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The Business Rusch: Fighting Uphill
The Business Rusch: Fighting Uphill
Kristine Kathryn Rusch
The struggle begins when we're young. Think of it this way: How many parents, upon hearing that their child wants to be a doctor, lawyer, firefighter, teacher, or nurse, says, No, you can't. It's too hard or You'll never make money at that or You're not good enough to succeed in that profession. Parents guide their kids, sure, but they try to guide their kids toward success, and they try to protect their kids from harm. And apparently, a life in the arts is, in our society, perceived as harm.
Then we move on to school where teachers—who, for the most part, have not succeeded in the arts—judge our "talent." Again, we hear "You're not good enough" or "It's too hard" or "Protect yourself with a real job" as if a job in the arts isn't real.
Those of us who go on to freelance have a stubborn streak or an extra bit of confidence. We also have more drive than the average person because we have started climbing uphill from the moment we declare our intention to become a writer. We have to fight the naysayers.
Some of us fight by compromising. New York Times bestseller Tess Gerritsen became a physician before giving it up to pursue her writing career. As she says in the August RT Book Reviews, "I was a writer long before I became a doctor…. But I'm also the daughter of very practical Asian parents, and they insisted that I'd never support myself in the arts, so I took their advice and went to medical school instead."
Some of us stubbornly refuse to compromise. I deliberately "wasted" my education—a history degree—by not going on to graduate school or law school. I became a reporter because that was a way to make money as a writer, but I always wrote fiction and always tried to market it.
And even when I was making a living as a nonfiction writer, or hell, as a fiction writer, I got told repeatedly that I was being impractical, that I was "lucky," that I had better prepare for the days when I could no longer follow my dream.
Preemptive disillusionment, I guess. A protection against the future, I suppose. But it didn't matter because the writing process itself was disillusioning. When all of us who are fulltime professional writers of longstanding came into this business, there was only one way to make a living, and that was by publishing traditionally.
A traditionally published writer has to jump through a lot of hoops. Rather than appeal to hundreds of readers, she needs to appeal to a few—the editors and the sales force at the publishing company. Editors issue rejections much more than they issue contracts. Those rejections take the form of tea leaves. Some writers read the tea leaves and decide to leave the business, but the rest of us stay despite even more discouragement. We fight and fight and fight again.
But in fighting, we bend ourselves into pretzels. Are we good at mysteries? Or better at romance? Should we write the same thing over and over or try something new? Should we sell ourselves like actors do? Or should we hide in our rooms like J.D. Salinger? We take whatever advice sounds sensible to us and discard the rest, not because the advice is sensible, but because we are operating in a closed system in which no one knows exactly what makes a book sell.
If we knew what made a book sell, we would repeat that effort with every single book. That's what's difficult about the arts. At a certain point, either the piece works for a certain number of people or it does not.
The certain number of people in traditional publishing are the editors and the sales force. Not the readers. Writers couldn't get to readers without going through the editors and sales force. And that's a finite group who must use their expertise to decide if a book will make a profit for the company or not.
What is that expertise? Experience, yes. A love of reading, yes. And mostly a lot of guesswork. That's the dirty secret of publishing. Editors, the sales force, and the publishers get surprised by a book selling better than expected more often than they get the actual sales figures right. In fact, most profit-and-loss statements developed on a book before publication are wrong.
There is no expertise in choosing what will succeed and what won't. There is only expertise in marketing—and sometimes (often) marketing goes awry as well.
In other words, William Goldman's famous words about Hollywood apply to publishing as well: Nobody knows anything.
So in the past (and really, honestly, in the present) writers market their work to a small subset of people who claim they know how to sell the work even when those people are just guessing. That subset, until 2009 or so, was the only game in town.
Writers had no choice but to believe what they were being told: only vampire novels sell, only romantic vampire novels sell, include a boy wizard and all will be fine, oh—you failed once so you're unmarketable. And on, and on, and on.
Those of who survived mostly ignored that stuff, and did what Tobias Buckell mentions in one of his recent blog posts. We learned what we could control. We could control how much we wrote. We could control how much we mailed. We could control how we reacted to the insanity around us. We could control little else.
