Lawyers and Agents and Writers and Young Adults

This is going to be brief and freeform, for two reasons. One, I just spent over an hour and a half reading about literary agents in general, one agent in particular, and the agent's court case, and writing an email on the subject that disappeared into the ether due to AOL Mail glitching out on me. Dang, I wish they would completely debug one or the other of their webmail clients and get it online. I never know from one refresh to the next which version of the page I'm going to get, much less whether I'm likely to receive my most recent email. And Google has been glitchy too, with many of my recent alerts based on entries to this very blog arriving as mailer daemon notices, and some of your comment alerts not arriving at all. If I don't comment right away on your Weekend Assignment or Monday Photo Shoot entry, that may be why. I'll find you, though.

But I digress. The point is, all that research has eaten up a fair amount of time, and I need to go to bed now.

The other reason I want to keep this brief is the twinge of paranoid fear that one of the subjects of this post sometimes give me. I'm going to talk about it anyway, but briefly and carefully.

First, though, the positive stuff. Sara directed me tonight to a post on Whatever, noting that YA fantasy is a fairly lucrative market nowadays for writers, more so that sf and fantasy for the adults. This tallies pretty well with my own observations in recent years, not so much the money angle as the large amount, variety and quality of fantasy in Young Adult sections of bookstores. Adult science fiction sections don't seem to have all that much new fantasy these days, and what is there seems to be primarily concerned with sexy young vampires or the dark destiny of the sorceress of Snog, who will take at least three books to achieve it.

Since I've always considered the Mâvarin books at least marginally YA anyhow, this is a good incentive for me to cut back on other obsessions for a bit and get on with finding an agent and publisher. I've never actually submitted Heirs to a YA publisher per se. The few I've researched took agented submissions only. Clearly I need to take action, submitting to the Young Adult market instead of the adult one. After all, the books are about three teenagers and their friends, and nobody has sex. The only thing that's stopped me from definitively calling it YA is the cannibalism incident in Mages. Perhaps I can get away with that; as Sara points out, the scenes aren't all that explicit or gory. There's a definite ick factor, though, and they aren't scenes I can cut from the story.

So I did a little half-hearted digging tonight on the subject of literary agents, and found out two interesting things. One, a well-known writer and critic who liked an early version of Heirs of Mâvarin at Clarion all those years ago is now a literary agent. I will definitely write to him soon.

And two, a certain less savory literary agent has been the subject of a legal motion this month from Wikimedia Foundation, the parent of Wikipedia. Their motion to dismiss her defamation case against them makes interesting reading. Well, you may not think so, but I do. For whatever reason, I've developed a minor fascination with legal principles, especially in the field of communications law. My favorite courses at the University of Phoenix, by far, were in Business Law, and Nina Totenberg, who covers Supreme Court cases, is my favorite NPR reporter.

The motion to dismiss thingy refutes Wikimedia's liability for defamation to Barbara Bauer based on a number of legal principles, the biggest of which is that an interactive website with user-generated content is protected from being held liable for one some third party posted on it. The injured party can only go after the person who posted the offending material. And that's the part where I get nervous, since I was only of a handful of principal editors of the article about Bauer on Wikipedia, which was later deleted. My main contribution consisted of trying to find positive (or at least neutral) material to balance the negative stuff, and I've tried never to call her names or insult her, although I don't absolutely promise that I never have done so. Still, there's a tiny chance she could come after me someday. But I hope not!

Anyway, other legal defenses against her claim include the fact that the article was citing another source, clearly labeled as such, and making no claim on its own authority; the fact that the article never calls her (as is claimed) the "Dumbest of the Twenty worst," which is the title of a blog post on Making Light; the right of fair comment in a matter of public interest (e.g. consumer protection); the lack of a claim by Bauer's lawyers that anything in the article is factually inaccurate, the fact that one of the things they say the article said was refuted in the article itself; and the lack of evidence that Wikimedia acted with malice, a knowledge that a damaging statement was false, or a reckless disregard for whether it was false or not. I'm not going to go into all this in detail tonight, but I agree with all of this.

I just deleted a further sentence or two. Best not say any more for now.

Karen

Dramas and Drama, and a bit of comedy...plus the MPS!

I can't believe I forgot the Monday Photo Shoot! Perhaps it's because I didn't get the alert until TUESDAY...not, wait, that's totally not true, I just completely failed to notice a whole block of email. Chalk it up to my level of distraction and sleep deprivation, then - but I still should have caught it. First time in two years, I think, that Scalzi assigned one and I didn't get it in that night. Well, I'm just gonna shoehorn it in here, and pretend I posted it last night with the rest of the entry. Everything in red is new. Everything in green was posted last night/this morning. The only photo actually taken over the weekend (except what's in previous entries) is the TARDIS towel. The rest are after-the-fact photos showing the results of my activities.

Your Monday Photo Shoot: Show what you did with your Memorial Day Weekend. I figure most of you got some pictures in over the last couple of days, yes?

