Gak-

I'm stuck.

I was cruising along pretty nicely on Dorian and I came to the end of a scene and now I have no idea what the next scene should be. I still have one major POV character who should be introduced, but I'm not quite sure this is where he should be intro'd yet.

Gak.

Sox, your drabble is wildly surreal.

Yeah, I'm doing Script Frenzy. Why? Because I'm just starting a new job with tons of responsibility and I'm in counseling. So why the hell not?

Here's my draft logline for the movie Lady Radium. Let me know what you think.

Lovestruck nuclear physicists whose superpowered alter egos are mortal enemies must work together to stop ex-Nazi Objectivists in this atomic age romance.

General creative advice. I think it's pretty interesting. And liberating.

That's a really good piece, ita. Thanks. The "nothing is new" alone is so worth remembering.

Here's my draft logline for the movie Lady Radium. Let me know what you think.

It's a great logline. And it sounds like it could be a lot of fun.

The "nothing is new" alone is so worth remembering.

Amen.

And Raq, the logline also falls under surreal- in a fun, twisty sort of way.

ita, thank you for linking to that piece. Lots of good advice there.

Yes, my editor. You do actually have to make a decision. "Read your contract" tells me nothing. My contract does not give a set number of illustrations I can include. It says I need approval for ANY illustrations. I already have 16 tables and two charts, so I may well have exceeded the limit you have let me know is there, but won't put a number on. If that has happened, I will find a way to cut back. But at this point I need to know if I have to do that so you actually have to give me a number. (Or a size limit, or some metric.)I will do what I need to do whether or not I like it. But I need to know the requirements I am meeting.

Typo, you need to email her with exactly those questions. If your contract doesn't specify a top number of illustrations, then she needs to tell you how many is acceptable, simple as that.

Great piece in Salon about author self-promotion.

I have done that. I posted here first, so that my actual email does not read as snarky. (Actually I emailed to Jr. editor to pass on to her.) I don't know. She seems to want authors to take up zero time, gets annoyed every time my Jr. editor passes up a question. But it is all this sort of stuff. I'm asking permission for quotes beyond fair use, and I needed my publishers requirements for that. (And, as I suspected, my publisher has very specific wording they want those permissions in.) I had to ask to get required format for illustrations (Word tables for tables, high res tiff for everything else.) So now I'm asking on illustration count limit. And I'm going to get an email with the answer along with a complaint about how she does not have time to answer these question. And what I won't say is "your company has these requirements. Everytime I ask, you send me what is obviously a standard form. If you had just emailed all the pdfs you are sending me one at a time up front, I would not need to bother you. You would damn well be angrier if I did not ask these question and failed to meet your rquirements."

My junior editor is a problem in his own way. He is ulra-indulgent "I'm sure the way you are doing it will be fine". Except I dealt with this publisher before, and I know they do have requirements and want them stuck to. So I have him pass the questions up the line, and so far along with annoyance I get answers and normally there are specific requirements I need to know. I did a textbook chapter with a word requirement of 5,000 words. And my immediate editor kept asking me to add stuff, and I'd say "this will put us over the word limit" and he said "this is good stuff, they'll let me put it in." And at the end, they told him "sorry, limit is 5,000 words." And he and I had to scramble at the last moment. So with my Jr. editor on the book, I don't take "it'll be OK" for an answer. I make him check with actual decision makers.

I mean he is a good content editor. He gives great feedback that makes my writing better. But he does not seem to get that the publisher he works for has requirements over and above "good content". Word, limits, style requirements and so on. I wish he understood that he needs to pay attention to those too. I mean those requirments are there for good reason. Some of them are to keep printing costs under control Some are there so that there layout people are working with standard formats so that they can do their jobs without constantly being on a learning curve. One of the reasons they have strict style requirements is so copy editors can work with one style guide and not have worry about editing each author with a different style. All these PITA requirements are there for good reason. Why the fork do I understand this better than my Jr. editor? And when I don't have a crucial piece of information to let me meet these requirements, and insist the Jr. editor pass the question along, why does my Sr.editor get angry at me for asking?

I'm not asking for handholding. I'm being proactive and responsible.