Gone Fishing!

Enjoying the extended holiday weekend with the family, in a somewhat Hemingway-esque manner: a lot of fishing and the occasional adult beverage (okay . . . maybe slightly more than "occasional," lol).

Tonight we'll gather around the firepit and share fish stories.

Regular blog posts resume on Wednesday.

Horror, Fantasy, Sci-Fi: Spec-Fic Friday, May 27th

Raining outside? Stay in and read some
Free Fiction

I was too young when the Dark Shadows soap ran, but it sounds like it was right up my alley: zombies and vampires AND a soap opera? Bitchin!
And, of course, I love the whole "Tim Burton-Helena Boneham Carter-Johnny Depp" movie team.
So I'm really looking forward to seeing this movie.
Dark Shadows set for 2012

Uh . . . Nazis on the Moon?
Iron Sky

Break out the popcorn and plan a movie night.
20 Science Fiction Films You Really Should See

Nooooo! But a Star Trek stop-animation movie done by Tim Burton? THAT I could get behind.
Rumors of Star Trek animated series

It is tough to find real news on this movie. Rumors swirl, it's been "in the works" forever, and it has two different release dates (most news articles set it for 2012, while imdb.com has it listed as 2014). But it's something I'm looking forward to, so here are some of the best news tidbits about it (just remember that all of it has to be taken with a grain of salt, as it all may change tomorrow)!

Brad Pitt Starring in World War Z

World War Z Casting Started

More World War Z News

What is World War Z?


Have a great weekend!

Comic Relief & Weird News, May 25th

Rapture Fail.

Some of these people left their jobs? Boy are their faces red this week:

"Um. Mr. Johnson? About that 'Ha, heathen sinner, you'll be here next week but I won't' letter I left for you on Friday. . ."

But chin up, little campers! There's always 2012!

In the meantime, somebody buy Mr. Camping a calculator, so he can finally get the math right.

Believers Prepare for the End of the World

And on a related note:

This Week in Buzz: Special Rapture Edition

I'm sure that everyone mom of a teen girl can relate to this one (like me; raised . . . three . . . teen . . . girls; the tenth circle of hell is a vacation in comparison). The difference is, we've all done this IN OUR HEADS, not for real . . .

Mom Runs Over Daughter (video)

Weird . . . but incredibly cool

Album Covers as Incredibly Detailed Bento Box Lunches

Last week, I posted about how the CDC's Zombie Apocalypse was an ingenious way to get the word out about disaster preparedness. It worked too well!
"Zombie Apocalypse" campaign crashes website

Creepy . . . definitely creepy!

Creepy or Provocative? Paintings of Little Boys Smoking

Just don't put it anywhere near a Disney store! Headline: Thousands of children traumatized after seeing Hello Kitty eat Mickey Mouse!

Hello Kitty Themepark

Lol. Lots of pages on this one, but worth it!

If Sarcasm Ruled the World

from @funnyoneliners 

I thought I finally found my groove. Turns out, it's a rut.

One day Gramma sent her grandson Johnny down to the water hole to get some water to cook dinner. As he was dipping the bucket in, he saw two big eyes looking back at him. He dropped the bucket and hightailed it for Gramma's kitchen.

"Well now, where's my bucket and where's my water?" Gramma asked him.

"I can't get any water from that water hole, Gramma" exclaimed Johnny. "There's a BIG ol' alligator down there!"

"Now don't you mind that ol' alligator, Johnny. He's been there for a few years now, and he's never hurt no one. Why, he's probably as scared of you as you are of him!"

"Well, Gramma," replied Johnny, "if he's as scared as I am, then that water ain't fit to drink!"

Putting Stories Into Little Boxes . . .

I hate, hate, HATE picking a genre label for my stories. It's a necessary evil, of course, with an accent on evil.

I'm dealing with it more lately because I've been doing the Story-A-Day May challenge and writing a lot of short stories. Labelling the short stories is often more of a challenge than the writing!

Up until recently, I have been using the "category criteria" I learned long ago:
Horror fiction: fiction to invoke fear (which is why Twilight can have vampires but not be horror);
Sci-fi: the fiction of possibilities (Close Encounters of the Third Kind, et al.);
Fantasy: the fiction of impossibilities; (thus, Star Wars, while sci-fi-ish, is really fantasy).

