In case you're wondering...

Since I haven't posted here in so long, and because I also have several friends on LiveJournal, I've started a new blog on LJ. You can find that here. This blog will most likely not be updated again, but I'm keeping my Blogger account so I can still make comments on Blogger blogs.

Just a hint so some people know that I'm not dead.

Why I Never Really Remember to Post

Despite all the good intentions, my blog has been very neglected, as usual. These past few months of my life have been really the most difficult I've ever had to handle. Part of the reason I don't post too much is that every time I think of something that might be blog-worthy, I back down because I think it might be giving away too much personal information. Among other reasons I forget this blog is even here: there's the whole 15-year-old fantasy writer thing, the Asperger's/autism and ADHD problems, the increasing or decreasing doses or entire stoppings in medications that have totally been fucking with my mind and have not made a good combination for other anxiety in my life, and realizing that I might have to live my adult life having to deal with crackheads saying things "you're going to hell, fag" and "ewww, OMG, that's so gross, why should we give you the same rights as we do?"

Lately, I've just been trying to catch-up and at least attempt to keep my life in balance. My book, which in the past nine months or so has sort of followed me on an emotional rollercoaster, is almost done in a rough draft (whatever that means; I've already revised some parts two or three times already). It's coming to have a much higher note as it heads toward the end. About half or two-thirds the way through the book, I started realizing my writing started to resemble decent prose. I've been in and out of dark moods and feelings so much during that time that I've already started to salvage the book through adding in my fairly-recently acquired quirky dark humor here and there. In many places, the book was getting too damn depressing. It feels like so much of the angst and emotions and feelings from the past year showed in many different places. Once I get this version done, it'll need a lot of wrinkle-smoothing, but I just might be able to save it eventually.

Lately, it's started to feel like my whole life is crashing down on me, so for my own sanity I'll try posting once in a while just so the people I know from writers' boards don't think I've croaked overnight.

If any of you who know me well are reading this, I could really use some prayers right about now. Or, just general good wishes sent my way.

As always,

Alan Yee (Sheep)

Back Into the Novel-Writing Groove

After I got back from winter break and went back to school, I found myself working on my novel when I had time. I was relieved to realize I was writing from the Point of View of the character I'd been avoiding awhile to his inspiration's death. The action is starting up again, with Mitch and Vladimir escaping Stan/Biter while they had the chance. It's odd, because I see the two of them as a lot stronger now than they did at the beginning when they caught in the middle of everything together.

In the past week or two it's gone from 85k to 89k, and it's speeding up a lot as it's headed toward the climax (which will take a while to write itself).

Since I wanted to work on the novel I was still in the mood, the Snow White-inspired story of Emilie the princess and Gunther the huntsman is currently on hold. I started another story today, starring another gay guy, but it's a lot less dark and sexy than the novel.

I seem to be in a gay/bi character mode at the moment. I really must write something without a major gay character... eventually, once I find the right story.

No other news really, besides some stuff I'd rather not talk about here.

2007 Not-Quite-a-Resolution a.k.a. Long-Delayed Update

Note to Self: It's your blog. Say whatever you want on it.

Lately I haven't felt like blogging. Or when I did, I thought it wasn't a good idea to post about that particular topic. I sometimes think I just don't have anything interesting to say, or have relevant commentary on anything important. Most of the time I forget my blog's even here.

But now with the New Year almost here, I intend to be more active on my blog. I'll try to actually post about my writing progress, submissions, life in general, etc., maybe even just blogs linking to fun stuff. Whether or not this will actually happen has yet to be determined, but hey, I posted something today.

I'll start off with all the not-too-shabby things I got for Christmas:

4 CDs: Fear of Flying and Mooding by Mya, Can't Take Me Home and Missundaztood by Pink.

Year's Best Fantasy 6 (edited by David G. Hartwell and Kathryn Cramer)
2007 Novel & Short Story Writer's Market.
Little Gods (short story collection) by Tim Pratt.
The Empire of Ice Cream / The Fantasy Writer's Assistant and Other Stories (ss collections), both by Jeffrey Ford.
Firebirds Rising (edited by Sharyn November).
Christ the Lord: Out of Egypt by Anne Rice.

