Month: March 2013

Published, Publishable, Crap

Disney Rejection Letter, 1938 (detail) (Photo credit: sim sandwich)

Is publishable equal to published?

In all my non-published, never worked in the publishing industry wisdom, I said no. I believe there are writers out there with work that is publishable that haven’t been published. Bad luck, bad timing, giving up too soon, I can think of quite a few ways and reasons this could come about. This question came up in response to a thread derailment on the writer’s forum.

Another member disagreed with me, and he has valid points (along with better credentials than I). Who’s to say/how can someone say something is publishable if the work hasn’t been published?

Writing, specifically fiction, is so damned subjective. What catches the interest of one agent (or editor, or reader) might be downright distasteful to the next. Frustrating, but in my mind, that’s also the good news. That’s what allows for creativity and interpretation.

Cut the Crap (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Don’t get me wrong, I understand sometimes writing is poor. Not having a good grasp of the rules of the language you’re writing in, a story that doesn’t go anywhere, characters that are flat, etc. But what about the writing and writers who get trashed by critics, but have huge commercial success? Good luck, good timing, perseverance…yes. There’s more to it, though. There’s good storytelling–whether or not the sentences are artfully crafted–and understanding what your audience wants to read, who they can and will identify with.

I’ve said all along, I write to be read, to reach an audience, and hopefully, one day, earn a dollar. If none of my work is ever accepted, never reaches an audience, just how pointless was it? I’m asking in all seriousness, hoping for some discussion, not whining.

Here’s where I start chasing my tail. You don’t know until you’re either published or give up. There is no formula. Most people are unable to publish their first manuscript, some hit with the second, some the tenth, some never do. Everyone’s heard stories of writers whose work was rejected over and over, and eventually were published, a few very successfully, others not so much. But of those who stuck with it, kept writing and submitting, there’s another subset of those who found “homes” and publication for some of their earlier works that had been rejected, considered unpublishable.

How could those earlier works have been a waste? And how do you know? I can’t say “forget the audience, the possibility of publication,” when that is half of my equation. I write because I’m driven to write, I have an overactive imagination, and enough hubris to believe others will identify with my characters and or their feelings, care about them long enough to keep turning the pages to see how the story ends.

If I run with the assumption that unpublished is the same as unpublishable, does unpublished automatically equal crap? Does it matter if what’s on my thumb drive is drivel or golden pearls as long as it’s trapped on the thumb drive? Is it possible for unpubbed work to be anything other than drivel? At what point would you decide that? After 100 rejections? 50? 20? 3? Are all the unpublished writers craptastic hacks, while those who are published are brilliant? If I don’t create the work, polish the work, submit the work (everyone is different, this is the part where I stutter and splutter), it will never have a chance. It’s just a pile of crap taking up room in my brain, as opposed to my hard drive.

Here you have it, the chicken and the egg theory of writing fiction, by Mrs Fringe. If all else fails, I hear chicken shit is excellent fertilizer.

Kindof a visual pun that I’ve illustrated. Which came first? Technically not a photo, but I did have to physically scan it in, so maybe that counts for something. This is a few years old. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Spring!

Daffodils (Photo credit: tejvanphotos)

Happy Easter, Happy Passover, happy whatever you celebrate!

I will celebrate today by keeping my insides on the inside, which is more than I can say for yesterday. And of course, feeling guilty, for all I didn’t get done. No writing, no blogging, no buying seeds or seedlings with Flower Child, no laundry, no nothing.

I think I had food poisoning. I’m sure you can all fill in the rest of those blanks by yourself.

But hey, I’m sitting upright this morning!

Ride Upright (Photo credit: poetas)

Someone save the black jellybeans for me, I’m not ready for them yet, but I’m sure I’ll be looking for them tomorrow.

And Then There Was One

Too sexy for the catwalk

Last night when I shut the tank lights, I had two sexy shrimp doing the can can on their favorite rock. This afternoon, when I put the lights on, I still had two, but one was a dried out spotted blob, on the wrong side of the mesh screen covering the top of the tank. Stupid shrimp. I hoped it was just a molt, propelled out of the tank by the newly powerful pumps, but with inspection, there seemed to be some meat inside. Self sacrifice for Good Friday? The photo above is the one that’s left.