It made those of us who survived decades both hard and crazy. We never believed what anyone told us. We only believed in a promise after it was kept. We knew that even success was evanescent, because it could be (and often was) screwed up at a moment's notice.
And then there was the money. Because we got told we couldn't make a living in the arts, most of us never tried. Those of us who actually cared about making a living were told that we couldn't be artists, that we were crass commercial hacks, that we didn't "respect" our business. So many of us who wanted a career in the arts didn't pursue it because it wasn't logical, it didn't seem to follow an existing business model. Most of the smart business minds avoided careers as pure artists—writers, actors, musicians—because it was hard to see a path to profit that didn't include luck. Many of the smart business minds either became publishers themselves or agents, giving up on their dream to do the work themselves, never realizing that they were making a small percentage off the artist so there had to be money in this business somewhere.
And the money started with the artist. That's the biggest crazy-making thing of all. Without the writer's story, there would be no agents, no publishing houses, no bookstores. All of those businesses make their profits off a percentage of what the writer gets for his creation.
But until 2009, the distribution of the writer's work—getting that work to the reader—required a system that the writer couldn't easily access on her own. So she paid pieces of her potential earnings to get to market.
And then indie-publishing came about. The self-publishing revolution, in which it became possible to hit those markets without the intervening percentage-takers. And most writers still believe that it's impossible for them to make a living.
Why? Ah, that's what we'll explore in this series, among other things. The series started with last week's post, "Unexpected Gold in Self-Help Books" and will continue for the next few weeks.
But let's continue with the way writers were trained. Because the business minds left writing and/or failed to band together with other business-minded writers, the writers who remained never really questioned the system. And most writers have no idea whether or not one of their trusted "partners" – a publisher, say, or an agent—is skimming a bit on the side.
(Publishers have skimmed for years. Lawsuits fighting inaccurate reporting of royalties have gone on for decades, usually against big companies. The audit clause in publishing contracts is, for the most part, a new development, caused by a wave of fraud about thirty years ago. Now publishers are underreporting e-book royalties. Incorrect royalty statements are a common problem, not an uncommon one. And have been from the beginning of traditional publishing.)
Until recently, the writer who complained about the way things got done was labeled "naïve" or worse, labeled a troublemaker. Word got out through publishing circles about the troublemakers, making an effective blacklist.
You wanted to get published in the days when the only way to get your book to market was to go through traditional routes? Then you had to expect a certain amount of underreporting, incompetence, and just plain theft. Writers who survived looked on that as the cost of doing business, the way that a retail store owner factors in a certain percentage of sales lost to shoplifting.
Even with success, the traditional longterm writing career was crazy-making. Sure, you could be a New York Times bestseller, but reviewers and others could call you a hack and say you couldn't write. Very few writers could publish their laundry lists. Writer after writer—good sellers all—were told they couldn't publish anything except the series (or type of book) that made them famous. When the writer tried, they were rejected (yes, still) or the publishing company would actively work to mismarket the "strange" book so that readers would know it was an outlier.
Again, nobody knew anything, so everyone tried to go with what worked before.
All of this should have made all successful writers batshit crazy. Yet most writers aren't. Instead, they retreat. They don't talk to anyone about what they do or how they do it—much like they were when they were kids with a dream that the adults constantly disparaged.
Last week in her blog, writer Sarah Hoyt compared writers to battered spouses. She says that some of what she hears from writers reminds her of the reasons battered spouses stay with their abusers. I have to admit, I've had that same thought myself, but I've never written a blog post about it because it seems too simple.
Writers do react badly to any suggestions for change, from leaving an agent who is clearly no longer interested in working for them to staying with a publisher even as the publisher's contracts and advances get worse. But I think the way that writers act has a lot more to do with crisis response than with abuse.
The writers who stay in the business become survivors. "Survivor" is an interesting word because it implies that the survivor went through something traumatic. Indeed, my handy dandy Encarta World English Dictionary defines the word "survive" as managing to stay alive "especially in difficult situations" or "after something such as an accident or war that threatens life."