Of course, the divisions are much more complicated than that these days.

Book Country has come up with an interesting genre map:
Book Country Genre Map
It can be very helpful for targeting which genre a story falls under, though I disagree with some of the categories.

For example, I just wrote a short story about life after nuclear apocalypse. There's a lot of science (the effects of radiation on people, animals, weather, etc., and the long-term environmental repercussions), but it also has lots of scary monsters. Is it sci-fi or horror? According to the Book Country labels, it's actually "weird fiction." But I don't think many readers are familiar with the term, so it's probably not a good idea to label a story that way (except, of course, to send it to magazine markets that are looking for "weird fiction;" then it's a handy label, lol).

Being a glutton for punishment, I decided to play around with the Book Country labels and see if I could tighten and improve MY label (since I'm supposed to be categorized so readers have an understanding of the type of writer I am). My "marketing spin" description was "writer of dark speculative fiction and humorous urban fantasy," but I'm not sure that speaks to the average reader (plus, according to Book Country, my humor work isn't "urban fantasy" but "comic fantasy.")

According to the Book Country breakdown, I write in these categories:
Supernatural Thriller;
Environmental Thriller;
Dystopian Sci-Fi;
Alternate History Sci-Fi;
Soft Sci-fi;
And pretty much every category of fantasy (with horror, weird fiction, and comic fantasy being the main focus).

I'll toss out the "Thriller" label right away, because I think it just muddies the water. That puts us back to "I write horror, fantasy, and sci-fi" (horror deserves it's own mention, since it is the main focus of my work).

So there we are. After all the fancy infographics and descriptions, we are right back to the simplest definition of all. The "KISS" principle (Keep It Simple Stupid):

I write horror, fantasy, and sci-fi.

Anyone else struggle with the box their work should go in? Or worse, like me, struggle with their "writerly" label?

I'd love to hear how you found your label!

~ ~ ~
Story-A-Day Update

(notice I used the "KISS principle" on these labels, lol)
http://storyaday.org/brendakezar/2011/05/20/may-20th/

~ ~ ~
Links for Writers

21 Excuses for Why Your Novel Isn't Finished Yet
(My writing laptop has a malfunctioning "J" key; I discovered this while drafting a novel in which the protagonist's name is Josh. Seriously).

Best Articles for Writers (archived)

Harry Potter on His Journey to Publication

Antagonists: The Alpha and Omega of the Story

Put Your Flabby Writing on a Diet

And don't forget to follow me on Twitter for daily writing links!

Horror, Fantasy, Sci-Fi: Spec-Fic Friday, May 20th

Who knew the government had a sense of humor?
When you think about it, this is ingenious. What better way to get the word out about disaster preparedness than to bring the zombie geeks (like me) on board? I'm putting these badges EVERYWHERE!




http://emergency.cdc.gov/socialmedia/zombies_blog.asp

 I've read most of the books on this list (but, sadly, not all).
40 Classic Books Every Horror Buff Should Read

Another remake? Is it just me, or is Hollywood wallowing in nostalgia (either that, or Hollywood has a bad case of "Phfft. I could do that movie SO much better).
Carrie Remake?

CW has a witchy series coming out in the fall! Just wish the characters were a little more Witches of Eastwick and a little less Pretty Little Liars.
Secret Circle

I am not a fan of movies geared toward the youth market. I do like Shrek, I liked the minions in Despicable Me . . . and I loved Coraline (I know, I know--completely uncharacteristic of me). So I'm actually looking forward to ParaNorman.

Have a great weekend, and don't forget to gather your zombie apocalypse preparedness kit!

Comic Relief & Weird News, May 18th

And people wonder why dogs hate mailmen!
A New Twist on "Going Postal"

Wow. Talk about product placement & branding.

Get Your William & Kate . . . condoms?

When I saw this headline, the LAST thing I was thinking was melatonin brownies . . .
US State Riled Up Over "Relaxation Brownie"

Truth in Advertising: A Book That Finally Reflects What Parents Are REALLY Thinking.
A Bedtime Story?

Interesting . . .
Rejected Book Covers vs. The Final Product

Hmmm. When I found this flowchart, hubby laughed his butt off. Then I asked him, "Well? Which kind of redhead am I?" I didn't get an answer because he suddenly remembered he had to go change the oil in both our cars (as well as two of the neighbor's cars).
Which Awful Redhead Stereotype Are You?