The sad truth is, this wasn't a big picture taking weekend for me. I forgot to take my camera to church, and other than that I hardly left the house. "Fun in the sun" is probably a good description of many people's Memorial Day in cooler climates, but it's a lot less likely where the high is hovering around 100 degrees. My car registered 105 at lunch today (Tuesday).

This has been a wasted day, if you can call doing pretty much exactly what I wanted at the moment I wanted to do it "wasted." I slept in from my near all-nighter, and then ended up doing a lot of Wikipedia editing while following a few unfolding dramas, only one of them fictional. A Wikipedia admin had taken offense at some postings about him (not by me) on a site I frequent, and overreacted by removing "about two dozens links" to the site from a number of Wikipedia articles. Others put them pack in, he took them back out, and so on. Discussion ensued. At issue was the concept of a so-called "attack site", and what should be done if someone off-Wiki posts the real names of anonymous Wikipedia editors.

Now, I'm not going to tell you the name of the admin or the site that republished his name, which was already easily findable via Google on one of several sites that go out of their way to "out" Wikipedia editors. You can track down this little drama if you care, but for the moment I'm more interested in discussing the principles than the specifics. The admin was angry because a) he was called a troll, and b) his allegedly real name was posted. Therefore the offending blog was an "attack site", and no part of it should be linked to from Wikipedia for any reason. There are a few problems with that premise, however. As one essayist has already pointed out, Wikipedia includes links to sites that say far worse things, if such links are needed to establish claims made in articles about the sites' content. It seems foolish to link to Neo-Nazi sites and yet ban links to a site that on several occasions complained about a specific Wikipedian. This is especially true when the links doesn't go to the offending material.

The anonymity issue is more problematic. Many people use online identities to protect themselves from having their privacy invaded, to discourage stalking, and to spare their employers, family and friends from embarrassment. My life is an open blog, and today I added my real name to my Wikipedia user page, in case there's one person left on Earth who hasn't figured it out yet. But for a Wikipedia administrator who regularly deals with contentious articles and editors, this is not a trivial issue. I gather that off-Wiki stalking and harassment of such people does sometimes happen. But on the other hand, if the information was already readily available online, one more site mentioning the same issue hardly seems like a threat.

Which brings us back to Barbara Bauer. The infamous literary agent, known more for her sensitivity to online criticism than for her professional success in placing books for her clients, recently filed what appears to be a second lawsuit in Federal court, seeking damages for defamation and libel. This time, a jury trial is requested. The fun part was that the site on which a friend discovered this was a bit on the Web 2.0-friendly side. It offered present search strings regarding the plaintiffs (Bauer and her agency) and each of the many defendants. One option was to search "blawgs", which I thought strangely silly until I realized it was a portmanteau of law+blogs. I don't have anything new to say on the merits of the case itself, but the page about it was kinda interesting.

Putting some clothes in a plastic tub helped
me to find other clothes I forgot I owned.

I sorted through my shoes and threw a bunch away.
This shot should remind you of someone who will be
mad at me if I call her "fictional" again.

The third real-life drama was that I found more of those darn cloth-eating bugs today, in new and unexpected places. The good news is that I got some clothes stored away in plastic tubs. We'll see if that helps. One of the towels I'm trying to save from the bugs is my 20-year-old TARDIS towel. I've hung it up in my office for now.

Linda tells me that is really isn't the way to handle the situation. Other people tell me to bring in an exterminator (no, not a Dalek), but there are reasons we wont be doing that. I'm sending Linda's suggestions on to John, and we'll probably follow them. One thing, though: all those irreplaceable old clothes that John found eaten to shreds a month ago were in a cedar chest to prevent this very problem.

On the novel-writing front, I've come to suspect that I already wrote the scene I'm trying to write, about four chapters deeper in the book. I need to decide now whether to cut the earlier scene, or do something else with the character there.

John Smith's A Journal of Impossible Things

And yes, I watched Doctor Who, albeit not as much as you may expect. One thing I especially enjoyed in Saturday's Doctor Who episode was John Smith's dream diary, A Journal of Impossible Things. People have done screen grabs of each page seen on screen, and done their best to transcribe the scribblings on it. A sample:

Page 14:
Drawing of Rose, titled "Girl"
To the right of the drawing, it says "in my dreams, she keeps walking away I see her in my dreams".
To the left: "She is my ... In my dreams I keep asking a girl where to find me(?) and she is dressed in a most unmodest way. She will not answer me and she keeps walking away"

Oh! And while researching Peggy Cass this afternoon, I found this gem:

The Time God Appeared on "To Tell The Truth"

Oh, I'm so gullible. But it's from a satirist who has written for Lily Tomlin and Saturday Night Live.

Karen

A Good Friday

The reading of the Passion according to John

I don't mean to be flippant about one of the holiest days of the church year. It's just that it really has been a good day for me.

After the service, a stark reminder
remains of what the day commemorates.

