Ceallaigh's Blog
I've made it home and plan to write a post about Quebec City soon, but for now (and until after I settle in) here's a pile of miscellaneous news I didn't feel like posting via iPad.
Professional News
My first quarterly newsletter went out to subscribers on October 31st. You can read it here, and you can subscribe by visiting my web site at csmaccath.com.
In other news, I've come away from my holiday with a powerful sense of having let my writing career and my home suffer in the last month for the sake of other things. It's my intention to remedy that going forward by placing my writing career and my home at the front of my life rather than making time for them at the back. With this shift in priorities will come a shift in my available time, with apologies in advance to any people who might be affected by it.
I'm finding that the more worldbuilding I packed into my chapters, the better the prose tends to be upon revision. Chapters 14 & 16 were tough to write because they were so alien, so I assumed they'd be harder to revise. But it's the other way around. The harder the chapter was to draft, the easier it is to edit. Maybe I was paying better attention to the hard stuff, or something.
Greetings Everyone,
Welcome to Issue #1 of my quarterly newsletter, posted to www.csmaccath.com and e-mailed to subscribers on Samhain 2011.
My poem entitled, "When I Arrived, This Is What She Said" is now available in the autumn issue of Goblin Fruit. Of interest, the sound backdrop of the piece contains part of a traditional Gàidhlig milling song I sang with friends at the An Cliath Clis milling frolic last spring. If you're interested, you can watch a video of the milling and listen to the song on YouTube.
I'm very happy with this piece; it brings together so much of what I love about Nova Scotia, and it's tucked in amongst some really gorgeous poetry. Go read the whole issue and listen to the poets read their work. You'll be glad you did.
I know where sirens come from.
Born in the foam of a green-water wave
to fold their lissome bodies over the rocks.
"See?" they sing, "There is no pain in this."
Turn away, lover of women, while you still can.
Wipe the salt from your lips before you taste it.
"Jeff V." of Lulu.com responded to my last correspondence with more of the same. Here's the relevant chunk of his correspondence and my reply:
Jeff V.: Please be reassured that Lulu holds no rights over the content you published and/or you retired. We will not distribute or use private, retired, or any content not made available for distribution within your account settings.
Me: You've already done this. That's why I wrote you to begin with. In fact, Google indexed the private work Lulu.com made available on its web site. Would you like to see my screen shots?
Jeff V.: If you use the Site after Lulu has posted a change to these terms on the Site, you are agreeing to be bound by that change.
Revised for accuracy on October 20, 2011.
So, I read my last blog post to my genius engineer husband, who had something of an epiphany when I finished.
Genius Engineer Husband: Can you revise the projects you have on the Lulu.com site?
Me: I think so.
Genius Engineer Husband: Why don't you replace the contents of those projects with your blog entries?
I'm prefacing this longish post with something of a longish apologia. You see, I'm somewhat embarrassed to be seen with Lulu.com in the same way one might be embarrassed to be seen with a high school bully at the prom. I feel an almost reflexive need to explain that we didn't arrive together, that I'm not Lulu.com's date or anything and the only reason I was talking to the company at all is because its mother sells Tupperware and one of my aunt's Wonderlier bowl lids melted in the dishwasher.
Yes, the company's services have their place, but as a writer building a career in traditional publishing with a bouncing baby novel on the way, it's somewhat important to me that readers of these posts understand my use of those services was for the creation of private keepsakes only. Vanity publishers like Lulu.com are stigmatized for good reasons; they're predatory, and they set unrealistic expectations about the potential for self-published books.
Several years ago, I printed two books for myself via Lulu.com. They were mementos of my early writing, intended for me alone, and I made sure they were private. Today, as part of a personal data sweep and planning session, I checked in with Lulu.com and found they had both been made public and were both for sale on the web site. Not only that, an 'author' page had been created for me (I need a Lulu.com 'author' page like I need to be shot in the foot), and the books were listed on it.
Naturally, I made the documents private again and even tried to delete them. But Lulu.com won't let me delete the completed projects or the files they were created from. I can't find a customer support phone number anywhere on the site, and I've read through various web searches that the company doesn't answer e-mail inquiries (though I do intend to try e-mailing customer support this evening).
In the last 24 hours, I've had to address two instances of social bullying from people who used the good manners and good will present in professional and personal situations to say wretched things. Both instances were perpetrated by repeat offenders, and both happened because they thought that nobody (and certainly not a middle-aged woman) would have the courage to call them on their bad behavior.
I did. Both times.