completed manuscript by a particular date, the book should head off to production by a particular date, the book will be published on a particular date, and the publisher will pay you (for the advance and any subsequent royalties) by a particular date. Usually, advances are paid within 30 days of the signing, acceptance, and publication milestones. Royalties are calculated once or twice a year (generally June 30 and/or December 31) and the publisher then has a specific time window (often 90 days) to pay any royalty income (again, to your agent, should you have one). Agencies have a much quicker turn around time - they want to keep their writers happy. I generally get a check from my agency within a week of my publisher's cut off day. The publisher will usually delay payment as long as they can.
So, that $8500 is spread over three payments that might take as long as two years to get fully paid to the writer.
Unlike a lot of rumors I heard when I was working on my first novel, a writer does NOT have to pay back the advance should the book be a sales dud. The publisher uses the advance as an Advance on Future Sales, and they're essentially making a bet that the book will sell enough copies to make that much money back, if not more. If it doesn't, their gamble didn't pay off. You still get to keep the money.
Okay, finally we're to Royalties.
When a writer signs their publication contract, there's a whole section dedicated to the amount of royalties each book will earn. They're sometimes broken down into sets of units sold (so the writer's royalty rate increases as they sell more than 100,000 copies or a million) and there are usually different royalty rates on hardcover, trade paperback, mass market paperback, and ebook versions.
To keep things simple, let's put a 10% royalty rate on a mass market paperback that the publisher has decided to sell for $8.00 cover price (actual royalty rates for mass market are usually around 6-8%, but 10% is an easier number). With every single book that sells, the writer gets 80 cents. So a thousand sold books earns the author $800. However, the writer was already paid an advance on sales, so, at 80¢ per book, it will take 10,625 books sold before the author has paid off their $10,000 advance (this is referred to as 'the book has earned out'). After that, and only after that, does the writer start getting royalty checks.
Does that make sense? Every book counts toward paying off the advance, but once the book's earned out the author will receive a royalty payment for subsequent sales.
Publishers usually calculate royalties once or twice a year, then they have their grace period (usually 90 days) before they have to pay the writer and, sometimes, it's within 60 days of the 90 days or other crazy delaying tactics. Frankly, this is a major reason why writers need agents. They will negotiate much better terms for royalty rates, payment speeds, cover prices, and what other rights the author keeps (like foreign print, audio, film, etc) because without an agent the publisher might keep pretty much everything and only pay out 120 days after the 6 months after the end of year. So it might take 2 years to get paid for book sales. It's crazy.
But, anyway, our writer's book earns out! At the end of year royalty calculation they've sold a thousand copies more than the 10,625 break even point and the publisher sends a payment of $800 to the agent some time the following spring. The agent then sends our writer a royalty check for $680. Yay!
As long as the book is in print and selling copies, whether it's for six weeks or twenty years, it will continue to receive royalties. Publishing contracts stipulate under what conditions the rights revert to the author or their heirs (common ones are stalled sales or a specific time limit). The book can then be re-sold to that same publisher (with a different contract), another publisher, or simply fade from publication.
Most writers never hit the big money of bestseller lists and, frankly, most books don't earn out at all, but even a small royalty check is nice when it comes. :)
19 April, 2012
Q is for Quilting
You can find a full list of my A to Z challenge posts here. :)
Finally, something fun to blog about!
I began quilting almost 22 years ago. I'd sewn quite a lot of our daughter's baby clothes and had all sorts of scrap hunks, nothing big enough to for more clothing, but too big to throw away (I have issues about wasting things).
Anyway, I decided that people used to make quilts out of their scrap hunks so maybe I should, too. I gathered them up, found a pattern for a star I kinda liked, and I even went out and bought a bedsheet to use for the 'white part'.
Then I had to trace and cut what seemed like eight-hundred-gazillion pieces for a bed sized quilt. It was made from the cheapest fabrics at the dime store (all I could afford) and a couple of bedsheets.
I still have it.
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| My first quilt ever. It's a hot mess. |
I was so, so proud of what I'd made, at least until it started falling apart. I'd made so, so many mistakes out of ignorance, but back in 1990 there weren't a lot of handy resources on quilt making. I went back to sewing baby clothes because they were easier, cheaper, and didn't fall apart.
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| Iowa State Quilters Challenge, 1995. |
Then one day, our local PBS station showed a new program on Saturdays. Strip Quilting with Kay Wood. The woman is a freaking genius and I was almost immediately hooked. With Kaye's guidance (and a cutting mat, cutter, and one ruler), I made a little bargello wallhanging out of my baby-clothes scraps (Laura still has it hanging on her wall, it's so cute).
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| Snowmen Door Hangers, 2009 |
Now that I had a little more confidence, I decided to tackle Kaye Wood's take on a Lone Star Quilt. I don't have it anymore (it was the first quilt I gave away, to my new niece, Jordan) but it turned out pretty darn good (and I think Jordan still has it, too). I had to go out and buy Kaye's special triangle ruler, another first. I started buying greater amounts of fabric when shopping to make baby clothes so I'd have enough for quilting. I started subscribing to Quiltmaker Magazine (I'm still a subscriber). And I taped every episode on Saturday afternoons.
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| Color Challenge Quilt, 2010 |
Yep, I was hooked.
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| Threads of Malice Tour Quilt, 2006 |
I've since figured out quarter inch seams and never use sheets for anything but, well, sheets. I also no longer buy the cheapest fabric I can find, in fact I don't flinch at $12 a yard - or higher - fabrics. I've done hand and machine applique, and hand and machine quilting (I prefer using my sewing machine for both). I've entered quilts in competitions that I've won, and a lot more that I didn't.
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| Winners Bouquet, 2012 |
I do all sorts of techniques and styles, but my fabric choices are almost always scrappy. I wouldn't hesitate to use more than one hundred different fabrics, if I thought the quilt needed them (my most, so far, is more than 400 in one quilt).
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| Christmas Table Runner, 2010 |
I've sewn so many quilts that I've burned out the motor on two sewing machines.
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| Pieced Dawgies, 2012 |
And I still give away almost every quilt I make.
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| Twice As Nice, 2011 |
Quilting keeps me sane, and helps me remain happy. It's a great hobby to have.
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| Henry's Quilt, 2010 |
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