Another Acceptance

I just found this in my inbox, referring to a short story I had written and submitted to SageWoman Magazine:

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This is stunning, and (assuming that the entire issue doesn't evaporate -- which, very occasionally, does happen when not enough submissions arrive for a given theme) I will be delighted to publish it in the SageWoman Protection issue, currently slated for next winter (November 2011.) Can I hold it for that long?

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"Stunning". Wow. Now there's a word to warm a writer's heart. :)

Still waiting on Tor, and still working on both edits and another novel.

UPDATE: I replied to the above letter saying that I had written this story for SageWoman and had no other markets in mind for it, so they could keep it as long as necessary. This is the reply I received:

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Thanks for your graciousness -- and patience. it is a truly wonderful story, and I see perhaps as many as two dozen submissions a day, so that's high praise.

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SageWoman isn't the most widely circulated magazine, but it does have a solid audience, and I have family and friends who read it. And while the pay is small, there's immense professional satisfaction in getting another acceptance so close on the heels of my last one. If it comes out in November, "A Place For Deer" will be released just a few months after "You Don't Have to Cook in the Clink". 2011 is looking good!

The State of our Nation

I'm still working on edits, and I haven't forgotten that I said I'd do a blog comparing and contrasting Lulu and Createspace. But in the meantime, I found something I'd like to share.

Now, by "found", I mean "had it shoved under my nose by MacAllister over at Absolute Write". It comes from here: LINK I don't care if you like the source...facts are facts, and these are pretty damn straightforward.

Questions:

1:What was the average monthly private sector job growth in 2008, the final year of the Bush presidency, and what has it been so far in 2010?

2:What was the Federal deficit for the last fiscal year of the Bush presidency, and what was it for the first full fiscal year of the Obama presidency?

3:What was the stock market at on the last day of the Bush presidency? What is it at today?

4:Which party's candidate for speaker will campaign this weekend with a Nazi reenactor who dressed up in a SS uniform?

Answers:

1:In 2008, we lost an average of 317,250 private sector jobs per month. In 2010, we have gained an average of 95,888 private sector jobs per month. (Source) That's a difference of nearly five million jobs between Bush's last year in office and President Obama's second year.

2:In FY2009, which began on September 1, 2008 and represents the Bush Administration's final budget, the budget deficit was $1.416 trillion. In FY2010, the first budget of the Obama Administration, the budget deficit was $1.291 trillion, a decline of $125 billion. (Source) Yes, that means President Obama has cut the deficit -- there's a long way to go, but we're in better shape now than we were under Bush and the GOP.

3:On Bush's final day in office, the Dow, NASDAQ, and S&P 500 closed at 7,949, 1,440, and 805, respectively. Today, as of 10:15AM Pacific, they are at 11,108, 2,512, and 1,183. That means since President Obama took office, the Dow, NASDAQ, and S&P 500 have increased 40%, 74%, and 47%, respectively.

4:The Republican Party, whose candidate for speaker, John Boehner, will campaign with Nazi re-enactor Rich Iott this weekend. If you need an explanation why this is offensive, you are a lost cause.

Transcription of a Memoir

I mentioned in my last post that I had transcribed a manuscript for a friend of mine.

Seeing as that involves hours each day for over a month, followed by (in this case) a seven-hour stretch of formatting, it's not something I would do for just anyone, or for just any manuscript.

But this manuscript was extraordinary. It was a memoir, and I admit that it's probably not publishable in the traditional sense. It's mostly bare facts--true story telling only happens in snippets. The narrative jumps around and, at times, could be considered unreliable. Some of the structure isn't exactly perfect--I altered it a little as I went, correcting obvious errors, but I wanted the finished story to remain as true to the original, hand written manuscript as possible.

And let me tell you about that manuscript! It's called "An Angel's Apprenticeship", and is the memoir of a man whose precognition and supernatural experiences have often put him in direct conflict with the police. He has been jailed in multiple states (and I mean four plus) and two countries, and has been drugged out of his mind in a mental institution...until he made a daring escape! He's also fought for his life in the streets of San Francisco, going hand-to-hand with a man he first met in prison, during a "scuffle" with the guards. He met and loved some beautiful women, lived the high life and lived on the street. He sees his amazing life and chilling visions as a sort of trial by fire, during which he has learned everything he needed to know in order to deliver what he believes to be a life-or-death message to the world.

