And that's the worst that can happen?

I was thinking of titling this post 'Meditations on editorial correspondence III', or some such, as it seems to fit into that thread.  But, unlike earlier postings, nobody's wearing a black hat; everybody appears to be on the side of the angels.  And the worst that anybody can be accused of is over-complication.

It concerns my dealings with Vice Media and its web-based publishing venture, Terraform.  Which, on the whole, have been perfectly pleasurable.  If complicated.

I'd submitted four stories to them previously.  All of them were received with a wall of silence; but that's okay, they make it clear that they only respond in order to accept and you should assume the worst after four months.  It's not the typical way to run a publishing endeavour, but that's their privilege, and the important thing is that they make the process crystal clear up front.

My fifth story, A Second Opinion, hit the target.  A story that either is "difficult... quiet but fascinating" or "doesn't actually seem to do much", depending on which side of the critical bed you got out.  It was accepted in January and ran the next month, all without edits being asked for.  From the outside looking in, all very smooth.

But this hides a somewhat odd process, which ended up kicking up a bit of dust on Absolute Write.

You see, the way the contractual/purchasing (rather than editing) side typically works is that the writer gets an email accepting the work, followed by a contract, which will set out rights and payments.  Sign, scan and return, assuming all is well.

Not with Terraform.  Sure, they send out a contract but, as far as the bespoke bits particular to you and your story, it's blank.  Yep, blank.  You even get to fill in the payment amount.

And publication isn't dependent on signing and returning the contract.  Mine is still somewhere in a pile of papers on my desk.  Why?  Well, partially a stereotypical writer's way with paperwork, but mainly having been put through the wringer with Terraform's invoicing process.

They ask you to send an invoice - remember, after you, the writer, have specified the amount, even though they specify the payment per word.  Given virtually every small publisher I've dealt with insists on payment via PayPal, I sent a PayPal invoice.

No, no.  Not PayPal, they said, and sent me an email address specifically for invoices.  So I ran one up in the style of my non-writing working life.

Only at this point did they send me their invoicing requirements, needing IBAN numbers and W-8BEN forms.  So, a morning was spent finding out what an IBAN number was and, more specifically, what mine is.  Quite why they need to make matters so complicated is beyond me.  Are they paranoid lawyers, seeing litigation at every turn?  Have they been bruised by the IRS before and are playing it with an absolutely straight bat?  Maybe everybody else is getting it wrong?

That bureaucratic dragon slayed, the important thing to stress is that payment was made exactly as they said it would be.  My story was published, and I got paid - at $0.20 per word, well above the 'professional' minimum.  What's not to like?  Like I said, what's the worst that can happen?

Well, Victoria Strauss of the SFWA, gave me an answer:

Thanks for sharing the contract and the emails. I really appreciate it.

It's a poor contract, and not just because of the blanks. You were right to ask for something to be added to address the possibility that Vice wound up not publishing the story--as the contract is written, if that happens there is no provision at all for the grant of rights to terminate. They just kind of slid over that point without addressing it. They are also incorrect in stating that "all rights revert to you" three months after publication. After the three months, Vice retains non-exclusive rights "in perpetuity," which means they could produce any number of reprints or anthologies with your story in them and never pay you another penny.  They can also assign those rights to any third party they please. You're getting paid, and you retain copyright and the right to re-publish your story, but you are also losing control of it, given the wide-ranging publication and assignment rights that Vice retains.

I also find it bizarre, and not at all professional, that they would publish your story without a signed contract in hand. That's just foolish. Contracts also protect a publisher.

Obviously that is a worst case scenario, and what is much more likely to happen is that Vice displays your story, maybe puts it in an anthology somewhere down the road, and that's it. But in evaluating publishing contracts, you always need to consider the worst-case scenario that's presented by the literal contract language, and ask yourself if you're comfortable with that, even if it's a remote possibility.

I've already, after a great deal of thought, turned down an offer of publication of a story on the grounds that the publisher was so under the radar that I didn't believe anybody would get to read it.  It made me question my professional approach to writing short fiction, and I decided that it was to draw people to my longer works, such as '2084'.  Short fiction, I concluded after that experience, is merely a means to an end - did somebody say 'starvation' at the back? - no, I mean, drawing readers into your wider storyverse.