Bummer.

Mrs Fringe Has Cooties

Not exactly me, but my tank.

This morning I woke up determined to be productive. I would write. I would give Little Incredibly Dumb Dog a haircut and bath! I would clean the kitchen and make dinner. I wrote. In the scene I worked on, there was a little tank talk. Which made me look over at my poor, neglected little tank. Really neglected. As in, I don’t quite remember the last time I cleaned the viewing panels, or did a water change. Bad Mama.

Today became Spring Cleaning, Part I. I hear some people wash their windows when they’re Spring Cleaning. Pfft. I’m a reefer. Tank maintenance, it is. First I unplugged everything and took out the pumps.

Pump 1, soaking in a vinegar bath. A toothbrush is one of my favorite tank tools.

A bit of coralline algae on the directional head of a pump. This is a good, wanted encrusting algae. Comes in lovely shades of purple, red, green, pink, and white.

Husband drove me to the store, so I could pick up premixed saltwater and some Chemipure Elite. Read the label, it cures everything. I think the EPA should invest in some for the next time there’s an oil spill. Basically, it’s a mix of charcoal and ferric oxide, to lower nutrient levels, phosphates, silica, and other bad things you don’t want measurable amounts of in your tank. Because if you have too much of these, you get cooties.

Look through the forest of green hair algae, and you’ll see a patch of red slime algae covering the middle rock. Red slime isn’t really an algae at all, it’s cyanobacteria.

Next, time to begin the long and tedious process of scraping algae from the viewing panels. Coralline algae is beneficial to the overall health of the tank, but not when there’s so much you can’t see through the glass/acrylic. Toothbrush to the rescue again, along with an old credit card for scraping without scratching the acrylic. I’ll be honest, I didn’t get it all clean, plenty of patches of algae still around, but it’s much better.

Some sheets of cyano were covering the remnants of a zoanthid colony, I think some of them will recover. Pretties! To my shock, my mini carpet anemone is still alive. Unfortunately, it’s rolled itself into a ball, and wedged itself between two rocks in a way that I couldn’t get to it without shredding my hands. Maybe it will come out now.

Another pest uncovered today

Vermatid snail tubes (if you look close, you can also see a tiny feather duster to the left of the tubes)

I’ve now got about a gajillion vermatid snails and their tubes all over the tank. All over the rocks, growing from the sand bed, I even scraped tubes off of the pumps. By themselves, they aren’t specifically harmful. They aren’t poisonous, and don’t bite. But those little tubes are sharp as hell, making it hard to work in the tank, and they cast fine threads out of the tubes to catch whatever bits they can to eat. When there are so many of them, those little webs and threads irritate the corals.

After scraping and stirring everything up, I changed out about four gallons of water, a little less than half of the total water volume of the tank. Threw the chemipure and a couple of pieces of poly-filter into the back chambers of the tank. The sexy shrimp were the first critters to venture out. Couldn’t get a shot of them, they’re too jumpy today. Found a new yellow sponge growing along the bottom of one of my rocks. I’m going to keep an eye on it, I had one pop up like that in my last tank, it smothered a delicate coral. Then the wrasse came out of hiding.

I left to go walk a dog, then came home and walked my dogs. Shut the pumps again and threw a little food in the tank. The pom pom crab ventured out.

I stink. Literally. I smell like a blend of vinegar, low tide. and dead snail. My back hurts from lifting and carrying water. My hands feel a bit chewed up from all the scrapes of the vermatid snail tubes. Looking into the tank, I can now see how much work still needs to be down, and all the coral losses from these last several months of neglect. Somehow, though, I feel excellent. If I can get my back to loosen up, I’ll even make dinner.