Or livelihood. Something threatening.
Think about it: from childhood those of us who wanted to go into the arts got bombarded with reasons why we couldn't. Then we went through a trial that led to success, but success in a field that considers you only as good as your last bit of work. It's not an abuse/abuser relationship because that implies something personal. The abuser has a personal stake in what happens to the abused, just like the abused has a stake with the abuser.
But publishing, like any business, is impersonal. It's a business, and while the personal relationships might be good ones, the professional relationship between a writer (any writer) and traditional publishing is difficult at best.
Writers who have gone through decades in traditional publishing react the way that people who have been through a major national crisis react. No two people react to a crisis the same way, particularly a prolonged crisis, and yet each of those people have scars from that crisis.
Both of my parents lived through the Depression. My mother, orphaned early in those years, never believed she had security. She didn't hoard anything, but she also failed to believe that anything would continue, particularly anything financial. Good fortune, she believed (hell, she knew), could be snatched away in an instant. But that didn't make her someone who celebrated the good fortune. Instead, she was someone who watched it warily, waiting for it to disappear.
My father, from a stable household with a government paycheck (my grandfather was a rural mail carrier), attended college in those years, and spent money freely. The financial hardships of that period touched him, but not personally. Still, he understood my mother's fears, because he had seen so many people lose everything during that time.
I have friends who survived 9/11. Other friends who have served in various wars. Veterans in particular react differently to their time in war zones. Some never really come home. Others remain continually on alert. Some only react when something viscerally reminds them of the war itself.
Go back over my list from last week, and then think of those items in terms of survival mechanisms from a war fought mostly inside your own mind. A writer had to find coping mechanisms to deal with a constant barrage of negativity from the outside. Some of that negativity didn't just come in the form of words: some of it came in the form of deeds. People will actively try to stop writers from achieving their goals, sometimes with the mistaken idea that they are "helping" the writer.
No wonder writers have a bunker mentality. No wonder so many writers become quiet and never really speak of their work to anyone else.
For years, Dean and I taught a master class for professional writers, those who've had success and had run into a bad patch in their careers. We worked on a variety of things to get the writer moving forward again. One of the most important things that we did was a role-playing game that showed writers how to cope with things outside of their control. We found that role-playing was the only thing that worked, because simply telling writers didn't help at all. They had to experience the craziness that was traditional publishing before they could figure out what kind of coping mechanisms worked for them.
We don't teach the master class any more. Most of what we taught as recently as five years ago is now out of date. Traditional publishing is only one choice that a writer has, instead of the only choice. The fact that writers now have a lot of choice makes all the difference in the world. Writers can act like normal business people, making decisions based on logic, and finances, and an established business model.
But most writers aren't making those choices. They close their eyes, stick their fingers in their ears, and sing to themselves when someone tries to tell them about all the changes.
This isn't willful stupidity. It's a survival skill. It's a bunker mentality. They focus on one thing and one thing only—the writing—because, in the past, if they focused on anything else, it would destroy what creativity they had left.
Now, however, that bunker mentality will kill careers. Writers have to figure out what behaviors they've learned that no longer apply to the brave new world of publishing, and then they have to move beyond those behaviors.
A lot of you wrote to me last week and said you recognized yourself in that list. That's a good first step. Once you identify the problem, you can actually work on solving the problem.
This week's column is about the second step. You have to figure out where the behavior came from. Did you learn not to take risks from your parents? Or from some bad experiences in the past? Or are you a natural conservative—the kind of person who never willingly takes risks?
Go back over that list and ask yourself those questions about the points you resonate with. Figure out where those ideas and behaviors came from. Because you have to know what caused them before you can change them.
Next week, we'll start working on individual items and how they apply (or don't apply) in the new world of publishing. We're about to walk into a new battle. We're already seeing the battle lines get drawn.
The writer who survives—and I use that word on purpose—is the one who knows what her strengths and weaknesses are, both in writing and in business. She is also the writer who is flexible enough to roll with the punches and to make changes where necessary.
Here's the thing, though. Don't expect change to be easy. Change is hard. But it's worthwhile.
