I share your rant, I'm just genuinely puzzled as to what fantasy BB has been reading. Because I go look at my own bookshelves, and I see Kate Elliott's Crown of Stars series, Jacqueline Carey's Kushiel books, some of Guy Gavriel Kay's work, the Rawn/Roberson/Elliott collaboration The Golden Key, even Orson Scott Card's Enchantment and the Alvin Maker series, and I'm just not seeing this One Standard Plot which all fantasy must follow if it's going to sell.

Oh, and I shared my concerns about the resume business with my career counselor. Now that she understands that writing novels is my highest priority, she agrees that it's not the way to go. She's recommending me to a colleague of hers who does a lot of work with writers to help me find a self-employment route more compatible with writing.

Susan, here's the thing, and it's the most important point:

This isn't genre fantasy. BB is trying to nudge the author, who is a well-known writer and former president of SFWA, into rewriting and expanding as a genre fantasy.

It isn't.

There's no magic of any kind. Basically it's a historical novel set in AU circs because she needed a specific climate (cold) and a specific stage of society (just pre-industrial, with the first telegraph wires being strung). She refuses to allow it to be shoved into the genre fantasy niche. It's about a woman who wants to be a cartographer and who works for a guild who won't let her go do that, because she's far too good at representing the local PTB and collecting their enemies and whatnot.

Merlin my left ventricle. This. Is. Not. Fantasy.

Weird. And disappointing, because it sounds like a fascinating book as is.

OK, and also disappointing because I have a couple of non-magical AU plots bouncing around my own head.

And speaking of agents and their changes, I haven't even finished my book yet, but I'm already half-expecting the first verdict I get from an agent to be, "This is nice, but no one is writing romance in first person anymore."

I wish I was familiar with the romance market, but Old Buddy (who I'm screaming at in lieu of screaming at BB, who thank Jah is not my agent) is definitely familiar with it: her last published book was a modern romantic comedy and she adores regencies.

Cool--if it's not too obnoxious of me, I may ask for more information about her when I've finished this thing.

And meanwhile, I'm going to tear myself away from the computer and go do some actual writing for an hour or so.

And for dinner and meds. Nic's homeward bound, and he's my Medicine Man.

Basically it's a historical novel set in AU circs because she needed a specific climate (cold) and a specific stage of society (just pre-industrial, with the first telegraph wires being strung). She refuses to allow it to be shoved into the genre fantasy niche. It's about a woman who wants to be a cartographer and who works for a guild who won't let her go do that, because she's far too good at representing the local PTB and collecting their enemies and whatnot.

Oh, I want to read this...

Deb, you are right to be so angry, not that you need me to tell you. And although RMB is a favorite novelist, I'd forgotten she's a poet.(And I don't just mean the kitty books...I liked her other fiction too.) So there are five poets, off the top of our(admittedly educated) heads. Victor, I would be honored to get that thoughtful of a eulogy as the one you gave BTVS...not that I'm going anytime soon.

The publishing insanity continues.

This morning, it's apparently my turn. I got the first passpages (formal layouts, how the pages are going to look, do the major corrections now) for "Weaver." This morning I sat down to edit.

Very few typos, which is good. Insisted on misspelling "Honourable" all the way through, omitting the 'u", annoying but an easy fix.

Alas. They put the frellin' thing through an automatic layout program, I'm guessing Quark, and never bothered to go back to kern.

Which is fine if you're dealing with a writer who uses words of five characters or less. Which is not fine if the writer is me.

Every second page has between five and eight hyphens at a line-break. I've called Dan, my editor's assistant, and told him. He was very cross about it and offered to extend the deadline. Not necessary; I've already done half and this will go out two weeks ahead of schedule.

But I have eyestrain and a headache and I want to kill someone.