So, the worst that could happen is that... Vice Media may run it again and... more people may read it...

As long as it still has my name on it and, ideally, a bio and a mention of my other works, that sounds like wins all round to me.

PS - and, yes, that kill fee from Carrie Cuinn's still outstanding...

Victorian Dad

As regular readers will be aware, my interpretation of my own rules is so fast and loose that I'm happy to jump from the premise that science fiction encompasses stories, any story, set in the future, to include any idea about how the present will transmute into the time yet to pass.

From there, it's a short jump to musing on how the past has become the present, as how else do we learn what direction we're heading in?  And this is all in the context of my rejection of the teleological approach to history, the idea that we're progressing towards something or someplace.  Rather, I firmly hold that we're running around in circles, repeating ourselves, learning from our mistakes and, to quote my fellow Torquinian, Peter Cook, repeating them exactly.

Such as the Pilgrim Fathers being proto-Taliban, too puritan to live in England, therefore they had to find a big empty (more or less) space to be narrow-minded and bigoted in.  Or Isis' destruction of Palmyra?  Henry VIII's Reformation of the Church just coming around again.  We just don't have much of a record of all the iconography and art that his soldiers burnt and broke, just a countryside littered with the broken remains of monasteries like bleached whale skeletons washed up on the beach.

If we're going anywhere, it's with a drunk's walk at best, stumbling on sights that look all too familiar because we've been here before.

So, today's sermon is about Victorian parenting.

When I had kids I imagined a house of footsteps, laughter, shouting, loud music.  Okay, with me in the background yelling for quiet, with the same hope Cnut must have felt standing on the shingle.  Instead, in the early stages of the twenty-first century, I have a house of silence.  Like a library or a monastery.  Except with less reading or illuminating of manuscripts.  Instead, pixelated footballers, racing drivers or gunmen are being manipulated, or videos of sharks are being watched.  All with headphones over teenage ears.

Children should be seen and not heard, the saying goes.  I don't think this is what was intended.

If they ever picked up a book and stumbled across a Victorian reference to children being sent to their rooms, they'd be mystified.  That's exactly where they gravitate to.  In a world of central heating and wifi, they can't compute the very idea that bedrooms were cold and lonely spaces, away from the hearth and welcome hubbub of family life.  We all die alone, the cliche goes; I seem to be watching a social experiment that suggests we all wish to live alone as well.

We went to visit my father-in-law in hospital yesterday; I noticed the occupant on the next bed and his visitor, young marrieds, whether literally or figuratively, lay and sat, respectively, in silence, staring at their screens.  That would have been dystopian sci-fi ten years ago; now it's just everyday.

And in fifty years?  Don't be surprised if we're all living in individual pods in tower blocks, a beehive writ large, in-eye VR technology giving us the illusion of space or a sea view, as well as all the information, entertainment and networking we demand.  Action-at-a-distance (A3D) technology will enable us to do any job from the comfort of own pod, a robotic avatar reproducing the movements of our hands exactly, whether polishing a diamond or signing a contract.  Drones will bring us food; 3D printers will provide our shoes and clothes.

Maybe the only hope for the planet is that we forget to come together to procreate.

Bookends to a car journey

Yesterday, I spent seven and a half hours out of ten and a half driving, on a round trip that should have taken five.  On the outward leg, I listened to a podcast of Kermode and Mayo's Film Review covering Star Wars: The Last Jedi (yes, as usual, I'll get to the their Christmas special around Easter).  On the way back I caught, amongst many other things, the first half of the new Hitchhikers' Guide to the Galaxy: Hexagonal Phase.

I think the former may go some way to explain my views of the latter.