Of course, you already know that. You know how to take risks and you know how to make it through a minefield. After all, you're a professional writer despite what your parents and teachers said. You've made it through some of the toughest things traditional publishing can dish out.
You'll figure out your path in this new world as well. It'll just take a while—and a bit of belief in yourself.
Every week, I take some time away from my fiction writing to write these blog posts. I rely on you folks to support the Thursday nonfiction blog, since I rarely try to sell them elsewhere. If you get some value from these posts, leave a tip on the way out. I also appreciate all of the comments and e-mails that I get. Thanks.
"The Business Rusch: Fighting Uphill" copyright 2011 by Kristine Kathryn Rusch.
63 responses to "The Business Rusch: Fighting Uphill"
John, you sound as if you have it down very well. A few months ago, I kind of vomited out a whole lot of stuff about my writing, the industry, etc. to a newish friend who actually thanked me at the end of it for giving her an insight into the world of a professional writer. That was really refreshing, but mostly I still have this squeamishness about sharing. She has talked to me quite a bit about the trials of her teaching career, so we've both learned from the exchange. This is something we have to remember, too – in a whole lot of professional spheres, people are being asked to do more and more for less and less.
Well, most likely the metaphor that works best will vary by individuals. We can at least agree that longterm exposure to traditional publishing causes strange and permanent adjustments to the brain.
Actually, Lillian, I've trained myself to give a clear, accurate 2-4 sentence answer to "How's your writing going?" and similar such questions. Followed by nicely asking how the other party's occupation is going. I not only learn quite a bit about many professions (most people take a lot more than 2-4 sentences and they'd rather talk about what they do, anyway), but I find it pretty much completely normalizes what I do, both to my friends (almost none of my RL friends are writers) and then to me. But it sure felt weird at first, like a drunk answering "Hey, how's the drinking going?" or a burglar asked, "So how much is there in most houses?" Probably took a year before I could just say, "Eahh, I'm behind deadline on my next book, it's been going real slow, and I just got a copyedit back, which means I have to take a week and a half out to get that squared away, and then get back into what I was doing before. So there's more than I can do right now, and the paycheck is a long way away."
Kris, another one of those quibbly addendums (and I did look at what Sarah Hoyt wrote). Those of us who wish we didn't know quite so much about abuse often find that one of the hardest things to accept is that abuse is very often not personal at all. The parent who hit you, had sex with you, taught you you were worthless, or the spouse who ran up huge debts, destroyed your possessions, and drove all your friends away would have done exactly the same thing with any other child or spouse that came within reach. Furthermore they quite often assert that this is what everyone does and it's what's natural and that you're crazy if you think everyone else doesn't (but of course you're not supposed to talk about it).
Indeed, quite a few abuse survivors have been through a period of misery when they realized that it wasn't personal. Mom didn't hate me; I was a kid and she hit kids. Dad didn't think I was bad and/or sexy and/or his special girl; I was a kid and he raped kids. Something like the relationship between a mouse and a snake; it's only personal to the mouse.
It's part of the nature of abuse.
And that, I think, really is a component of the traditional relationship between writer and publisher. Straight up, for generations, many editors (and people above them via the editors) told writers to make their work objectively, observably worse, to produce things they didn't like, etc. and assured them that this was being professional and it's what everyone did.
Surviving abuse requires survival skills too, and if you're moving from one abusive household to another, you're "lucky" that you already have them. But moving out of the abusive universe altogether requires taking a hard look at some of your "skills" and deciding not to exercise them, even when your nerves are screaming to do so.
Just my gloomy two cents.
A few years ago, a therapist told me that my biggest problem was that I had developed amazing coping skills for someone in life and death situations (which is kind of what I grew up with); the problem was I was no longer in life and death situations. I think maybe that's where many of us are now as writers. We developed great coping skills to deal with an industry that offered us so little control or even insight into how things worked. Now we have more control than ever. Some of us are learning new coping skills (and are feeling all lit up and empowered by them), while others of us are trying mightily to use those old skills in a new world.