Good Morning, Angels

Publicity photo of the cast of the television program Charlie’s Angels. From left: Jaclyn Smith, Farrah Fawcett-Majors, and Kate Jackson. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Remember them? By today’s standards, it was a sweet show, despite being the beginning of “Jiggle Power” on tv, also known as “Jiggle TV.” Funny, the themes and outfits would probably be rated G now, and yet with all the toning, tanning, muscles, and enhancements on the female tv stars you see now, there’s nothing natural enough to jiggle.

Now we have different angels.

victoria’s secret fashion show 2010 (Photo credit: cattias.photos)

Not my definition of angelic, but that’s okay. I don’t have to shop there, and don’t. We’re all grown up women, and can decide for ourselves what type of underwear we’d like to wear. I find dental floss up my ass to be uncomfortable, and don’t see a woman picking her butt as an enticement, but whatever floats your boat, or lifts your boobs, or frames your artfully sculpted hoo ha. God Bless.

But wait. Victoria’s Secret has realized there’s an untapped market waiting for them. That’s right, jail bait. Future pedophile victims. Have I gone too far? Maybe. But certainly victims of a society that doesn’t know how to allow children to be children. Make no mistake, at 10, 11, 12, 13 years old, they’re still children, regardless of when their bodies begin to change.

I would like to hear from the adolescent and child psychology experts who sat on the panel in the Victoria’s Secret meetings, and said this is a good idea. That there’s nothing wrong with teaching little girls to start objectifying themselves early by wearing padded push up bras, panties that say “Call Me” (WTF happened to the ones that said Monday?), and of course, lacy thongs.

What mother who gives a shit about her daughter’s sense of self is buying her this type of underwear? Am I being judgmental, perhaps alienating readers who might buy my books down the road? Yup, and that’s okay. There are some things I feel strongly enough to take a stand on, and this is one of them. Am I uptight when it comes to my children? You betcha. Childhood is short, life is long. But the lessons learned in childhood last a lifetime. I’d like them to gain the tools they need during childhood for long, productive, happy, and healthy adulthoods.

Middle schoolers, tweens, are a mass of hormones and changes. This is the very beginning of independence. By the time a child is 14, you can see the adult they will become–though they aren’t that adult yet. What are they prioritizing, what have we taught them to prioritize? This is the time for young people to develop a sense of self, a sense of conscience, an understanding of their place in the world, and what roles they might step into. This is a time of self doubts and insecurities. If we parents buy them these types of garments we are prioritizing sexuality, and dating (or hooking up), over social justice, respect, community, intelligence, productivity, healthy body images, and healthy relationships. Yanno, to “get” the cute boy, strip down to your skivvies so he can see the message stamped on your butt. Because that’s what he should be paying attention to, right? Of course, with all these messages, stripping, and hoo ha infections caused by these special undies, I understand, there was no need or time to study for your biology test. And now that he/she has broken your heart because he/she has no clue or emotional tools to have a healthy relationship because he/she is also a child, no one wrote that Language Arts paper, either. Because they’re crushed, the very fragile beginnings of self esteem have been stepped on because Mary is cuter, or John is a better dancer.

This isn’t new, really. OK, marketing thongs to 10 year olds is new, but does anyone else remember this?

Nothing Comes Between Me and My Calvins (Photo credit: Evil Erin)

Brooke Shields was fourteen years old when this ad campaign for Calvin Klein jeans came out, implying there was no underwear between her and her super tight, super sexy jeans. That was in 1980. We should have known better. But certainly, we should know better by now. And none of this even begins to touch on the damage done to adult women, who are looking at ads that show models they can’t possibly look like, yet are told they should.