But the highlight was In the Forest of Forgetting, the first full-length collection by Theodora Goss. I've been waiting for since about the summer of '05, when she announced it was forthcoming. In case you didn't know, she's my favorite fantasy story writer, and I can sound a bit obsessive when I talk about her and her stories. But I know for a fact I'm not the only one, so that's a temporary relief.

Though my Thanksgiving break didn't turn out as good I wanted, due to the death of someone who I kept thinking of every time I wrote about a certain character (who he partly inspired) in my book. For the past two months, including the month right before Thanksgiving, I couldn't get myself to work on my novel for various reasons.

But on Wednesday, Dec. 27th, I put on the music I usually listened to while working on my novel, and found myself working on it again just like before, continuing where I left off.

I'm also working on a quirky fairy-tale retelling, which goes by the working title of "Snow White's Revenge." I now like to think of it as "Snow White Gone Wild," but I won't give away what happens in my version. I'm sort of praying that Shawna McCarthy at Realms of Fantasy has a sense of dark humor, but I'll see.

And that's pretty much it for now. I have nothing else to say, other than I'm overjoyed that Martha Ivery is finally going to prison. 65 months. Mwahahahaha.

Hope everyone had a good Christmas and/or holiday season, and Happy New Year.

--Alan (now 15 as of October. I'm not getting old anytime soon.)

Why PublishAmerica Sucks Eggs: Part II

Yes, I know, I haven't been updating, but just be happy I remembered this time.

So, on toward Atlanta Nights by Travis Tea:

A few years ago, PublishAmerica got a little pissed off at the science fiction/fantasy community. For one thing, there was Victoria Strauss and Ann Crispin of Writer Beware and Dave Kuzminski of Preditors & Editors, the three main industry watchdogs who spread the word about scams to new writers. All three of them are published SF/F authors.

When PublishAmerica stepped onto the scene, these three did all they could to stir naive authors away from their clutches. Which made the Stooges very unhappy:

It was quite obvious that PA didn't exactly like SF/F authors. They said things like:

"[They are] writers who erroneously believe that SciFi, because it is set in a distant future, does not require believable storylines, or that Fantasy, because it is set in conditions that have never existed, does not need believable every-day characters."

and

"...science-fiction and fantasy writers have it easier. It's unfair, but such is life. As a rule of thumb, the quality bar for sci-fi and fantasy is a lot lower than for all other fiction. Therefore, beware of published authors who are self-crowned writing experts. When they tell you what to do and not to do in getting your book published, always first ask them what genre they write. If it's sci-fi or fantasy, run. They have no clue about what it is to write real-life stories, and how to find them a home."

Yes, they really do hate science fiction and fantasy authors. A bunch of pros all suspected that PA would accept nearly anything, so Jim Macdonald cooked up a plan to have a bunch of pros each write a chapter or two of the worst novel ever written. Contributors were given a limited time to write their chapters, based on some sketchy character descriptions and a few events.

The results. Are. Hilarious. There are two chapter twelves, two chapters that are exactly the same, no chapter 21, and chapter 34 was created by the Bonsai Story Generator, which was fed some previous chapters.

Finally, the manuscript was ready. Jim gave it to a friend to submit to PA under his own name. Sure enough, PA accepted Atlanta Nights on December 7, 2004.

On January 23, 2005, the sting was revealed on Absolute Write, and was followed up by a press release and several news articles.

Within a few hours, PA took back their offer. Larry Clopper tried to make some convincing rebuttals, but he only made himself look like an idiot.

So, it was proven PA would accept anything. Now it's known that they have a daily quota where they reject everything after they accept a certain number of books. If you get rejected, submit it early the next morning and you just might get your acceptance.

Here is a sample of the infamous Chapter 34: "Bruce walked around any more. Some people might ought to her practiced eye. I am so silky and braid shoulders. At sixty-six, men with a few feet away form their languid glances."