This year, as the bulk of my time has gone into my writing instead of the other areas of my business, I've been discovering the impossibility of that question. Unless the person answering has a lot of context already, it's a bit like a military person trying to discuss theater operations with a civilian: even if the material isn't classified, there's simply not enough context or common ground to communicate anything meaningful. Something about "I made shit up all week, and I typed a lot of it too!" doesn't communicate a lot to those who either aren't writers themselves or don't live with one. I find myself, more and more, talking shop with writers and talking about my intellectual and physical hobbies with my non-writer friends. Otherwise, the conversation dies a swift and ugly death.
In conversations with other authors who're at my point in their careers, I've discovered this is a pretty common theme. That's got to play into the reticence equation somehow, though I haven't worked out how just yet.
Thanks for another fab post, Kris!
Yeah, for me it's right up there with, "So how long does it take you to write one?" which is ALWAYS the question I get when people find out I do those little Harlequin romance thingies. I must have been asked it a thousand times, and I cannot figure out why, of all things, it is what people are burning to know.
And I know it's unfair of me to feel that way. "How's your writing?" and "How long does it take?" are both innocent and well-intentioned questions, but like you, I cringe.
Recently read your Davy Moss book, BTW, and really enjoyed it – intense and real and layered. Will be coming back for more of your stuff.
Fascinating post as usual, Kris. One thing that really resonated for me, with a thirty-year career under my belt, was the "keeping quiet" thing. I realize I don't really talk about my writing to any friends or family. Husband yes, other writers you bet, but no one else. Occasionally people ask, "So how's your writing going?" and my face must telegraph my reluctance. They usually don't ask again. And now I'm questioning why I say so little.
The naysaying will keep happening, unfortunately.
I myself was excited and overjoyed to learn of indie publishing. When I realized Smashwords was a free service, I was over the moon. I was ready to nominate Mark Coker for the Nobel prize!
Do you suppose any of my relatives shared my joy?
Not so much…
Although you do have to wonder if the reason that writers never made money is that everyone KNEW that Writers Never Made Money. So, y'know, when you saw a writer who didn't make much money, well, why question that? Because you KNOW that's how it's supposed to be.
We have to fight the naysayers.
For me, it was a girl back in junior high; I once announced I was going to write a novel, and she disparaged me, good and loud. Laughed at me. That thought has been with me up until I uploaded the first in my novella series – TAKE THAT!! 🙂
Then came all the "advice" from the "experts" who said, "You can't make money writing fiction." I believe that whopper for a long time…until Dean made mincemeat of that myth in one of his posts. (Thank goodness!)
Now, however, that bunker mentality will kill careers. Writers have to figure out what behaviors they've learned that no longer apply to the brave new world of publishing, and then they have to move beyond those behaviors.
In a way, I'm glad I never managed to snag a trad contract – hindsight is 20/20, even though that's what all wannabes were aiming for. But I do feel sorry for those writers who refuse to see the writing on the wall; I guess they've been in that coping mentality for such a long time that it's hard for them to come out of it.
Really, really sad.
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Until I was 11 my parents thought I was going to be a hippy (so they say) because I was a dreamer. I wandered through the woods making up poetry and stories and songs. Amazing, because by 12 (after some family crises and middle school academic pressure), it was like I boxed all that up and put it on the back shelf in my mind. Until I was in my thirties, I routinely told people that I 'didn't have a creative bone in my body'.
All those years . . . I don't want to say wasted (I did get a Ph.D. after all, but never a job in my field) but underused. Just think if I'd been writing all that time! Thanks for your post.
Thank you for this post! I can relate to much of what you have said.
I'm glad to have the opportunity to read the thoughts and opinions of a more experienced writer like yourself. You've let me know that I'm not alone as a writer in my thoughts, worries, fears, and dreams.
You inspired me so much that I wrote a post on my own site about your blog, and provided a link to your posting.
I hope your words give many writers comfort, inspiration, and courage to continue to follow their dreams. I know you have done this for me.