Dating and early acting out of sexuality, by its very nature, is emphasizing exclusivity. How does this make sense for young people who are searching desperately to be included? It might seem like nothing, innocence, “puppy love.” But it isn’t nothing, it sends a message about what is most important. Kids of this age need to find safe ways and places to be included. How about respect? How does that fit into this equation? Certainly, we aren’t teaching respect of self or others when we place value on prepubescent sexuality. How about self esteem? Doesn’t this bring us right back to encourage girls “not to be too smart,” and boys to value their sexuality over other, tangible, long term and contributory accomplishments. How about caring about other human beings, not just cataloguing them? Yes, let’s all cry about America slipping further down in academic standing when compared to other countries. Bottom line, with this type of message, we’re teaching our kids that commitment to self and others doesn’t matter. Because 12 year olds can’t commit to a long term, healthy relationship. Why? Because they haven’t yet learned how to commit to themselves, their future. For the love of all that’s holy, their brains aren’t finished yet, even if their boobs/butts/dangly bits are almost there.

Will there be a separate fashion show for the prepubescent line? Will it be photographed, filmed, televised? What’s that? You think that might be icky, uncomfortably close to child pornography? You should be thinking that, because it is. These garments are designed to be looked at, encourage fantasies so they will be purchased. There is no reason for these sweet whispers of lace and cotton to exist outside of sexual ones. I’m saying no thanks, I’m saying fuck you Victoria’s Secret.

Hey, you, adult woman! You don’t get to complain about men objectifying you, not taking you seriously, not giving you equal pay for equal work, and not holding up their end of child rearing if you’re feeding into this crap, and teaching another generation that these priorities are okay.

Perhaps we should bring corsets back. You know, the ones that literally warped the rib cage and cut off oxygen. Obviously our girls don’t need those brain cells anyway, since we’re teaching them to put their sexuality above other aspects of their development, or sense of self.

English: Corsets (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

English: FIG. 15.—The effect of bending forward, when seated, with and without corsets. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Hear That?

It’s the sound of Mrs Fringe having a quiet day.

Black Sand Beach, Maui (Photo credit: szeke)

In my mind, the scene above is where I am today. And man, do I need it. This neverending winter has felt torturous.

But, Spring Break started for Flower Child at 2:35 yesterday afternoon, and Nerd Child is home for another week, so it counts as Spring Break for me, too. In the spirit of the day, Big Senile Dog decided to start us off right by peeing all over the apartment last night. In case you were wondering, I don’t call him Senile for no reason. Occasionally, these days, he forgets the protocol for when and how to void his bladder. He isn’t the biggest dog, but he is sizable, and has a bladder appropriate for an elephant.

A busy week this week. I did a fair amount of work on the WIP, submitted eek!!! two short stories, picked up a mountain’s worth of dog poop, all the usual Mama stuff, and had a conversation with the puzzle doctor without crying, pretended I’m moving to New Hampshire and saw some fabulous real estate porn, managed to keep my brain inside my skull despite the ongoing jackhammering on my corner. Great success. To reward myself, I made an extra pot of French Press this morning, and spent the last two hours reading.

Reading (Photo credit: – Annetta -)

Just reading. No research, no Facebooking, no crushing myself with literature I’ll never measure up to, just a nice read. What else would one do lying on an empty beach?

At some point this week, I read about Michelle Shocked’s rant in California. I liked her back in the day. Didn’t love her, but I had a couple of cassettes with her music. I wasn’t shocked that she’s now found religion, and embraced a different outlook along with it–to put it mildly. She isn’t the first, won’t be the last. There’s a difference though, between someone who changes their views, actions, or even their beliefs, with age, time, and their personal experiences and someone who can’t commit to who they are now or admit who they were way back when. It made me wonder, who are/where are the young women we can look at and admire now? Odd, isn’t it, the things that can trigger sadness for lost youth, commitment, and passion?

Gawd, I’m maudlin today.

Imma go put some Patti Smith on the iPod. I would dance along, but I’m afraid to get Big Senile Dog excited, since I’ve only got three paper towels left.

Mrs Fringe Learns to Internetz

Not really. It’s magically working again, much the way it magically stopped working. And then started. And then stopped.

Internet (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Come to think of it, this is just like the early spring we’re not having. Someone find me that damned ~~woodchuck~~ groundhog, Imma make a stew.