You see, I have history with Hitchhikers', having played Arthur Dent in a school drama production some 31 years ago this month.  My first writing - well, 'with additional material by' - credit, as well.  It was very much in the ether during my youth, the original fits playing incongruously on the kitchen radio whilst my mother cooked lunch.  I read the first books when I was eleven, twelve, something like that, around when the TV series aired.  Basically, I was at that impressionable age when fads become obsessions, and Hitchhikers' could have been custom made for my academic, wordy, somewhat gauche former self.

And, vitally, I had somebody's dressing-gown tails to hang on to.  Arthur Dent's.  It's not just that there's a facet on me that's very Arthur: confused and pompous middle management, writing complaining letters to local newspapers.  It's that he's the classic everyman character, giving us our way into the fictional world, our bridge.  All of Adams' bizarre flights of fancy can be packaged and sold to us because Arthur has to take them at face value.  And, for the purposes of story, we are Arthur.

That's why Harry Potter works so wonderfully, but Urusla LeGuinn is somewhat more obtuse - sorry, where's my way into Earthsea?  It's why the Doctor has companions, not just to have somebody to talk to but for us to relate to.  It's why, contrary to what I was originally taught, the most interesting character is not necessarily always the hero of your story.

But that was all then.  Now?  Perhaps I'm jaded with age, but I found the new Hitchhikers' a mess of smart-cum-silly ideas, ridiculousness and daft names without any kind of framework.  Yes, it's not fair judging on half an episode (if only pedestrians playing with the traffic had closed the Brynglas Tunnels in both directions I may have caught all of it), but god knows I know that editors reading my stuff won't turn the first digital page over unless I give them reason to do so.  But I couldn't tell whose story it was, and if story is journey, where they needed to go.

I think it may have been John Cleese (and, remember, Douglas Adams was in the Python's circle) who said British comedy is silly things done straight, American is straight things done silly.  The original Hitchhiker's fits that mould: there's a very intelligent story structure behind it, which grounds the space-Dada.  The new stuff: silly done silly.  A natural clown only in the sense that its nose is red and bulbous before it sits in front of the make-up mirror.

(There's a separate but related note, on stories being key journeys that characters take only once; resurrect a character for a sequel and there's a feeling of artificiality, that he's completed this before.  The clear exception is police procedurals: cops keep being thrown problems in the real world, hence a constant grind of story doesn't ring false).

And this is what Kermode had said earlier that day that rang so true about Hitchhikers' in his review of The Last Jedi.  That character is story.  That protagonists do things, make the decisions which decree the way the story arcs, dependent on their characters.  Put well-defined characters in a situation and story will play out as a natural consequence.  Put simply, no other narrative will be possible: the writer is simply reporting what occurs, without losing sight of his cast as they race ahead.

I'm not sure I fully sign up to The Last Jedi being a masterpiece or for it being a glowing example of story progressing within the tight constraints of characters' beliefs, abilities and preferences.  But I think it hits the nail on the head of why I won't be seeking out the second half of that first episode of the Hexagonal Phase.

Stepping stones to happiness

Happy birthday to us!  This blog is four this month.  We can stand up without messing ourselves, and we remember to put the lid back on when we've been thieving from the biscuit tin.  Ah, those happy few months between nappies and glue sniffing...

As a birthday gift from me to you, here are number of links for you to click on, dear reader, apart from the one above that takes you to my dystopian thriller, 2084, which you will already have bought, of course.  Think of them as stepping stones to happiness.

Firstly, Terraform have my story, A Second Opinion, live on their site.  All my own work, as it were.

Third Flatiron, via their newspage, have launched their Monstrosities anthology, which includes a modest contribution from me.  I think that link will move with the times; you may find this link to Amazon to (pre-)order it more stable.  Go on, you know you want to.

Martin Greening's Tales of Ruma's kickstarter campaign is up and running.  I have a slightly less modest story somewhere within.  Invest $50 and get yourself a limited edition hardcover.

And this, Images Across a Shattered Sea by Stewart C Baker, in which I have no hand at all, but stumbled across and really rather enjoyed.

A reader writes

A review!  Of 2084!  A real review on goodreads.com, a four star review to boot:

It was an interesting story but I totally did not understand the ending!!!??? What?? It was like I had changed books or something. I was with the story till then. Was I missing some pages that explained how the main character's life changed??