With thanks,
Thank you for that, Elizabeth. My son also is autistic, and I'm a stay at home mom. We don't homeschool, though. He doesn't listen to me well enough for that, lol. Parenting an autistic kid is different than parenting a neurotypical kid, that's for sure – it's a lot more intense. But I write anyway, and he and I have some interesting conversations about stories and how they work. He loves telling stories and pretending that he's making movies, so I like to think I'm a good role model for him there . I think when parents put their dreams away "for the good of the kids" there tends to be a lot of anger, expressed or unexpressed, and that isn't very good for anyone.
Good stuff, Kris. A note for those who think having children forces the choice of writing v. caring for the children–cautionary on all sides, in a way, but also hopeful.
Our son is autistic. I sold my first fiction when he was two; my first book when he was three. After that, I wrote a book a year–and often some short stuff as well–while parenting him, including 12 years of formal homeschooling. My husband worked away from the small town we live in much of that time, so I was the default 24/7/365 caregiver. He is now in his 20s, and has vastly exceeded the expectations of the professionals who saw him as a toddler, living in his own apartment in a city 50 miles away, attending community college classes. This was, to put it mildly, a helluva lot of work and required changes in how I wrote (and what I wrote, in that I couldn't write what I'm writing now when being interrupted every few minutes.) By the time my husband lost his job (in 2000) I was making enough to support us, and have since.
As you said, Kris, writing fiction professionally is a tough gig, and requires a solid work ethic. And I think using kids as an excuse not to go for it isn't fair to the kids–not only do they get the guilt ("I could've been a writer except I had to put you first…" = "It's your fault I'm not…") but they miss the example of a parent who is willing to demonstrate what it takes to meet tough goals…including a career in the arts. And speaking as one of many mothers who's combined writing full time with parenting full time, I will say that the results of our choices are a lot of good kids. Just as with other working mothers–the notion that a working mother is neglectful is hogwash. So for those who worry that taking that hour a day to write means your kids will turn out bad…forget it. Write anyway.
I too grew up with my parents constantly telling me to get a "real job" so I could be "secure" because you "can't make a living as a writer." So even though I banged out a spy novel on an old Underwood typewriter in my teens and wrote lots of short stories, these words wore me down until my writing became a trickle and I even stopped for almost 10 years. That was one of the hardest, most depressing times until I realized I had to start writing again. And yet I was still plagued by the you "can't make a living as a writer" belief so I kept dabbling and not really going for it. Until a fateful initial acceptance of a novel came over the transom and I had to decide: was I going to keep dabbling or go for it?
I chose to go for it, even with the disparaging voices in my head and now I'm writing more than I ever have, have jumped into self-publishing with some sales (!) and am learning tons from generous folks like you and Dean. I'm heading back to Oregon for 2 more workshops next year and feel like I'm training for the Olympics, that I need to push myself to get ready for it and I'm absolutely loving it! So now when those voices dare to come into my head, I take a deep breath and tell them to shut up. Then I get down to work. And I'm able to do that because of the generosity of pros like yourself and Dean who shed a light on what the writing life is really like and how to get the hell out of your own way. For that, I'm so grateful. Thank you! (And this comment got a bit away from me, sorry about that!)
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I am something of an opposite, in that my mother encouraged me to write and thought I could be published, but I resisted. At the time, I didn't think it was what I wanted to do with my life. And in hindsight, I don't think I could have survived that publishing environment. The thought of handing control over my work and my career to a publishing house is soul crushing. That is why I am so excited about this new world of publishing. The choice to self publish is so liberating and I can't wait to get involved.
Now I have an 8 year old daughter who wants to publish. I told her she can't publish her notebooks full of Narnia and Thundercats fanfiction (grin) but that with time dedicated to learning and practice one day she will write something good enough to publish and we will do it together.