There's characters who change race, gender, hair color, motivation, and pretty much anything else was inconsistent. It is a hilarious book, and I highly recommend as a teaching tool on how NOT to write. You can buy it here. It is guaranteed to provide you many hours of entertainment.

Why PublishAmerica Sucks Eggs: Part I

Sorry, I've been so busy with school and writing my novel that I've kind of forgotten about my blog. So as promised, here's another part of the PA story:

Why PublishAmerica Sucks Eggs: Part I—The History of an Author Mill

Once upon a time, in a place far far away called Amsterdam, there was a child named Wilhelmus Johannes Frans “Wim” Meiners born on January 6, 1949. This child would one day grow up to be a man, a man whose name would be well-known (or completely ignored...) everywhere across the web by authors of all experiences, and reputable agents, editors, and publishers.

How did he become well-known, you ask? By running one of the biggest literary scams in history, using his expertise in psychology to lure and manipulate naïve and inexperienced authors, or to write the infamous so-called “tone letters” against those who dared to (gasp) question PA’s practices, (bigger gasp) make complaints, and (ginormous gasp) ask to be released from their contracts and have the rights their books returned to them.

But let’s rewind the tape a little bit to a few years before the birth of his monstrous offspring.Before PA's CEO Willem “Wim” Meiners hooked up with web-marketing consultant Lawrence Alvin “Larry” Clopper III to create the author mill, he ran a vanity press called Erica House, which charged its authors up to $8,000 to “publish” their books. His (presumably) ex-wife Erica ran the Erica Books Literary Agency, charged huge fees for representation, and fed her clients straight to AmErica House, where they would be fleeced some more, usually of thousands of dollars.

In 1999, Wim and Larry hooked up to create PublishAmerica as a "traditional publisher" who mainly published "first-time authors who didn't have any other experience in the industry." The first year, they "published" about 700 books. Over the next four, five, and finally six years, they went from less than 5,000 to "almost 20,000 very happy authors."

Authors receive a "symbolic" $1 advance and royalties of 8 percent "on sales price." Many of their authors are perfectly happy with their publisher. Their Testimonials page is filled page after page is excited PA authors who thank PA for "taking a chance on them and their book."

Many authors, however, were far from happy.

Back in 2003-2004, the time period when many of the ex-PA signed their contracts with them, there wasn't a whole lot of information on PA, its principals, and why it wasn't a legitimate publisher. In August 2004, Publishers Weekly ran an article about 100 or so unhappy authors planning to sign a petition against PA demanding to be released from their contracts.

Also around then, Kevin Yarbrough, a dissatisfied (now former) PA author, decided to prove that PA would accept anything. He took 30 pages of a book and copied and pasted it ten times to make a 300-page manuscript and called it "Eli Smith and the Purple Pony." He sent it, and PA accepted it. When he revealed his trick online, PA sent a (mostly likely fake) cop to his doorstep to threaten him that what he did was fraud and had to settle things with PA. The cop wouldn't show his badge, which scared him and his wife.

2004 would also be the year another sting manuscript was born: Atlanta Nights, which resulted in a plethora of news articles exposing PA as a vanity press with questionable practices. Atlanta Nights, however, deserves a post of its own, because it is so entertaining and hilarious.

This time I promise I'll continue the story.

Why PublishAmerica Sucks Eggs: Intro

I know I haven't blogged for about two months. How terrible. :) It's because AW came back and summer break came along, and then I started writing a lot. Which is a very good thing indeed.

So without further ado, I present to you a series of posts about... yep, you guessed it... PublishAmerica!

*yawn*

Never heard of them? Neither did I, until the story of Atlanta Nights was revealed. Then I became all too familiar with them. If I hadn't read the Making Light post about Atlanta Nights, I never would have become as active online in writing-related forums and blogs as I am now. But anyway, I read Atlanta Nights in PDF-format, laughed my ass off at its awfulness (I was only 13 when that happened, just for the record), and then knew that PublishAmerica (PA) was a vanity press and author mill that accepted almost anything.

To all the other new writers out there wondering, who are they ("they" meaning the three people who run PublishAmerica) really, and why do they suck so much?:

That's what this series of posts is intended to answer.

Stay tuned.