I’ve been dreaming about moving to the country. Husband thinks I’m kidding, but I decided I need a dream that could possibly eventually happen, not just the fantasy of a beach house. This would mean going north, colder but less expensive. I feel the past weeks have been training for a rural life. Internet out, multiple snowfalls in March…yup, I’m ready.

Since we started to have spring, the critters are here. But now it’s cold again, and they’re more pissed than I am. Even the rats are confused, I’ve seen at least three smooshed rats on my block over the past couple of days. They’re usually pretty good at avoiding cars. Let’s be honest, though, better a smooshed rat than a live one.

In the park, lots of screaming birds. I assume they’re protesting the lack of soft earth and worms. But maybe not. Maybe they’re screaming in fear. We seem to have a new predator bird in the neighborhood. (And when I say a new one, I mean new to me, they could well have lived here for fifty years without my noticing. I also don’t know if there’s one or a dozen). In any case, the other afternoon I was walking a dog along a path in Central Park when something whooshed overhead. It was the coolest freaking bird I’ve ever seen outside of the colorful ones that live on people’s shoulders. Cool enough for me to forget to be afraid. I only saw it from underneath, beige, tan, and brown with an awesome, almost diamond pattern across its feathers. Sort of the colors of the piebald pigeons, only not ugly. The wingspan had to have been five feet across. In between the internet being down, I googled, trying to figure out what this bird is. Almost a falcon, but no.

Another sign that it should be spring, Nerd Child is home for Spring Break! Yay!!!!!! I’m thrilled, Flower Child is thrilled, we miss the boys when they’re away.

What to do with your first day of spring break when you’re *almost* fifteen, home from boarding school and just finished finals? Get up early, meet the priest who runs the middle school you attended, and go to the St Patrick’s Day parade, of course.

Green Bagel! (Photo credit: pirate johnny)

Nothing a Latino teen likes better than corned beef and green bagels. My mother in law will take care of the obligatory flan this evening. Why yes, flan is a necessary component to St Patrick’s Day. Ask Nerd Child, he’ll happily explain flan is a necessary component to any and every celebration.

Apparently, while chatting, the priest mentioned ospreys have been taking out pigeons by the church. Nerd Child came home and told me this, and I looked up ospreys. YES!!! That’s exactly the bird I saw in the park. Already super impressive, and now I find out they eat pigeons? Mrs Fringe has a new favorite critter. I wonder if I can keep one on my terrace?

Osprey (Photo credit: Gregory Jordan)

For Lilly: Blue for You?

“Whoever performs his part with most agility, and holds out the longest in leaping and creeping, is rewarded with the blue-coloured silk; the red is given to the next, and the green to the third, which they all wear girt twice around the middle; and you see few great persons about this court who are not adorned with one of these girdles.” ~Gulliver’s Travels
**Lilly, If you read this, please send me an email. msfringe123 @ gmail.com (yah, the email addy is ms, not mrs–without the spaces, of course)

I hope the rest of my Fringelings had a good day today. I’d love to check, but I can’t, because something is wrong with my internet connection, and I can’t seem to stay connected for more than 2-3 minutes at a time without getting bounced. It’s taken me an hour to try and get on long enough to type this, perhaps it will be posted by morning. I hate/love/neeeeeed my internetz. Good for writing, not good for researching, and not good because I think I missed some kind of something on the writer’s forum today, and now can’t contact a new writing friend. Have I mentioned aargh?!

Gulliver’s Travels by Jonathan Swift (Photo credit: infomatique)

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Lorraine Carpenter in typing class at Aldergrove Highschool, British Columbia / Lorraine Carpenter participant à un cours de dactylographie à l’école secondaire Aldergrove, Colombie-Britannique (Photo credit: BiblioArchives / LibraryArchives)

Does this title ring any bells for any of my readers? I don’t remember my typing teacher’s name, but I certainly remember her voice, which managed to screech with every letter she called out. You’d think her beehive would have softened the sound. “Accuracy, girls! And boys too, I suppose.” Ah, she was a charmer.