It didn't start out great. I spent half of my work day trying to track down a $2400 discrepancy. I narrowed down the source of the problem, but was unable to solve it. Drat. Eventually I ran out of numbers to check and had to give up on it for this week.

Father Ed Harnsberger

At 11:00 AM I went to Confession, during which I was given a suggestion for amendment of life that will be fairly time intensive. We'll see how far I get with that one, but I'm not rejecting it out of hand. While I was there I finally got a decent photo of one of the priests. (Previous attempts at photographing him had not turned out well.) It's now edited and uploaded to the Clergy page, replacing an old, not very good photo which didn't even match the others in format.

I also tweaked the formatting on the Holy Week listings on the web site's main page. Somehow I'd forgotten to finish setting up the days and dates to look consistent all the way down through the table. It's still missing a space after one comma, but oh, well.

Father Smith, subdeacon Howard, and Rev. Angie

Once I had that page (almost) fixed, it was time to go off to church. I didn't serve, but I did take pictures, obviously. The clergy and subdeacons are breaking in some brand new vestments, including these red ones, after the parish saved up for years to buy them. I was also reminded that I still owe two of the three people above a picture of themselves from Palm Sunday, wearing ecclesiastic berets. Too bad those photos didn't turn out very well, but I need to send them along anyway.

Back at home after church, I discovered that the Wikipedia admin that closed the debate on the future of the Barbara Bauer article let an interpretation of Wikipolicy trump the clear majority of people who believed that the subject was sufficiently notable and the criticisms well-sourced. The article was deleted. This may surprise those of you who have followed my tribulations as I've worked on the article over the past 11 months, but I'm not heartbroken that it's gone. It was a tricky thing, trying to have a fair and balanced article about someone for whom nearly all the extant information is either negative, factually suspect or both. I did save the Google cached version to my hard drive, though. If this lawsuit she filed ever gains traction and there are mainstream news reports about her, that may affect whether she merits a Wikipedia article in the eyes of those who wanted it deleted before. In the meantime I don't have to worry about it any more.

What else have I don't tonight? I've watched some Doctor Who, researched the agent I'm submitting to next, and finally broken through the tricky bit of dialogue I've been stuck on in the Fayubi and Jor scene. It's posted on the fiction blog, and I'd appreciate a comment from someone just to know that it's been read. Can you guess where the sticking point was?

The agent I have in mind this time is one who wants three chapters, so I won't be doing simultaneous submissions. Nor will I mention his name here unless he expresses interest in my work. Suffice it to say that I'm going after an agent who is the very antithesis of Bauer, a highly respected and respectable one who nevertheless, according to his web site, is still interested in signing new authors. He charges no fees, of course, only commissions. I've had this particular guy in mind for years, ever since reading some advice he wrote in one of the annual writers' resource books. The only reason I'm not going to name him here is that I don't want to give the impression that I'm complaining about him if things don't work out between us.

Enough. Good night!

The Karen Show

My office. Tonight John cut off the excess foam where the wall meets the ceiling.

At one point tonight, John and I were
both trapped behind furniture.

For some reason, I didn't feel like accomplishing anything much tonight. I read a little of a friend's novel in revision, enjoyed a bit of Scalzi's book on writing (nicknamed Coffee Shop), checked in from time to time on the debate over whether Barbara Bauer's deleted article on Wikipedia should be reinstated, watched House, helped John move things around in my office (see above), watched the second half of The Truman Show, and watched a Doctor Who two-parter from the Christopher Eccleston season that relaunched the show and the character.

You've heard of The Truman Show, right? Great film. For every moment of the thirty years since his birth, Truman, played by Jim Carrey, has been the only real person in an artificial world, interacting with actors while hidden cameras record his every move in the ultimate 24-hour a day reality show. Eventually he figures it out, rebels and escapes, undeterred by the tricks and arguments of the show's creator.

And it occurred to me, as Jim Carrey's character stepped out of the world created for him and into the real one, that we bloggers something in common with Truman. This is especially true of those of us who update one or more times a day. We're not generally the people with webcams, so it's not televised; but still we perform daily for the world. Unlike the character, I know pretty much exactly is going on, and I choose to do it, for a much smaller audience than his. Truman was manipulated by his Svengali, the Ed Harris character, who improvised the dialogue and situations. Me, I write my own scripts, but I also follow scenarios set by John Scalzi, whichever Robin has suggested the current photo challenge, and occasionally some other meme. And although you've probably never seen video of me, you've seen my picture. I'll be interested to see whether Scalzi recognizes me when I drive up to Phoenix next month for a book signing. Under his Law of Internet Invocation, I've probably just guaranteed that he will.

So what does that say about the modern world, when people like me look for something in their lives with which to entertain others online, night after night, for three years and counting? What does it say about us that a fee-charging literary agent is as famous for trying, unsuccessfully, to suppress unfavorable attention online as she is for being on the 20 Worst Agents list in the first place?

Beats me.

Karen