When the waitress in a New York City restaurant brought him the soup du jour, the Englishman was a bit dismayed.
"Good heavens," he said, "what is this?"
"Why, it's bean soup," she replied.
"I don't care what it has been," he sputtered. "What is it now?"

Fred got home from his Sunday round of golf later than normal and very tired.
"Bad day at the course?" his wife asked.
"Everything was going fine," he said. "Then Harry had a heart attack and died on the 10th tee."
"Oh, that's awful!"
"You're not kidding. For the whole back nine it was hit the ball, drag Harry, hit the ball, drag Harry."

From @funnyoneliners

Some guy just gave me half of a peace sign.

From @ChuckNorriz

Chuck Norris once ate an entire bottle of sleeping pills. They made him blink.

Giving it Away?

Should writers submit their work to non-paying markets?

I came across this very interesting discussion over at the Library of the Living Dead:

Giving Away your Writing to 'for the Love of...' and 'for Exposure / Publicity' Anthologies

When I decided I was going to pursue a career in writing, I also decided I was going to be a professional writer. I was going to treat my writing as "the business of art." I was going to have office hours; I was going to write on a regular basis, submit on a regular basis, market my work, and generally conduct myself in a professional manner.

When I started out, I heard a lot of experts advising writers to "start small" and submit to non-paying markets first to build publication credits and gain name recognition.

While I respect their logic, it didn't make any sense to me (not to mention, "starting small" is not something I'm inclined to do . . . with anything . . . EVER, lol). Write for free? That doesn't sound very professional.

Dictionary.com defines professional as:

Following an occupation as a means of livelihood or gain.

A later definition in the list is even more pertinent:

A person who earns a living in a sport or other occupation frequently engaged in by amateurs.

And, in turn, the definition of amateur is:

a person who engages in a study, sport, or other activity for pleasure rather than for financial benefit or professional reasons. 

So, according to  the very definition of "professional" is someone who gets paid (or attempts to, lol).

For me, that's the clincher. If I'm going to be a professional writer, then I expect to get paid. Right from the start, I decided I was only going to submit to paying markets.

I do understand the logic behind the advice to submit to non-paying markets. They do add credits to your publication history and, in theory, "get your name out there." I'm just not sure if it works beyond theory.

Do unpaid publication credits really carry any weight with pro markets? Or are they viewed on par with getting an opinion piece published in your local free shopper paper? Most non-paying publications have standards that are just as high as those of paying markets. So they should carry just as much weight as paying markets. But do they? Reality and public perception are often too very different things (as the continued debate about self-publishing shows).

And do they really get your name out there and garner name recognition? How many authors have you "discovered" thanks to seeing their name again and again in small presses? Probably very few, if any. I think the chances of building a name are better shooting for the higher-paying markets, which usually have a higher circulation and therefore offer a better chance of getting your name out there in front of more readers.

Even small paying markets don't offer much opportunity for name recognition.

For example, I had a story in the Loving the Undead Anthology. It was a paying anthology, but the publisher went out of business and the anthology went out of print not long after its initial print run. So while I was paid for my contribution, it obviously failed at "getting my name out there." If it had been an "exposure only" anthology, it wouldn't have benefited me at all. I would have given away a story and hardly anyone would have seen it. Worse yet, selling it later as a reprint stinks because a lot of markets don't take reprints and those that do usually pay less for them. So the story would have been written for nothing other than the joy of writing the story. Great, but not what I'm aiming for in my goal of being a professional writer.

I'm not knocking non-paying markets. And I'm not knocking anyone who decides to start with non-paying markets. Everyone has to choose the path that works best for their own writing career. This is just an explanation of the reasons why I chose, for my own writing career, to raise my flag with the "pay the writer" camp.

~ ~ ~
Story-A-Day May Update:

So far, so good: ten (business) days, ten stories. You can see the complete list of my progress over on my Story-A-Day blog.

~ ~ ~

Links for writers:

Best Articles This Week for Writers

Tough Lessons From a Debut Novelist

Writer Reality Check

Secrets To Being a Super-Prolific Short Story Writer

54 Tips For Writers From Writers