It used to matter, how fast you typed, how accurate you were. In the days of carbon paper and white out. Oh, the excitement of electric typewriters, and the white out ribbon! I love to look at the old typewriters, have an excellent, artsy photo of one, and one of these days I’m going to find the perfect old manual in an antique store, at a perfect price, waiting for me to bring it home and display it. But I don’t miss typing on one. It was slow and often painful, needing to hit each key with the same amount of force, keys getting stuck and invariably getting my finger hammered trying to unstick them.

You can imagine my pleasure when someone refers to writing as typing.

Misprints (Photo credit: eldeeem)

Flower Child, “Mommy, are you finished typing yet?” Husband, “I thought you were still typing.” Especially since I do associate Husband with literal typing. He went to college with my brother. I typed several of their papers. After one particularly long and hideous paper, I had a PTSD type reaction for years after whenever I had need to tap out the word acetaminophen.

The past few days have thrown my writing schedule way, way off. I think my last post here on Mrs Fringe was the last semi-coherent thing I wrote. First I had the mother of all migraines, laid me out for a full day, left me dizzy for a second day. Yesterday I had a meeting during my usual writing time. I’m most productive in the mornings. It took too many years for me to figure that out, opposed my image of myself as writ-ah, tap tap, tapping away during the night. Turns out I’m in fine company, plenty of respected, lauded writers and writ-ahs work in the morning. Not least of which was Hemingway. Ah, the lore and lure of Papa.

I thought I would get back to work today, but no such luck. Flower Child was sick. Can’t get lost in fantasy land when you’re watching the clock to call the doctor’s office for an appointment. OK, done. I thought I would have time to get a few pages done, but the more days I’m away from the manuscript, the longer it takes for me to get back into my characters’ heads, and be productive. One page. One page and then it was time to take her to the doctor. In the pouring rain that didn’t stop. All day, drip, drip, squish. Luckily, once we were there, I got to find out in addition to an infection, FC has lost two pounds. Aargh!!! Two pounds is way too much for a kiddo who literally has nothing to spare.

Right now, I’d be ok with a few uninterrupted hours to practice my typing.

A monkey typing (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Dog Poop Picker Upper

Poop Scooping Bag Instructions (Photo credit: reinvented)

Last night I was out with Fatigue for Friday Night Madness. While we waited for our beers to arrive, we caught each other up on the bits and pieces of the last couple of weeks since we were last out. I talked at him, telling him what’s happening with my writing, he talked at me, telling me what’s happening with his singing. A nice evening, the bar wasn’t too crowded, all our favorite waitresses were working, and as usual, the customers were a cross section of our neighborhood. $16 a pint hipsters sitting at one table with a table of $5 pitcher drinkers next to them.

I was pleased to have a funny story to share with Fatigue. Earlier in the day I was cruising the writer’s forum, and came across a thread looking for some ideas for humiliating jobs that a character might have. Jobs that would be super embarrassing, easy targets for being looked down upon, lots of opportunity for humor. Yanno where I’m headed with this, right?

English: Pooper scooper detail at end of the Cherry Blossom Festival Parade in Washington, D.C. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

No less than three people volunteered the idea of dog poop picker upper. Now it’s true, lots of opportunity for comedy in this, and it doesn’t have quite the same ring as “My Son The Doctah,” but we all do what we have to do. Fatigue is a singer, who walks dogs to pay his rent. Mrs Fringe is a Mama, a writer, and walks dogs to put the pharmacist’s kid through college. Yes, dog poop picker uppers. Try not to be jealous, as we spend our days skipping through the rain and snow, laughing and examining dog poop. Sure it’s a shitty job, but someone’s got to do it. *rimshot*

But we were laughing last night, assuming the posters were young enough to not intend any harm or insult. It’s innocence, to see these types of jobs as throwaway. We ate, and then chatted for a bit with one of the waitresses. The one who serves us beer on Friday nights so she can continue working on her doctorate during the day. Bar maid, ditch digger, lawyer, nit-picker and poop picker upper, we all do what we can and what we have to. Everyone has a story, whether we’re living life on the fringe, or just appear to be.

Cheers, Fringelings!