Kris, I hope you don't mind that I divert slightly from your main topic but – I sympathise with Sarah (above). I myself have five sons and a raging desire to write full time. Can't do it now or in the foreseeable future because I gotta keep those boys fed and give 'em the best I can. That's a conscious decision I made long ago, to put family first, even if I put the writing aside for a while (a short while – I will never give up – never!) But one thing I have to say: that in these posts and also in personal correspondence Kris and Dean have always supported that decision and reaffirmed that family must always come first. Sometimes (during the summer when I don't teach) I can get a lot of writing done, and sometimes (especially in the fall when I have many hours of teaching sometimes six or seven days a week) I can only manage an hour or two of writing a week. But over time when I add it all up I realize I can get a lot of work done. I've traditionally published around fourteen short stories, have self-published two books and a whole bunch of other short stories, and I have several more books worth of material in the finishing stages. Sure, family first. But never give up on the writing. The writing, in fact, has made me a better man and a better father, and my older sons greatly admire me for it. It's wonderful when your progeny appreciate what you do. I wouldn't trade it for the world.
My 16 year old daughter and I were going through some old boxes and she
found drawings and poems I'd done over thirty years ago. She sat there
stunned…"These are beautiful; look what you did!" Then she asked the
million dollar question, "Why did you stop until now?" The subject of
her question has been in the back of my mind for as long as I can
remember. I knew the answer and I must say it was a pleasure to read
your blog and know that I was not the only one that endured the pelting
of such a short-sighted litany. Only today it is different. The world is
a place I meet on my own terms. I am stubborn as hell and as determined
as they come, but I only sing to myself in the shower and I never put my
fingers in my ears.(grin) Thanks for the post. Well said and so true.
I just talked to a bookstore owner who said he won't buy self pubbed books. That's very discouraging, and it makes me pause before self pubbing my next book.
"Writer after writer—good sellers all—were told they couldn't publish anything except the series (or type of book) that made them famous. When the writer tried, they were rejected (yes, still) or the publishing company would actively work to mismarket the "strange" book so that readers would know it was an outlier."
Bingo. I knew this in theory, but hadn't seen it in practice until I came across S.E. Hinton's book "Hawke's Harbor." I was surprised to say the least — I'd been a huge fan of "The Outsiders" and had tracked down all of the books listed on the inside front cover. Had I somehow missed this one? So I re-checked my paperback copies of her best-known works and confirmed it. The publishers had typecast Hinton as a writer who focuses on young adults facing some sort of crisis, so when Hinton turned in a quite excellent vampire novel, they buried it.
Thank you for writing this series, Kris. It's an eye-opener for sure.
Thanks, Kris. =) That – right there – is exactly the kind of encouragement which puts a smile on my face and keeps me plugging along.
Chrissy Wissler has all my fantasy writing and I'm publishing all the romance under Christen Anne Kelley.
As a side note, my novel 'Home Run' is in the copyediting stage and I'll be sending you a copy as a big, giant thank you. You'll be happy to know my first reader (aka husband), pointed out I didn't have a 'dad' confrontation in there and he was right. I put it in, fighting tears the whole time, but I did it. Okay, so maybe quitting the day job wasn't the hardest thing I've done…
Thanks again. =)
Well, Kris, I can definitely say the education you've written on your blog (and Dean's) and your amazing workshops has completely overhauled at least one writer. Without your advice and all your wonderful business sense I wouldn't be where I am now, which is at home, writing. Full-time.
It was probably the most gosh-darn scariest thing I've ever done. I walked away from one of the best, steadiest jobs I could have (the fire department), but again even that scary factor came from all those years of being hounded that writing isn't a career. You can't make a living as a writer. What you need (and want) is the long-term, steady job with great benefits…it took some time to figure out that wasn't what I wanted (and I was always bored out of my mind and writing at work – you'd think that was a clue or something).
I'm not one of those writers who's survived decades in traditional publishing, but it sure wasn't easy just to reach the point of seeing myself as a professional writer. Everything you wrote about growing up with a dream of being a writer was spot on the money and really resonated with me.
Thanks again for sharing your wisdom. And I am so seriously excited about being a writer right now – and to think that self-publishing allowed me to kiss the day job goodbye. Nothing feels better than being in control of my own career.
Rory's last book is foreworded by Barry. Just saying.
Take care.
I have never gotten much encouragement from anyone about my writing, but neither have I gotten much discouragement. What I have gotten for the most part is indifference, which can be even more devastating. It's probably an old saying, but I read it by Harlan Ellison: "The opposite of love is not hate, it's indifference." That's what I have had to fight more than anything.