You don't have to believe in anything supernatural to be engrossed by this story. It's the voice that makes it fascinating...and that holds true regardless of what you decide about the narrator's reliability. In some cases, that could even increase the fascination.

At any rate, I had a lot of fun transcribing it. Putting it on Createspace, though, has not been fun at all. How the hell do you "imbed a font", again?

I was originally going to put this on Lulu...then I heard that Createspace produced the same product but at less cost to the consumer. I don't know...I may still go with Lulu for the e-book version. But, ultimately, that's going to be up to the book's actual author. However it's produced, I hope to be able to announce a low-cost way for everyone to read this manuscript soon. It's worth the effort!

New News...

I've filled out most of my Lyrical Press paperwork--everything but the tax forms. I'm waiting on an editor to be assigned to me. In the meantime, LP has asked me to set up a facebook page and a website, so I've done so, but under my pen name, Jennifer Catlett.

It's actually my maiden name. And I just told it to you. I have to be the worst secret keeper ever.

Anyway, the website is www.jennifercatlett.webs.com . There's pretty much nothing on it right now.

But I've been busy! I've started another novel, and so far, it's rip-roaring fun. I'm enjoying that new-novel rush. :) I'm also transcribing a hand-written novel for a friend, and let me tell ya, it's a doozy! I'll be sharing more information on that later.

Till then!

An Acceptance!

I subbed "You Don't Have to Cook in the Clink" to agents, and over and over, I got the same response: too short.

Fifty eight thousand words is novel length, but barely. Several agents said that anything under seventy five thousand was too short for them. I had a problem.

Then I realized that e-books are typically shorter than paperbacks, and the e-reader market (Kindle and Sony, amongst others) is really heating up right now. So I began researching E-publishers that served those markets.

At first, I met with disappointment. It seemed like every publisher that specialized in the e-market wanted Romance or Erotica and just about nothing else. Then I found Lyrical Press.

Lyrical Press offers its books in formats compatible with every e-reader I've heard of and several that I haven't. I've been in communication with several of their authors who report satisfying royalty statements and great publisher/author relationships. And getting accepted by Lyrical means something: they have high standards for what they'll accept. That's better for everyone, really. For me, it means a legitimate publisher. For readers, it means they don't purchase a novel that's not up to snuff.

So when will my novel be available for purchase? That depends, but it could be up to a year, or even more. If I had to guess (and right now, that's all anyone can do), I'd say probably 6-8 months. That's because Lyrical Press's editors have to go over my novel with a fine-tooth comb, then send it back to me to fix, then wait for me to send it back to them, then go over it to make sure I didn't make an even bigger mess of things, and then, if I haven't, get it ready for print in various formats.

Again: publishing is slow. If you want to make money quick, get just about any other job in the world.

I'm still waiting to hear back on the revisions to my short stories. Even they're slow.

That's just how it is. But that's okay. While I'm waiting, I can write another book...

And for now? I can do a happy dance. :)

My Little Pony...

Ok, so she's not actually a pony...Caspians are technically horses, despite being only 40-44 inches high at the withers.

But I have one, and she's for sale. Her name is Tala, named after my husband, Tal, because she was born on his birthday. :)

Here is her father:



(There are many more pictures of him here: Link )

And here is my son, Emrys, taking a ride on her mother. Notice that the reigns are not attached to a bit, but simply clicked to the(rather loose)halter:



And here, for your viewing pleasure, is Tala on the day she was born:



And here she is now:



She really takes after her father. :)



She is too young to be ridden, just yet--with Caspians, you wait until they're four, and Tala is two--but this would be a great time to get to know her, get some ground work in, and let her settle in to her new home before getting to work. She hasn't been handled much and can be a bit of a handful at this point...she really needs a special person to bond to her and commit to working with her.

Her underbelly is getting lighter all the time, and I suspect that as she ages she'll lighten, as her mother did...but right now, her coat really shines in the sun; it has a beautiful golden sheen when hit at the right angle.

Despite the rarity of Caspians and the high sell price of her parents, I'm willing to sell Tala for $1,000. I just don't have the time to work with her, and she has too much potential to be "just a broodmare".

Enchanted Castle 2

Sorry I haven't been posting much as of late. I'm still waiting on word from an agent and from two magazines. I've also started coaching soccer and running a karate class, so I've been pretty busy.

But enough excuses!

Here is the next installment of "Enchanted Castle". :)