Thank you Millie.

I’m pleased with that.  One of the books that sticks most in my mind is The Getaway by Jim Thompson, a great read, but a story with an ending that smacks of being written in a panic and on so many drugs that the author was probably as surprised by the denouement as his readership.  And I’d argue the clues as to where my story goes are pretty clearly laid out - in fact, I wouldn’t even describe it as a twist ending.  But it’s good to know that I’ve wrong-footed a reader at the death, without leaving anybody with a twisted ankle.

I’ll gloss over the fact that Millie tends to give five star reviews - she’s that kind of girl (no, I mean glass half full, not lacking in critical faculties).  Four stars is a long way from shoddy, and even Thompson gets 3.98.

Of course, The Getaway was filmed, with a more run of the mill ending, with Steve McQueen and Ali McGraw.  Me?  I’d settle for Sanjiv Bhaskar and that girl from 3-Headed Shark Attack...

Unknown unknowns

I was recently reading an interview with the legendary sage Eric Cantona where he was asked what his favourite emoji is.

Favourite emoji?  Is that a thing?  Am I meant to have a favourite letter of the alphabet?*  Never having tweeted or Facebooked I had no idea that I was meant to build up an emotional connection with these twenty-first century morphemes for idiots.  What next: what's my favourite spoon?

In other, less ranty, news, Third Flatiron have taken my flash story 'New Shoes' for their Spring 2018 Monstrosities anthology ("such a good idea it could have been longer"); and Terraform one called "A Second Opinion" ("wonderful").  Half way through January and I'm two thirds of the way to my annual target of three stories sold.  Which is nice.  Pro rates too, even if together they add up to a mere 1500 words or so.

* Clearly "@"

End of term report

Last year I moved the recording of my story submissions onto the Submissions Grinder, so it's dead easy to tell you that in 2017 I:

• made 214 submissions of
• around 45 short stories and flash fiction,
• including seven new stories,
• to around 85 publishers and publications, garnering
• five acceptances, and
• 173 rejections.

And it doesn't take Professor Hawking to conclude that 37 pieces are still out there, elbowing their way up the slush piles.  Hopefully.

The five acceptances:

• Shooting the Messenger, in NewCon Press' Best of British Science Fiction 2016;
• Product Recall, in Flash Fiction Online (which probably brings the acceptance score down to fourand a half, as I half-credited it last year as re-writes had been requested);
• The Trouble with Vacations, podcast in the Overcast;
• They Have Been to a Great Feast of Languages, and Stol'n the Scraps, in Daily Science Fiction; and
• Storm Warning, yet to appear in Tales of Ruma

On the subject of stories yet to appear, the second outing for Litterpicking on the Moon in Indie Authors Press' Chronos Chronicles is now due in the next month or two.  Hope nobody's been holding their breath.

So that's a first 'best of', a first podcast sale, a second reprint sale, and repeat business with Daily Science Fiction.  Two sales at professional SFWA rates, albeit for flash fiction.  2017 also saw the first time I've decided that it would be better for me to decline an offer to publish.  A pretty good year - my standing target of three sales met - but I'm as determined as ever to write something that'll make it to the hallowed ground of Clarkesworld, F&SF or Asimov's.  This year, this year... 

Otherwise, I had the tantalising possibility of dressing like a penguin in the heat of Los Angeles dangled before me before being snatched away, as a losing finalist in Ron L Hubbard's Writers of the Future competition.  I also scored an honourable mention later in the year.  (And, yes, I have carefully read the entry criteria, and I'm still amateur enough to qualify).

Of course, the real victory was the publication of my first novel, 2084 by Double Dragon Publishing.  This was sold in 2016; I had hoped to follow it up with a second novel sale, and the drafting of a third novel, but neither happened in 2017, even though my YA sci-fi adventure remains 'selected out of the slush pile for closer examination' by a major and well-respected SF publisher.

And, naturally, I'm still awaiting that kill fee from Carrie Cuinn at Lakeside Circus.  'Nuff said.