That and one more thing: The person who tries to discourage me more than anyone else is – me! I have to constantly fight my own efforts to disparage myself. "You're no good – you're fighting a losing battle – you started too late and will never catch up" – and so on. Actual material victories are still few and far between, and I have to pick myself up contantly after multiple falls on my face, brush myself off, and keep trying.
Kris, this is the first post you've written that didn't resonate with me at all. You begin by saying it's a "myth" that writers cannot make a living at writing. You finish by comparing those who believe that myth with abused spouses. I'm not sure that's accurate in every case.
For one thing, I believe you are leaving out an extremely important part of the equation: children. Writers and artists who choose to have children make the decision (I hope) to put them first. It's one thing for me to starve in a garrett when getting my career off the ground; it's quite another to condemn a couple of toddlers to that. My parents, far from discouraging me, were role models: an artist and a literature teacher. They encouraged my writing at every possible step. But they also held down day jobs because they put me and my sister first. Maybe they weren't good artists or writers, I don't know. I do know that my father did not have Robert Motherwell's career and my mother did not become a full professor of literature. Were they untalented? Did they not work hard enough? Did they not BELIEVE in themselves enough? Were they discouraged by others? No to all of that. The bottom line was that they could NOT make a living at their respective arts without a day job. Period.
I wish I had had more time to write. I could have had more time, if I'd been content to neglect my kids, or let them grow up in a dangerous neighborhood. Buying them a safe environment to grow up in — the suburbs — took all my time and energy for years. And when I came home at night, I couldn't hole up in the study; they needed my attention even more than my paycheck. Could I have made that kind of money writing? Maybe. But GETTING THERE would have entailed sacrifices I was not prepared to demand from my kids. I wrote, I submitted stories, I got turned down. For decades. The only "outside discouragement" I got was from the *expletive deleted* gatekeepers in publishing. Writing, or more properly speaking, getting published, was a gamble that never paid off. No responsible parent supports a family by relying on long shots.
You hit a nerve, here, and maybe one you weren't targeting. I have every sympathy with those writers who have had to struggle with active opposition, or discouragement from those who should have supported them. I just hope you aren't overstating your case a bit, when you imply that any writer who wants to badly enough can make a living, can support a family by writing. Risk taking is important, yes, both for personal and artistic growth. But we have to keep in mind that for some of us, the risk is not just for ourselves, but for those who depend on us.
A bunker mentality. A solid wall of concrete around me shutting everything out. Just me and my writing…
You and your husband speak frankly about your experiences in the business. You are providing something for me that I could not get on my own. It basically boils down to basic stuff: Here are the people who are successful in this business and here are the things they all have in common. Anyone who wants to start a small business in any field meets with the professionals. Very basic stuff. Get to know people who work in the field. See, for example, if those are people you actually want to become (there is an illustrative story about everyone's favorite satanist Aleister Crowley and his ambitions to become a chess master).
I would love to go to writers' conferences. Just shaking a successful writer's hand could tell me volumes about her or him. I can't. The flights alone would cost me two grand. Add hotel rooms, food, local transportation… Everything I learn about successful writers, I learn from their subordinate clauses. Their attitudes, their personalities, their ways to handle situations. And I only learn it after I have encountered these situations myself.
Bunker mentality. I had thought that being able to live with the pressure would do the trick.
I also need to be able to write fiction while the walls are burning. Or some intangible dread builds up in the back of my head featuring my latest idea of what could go wrong.
And then there is the two of you shouting wisdom into the digital void, your voices carrying as far as Munich, Germany, I can assure you.
'Thank you' doesn't quite cut it, but… Thanks. Not sure if I would have ever come off to any good start without you.
So much to say to all that! When I told my father I wanted to be a writer, he came back the next day with the statistic that, at the time, only 400 Americans made a full-time living as freelance writers. He could have made that up for all I knew, I was 16 and only thought that would make me part of an elite few. Hah!
I spent 6 years doing menial jobs and only sold 1 story, so I eventually got a practical education and a good job. My wife went the other way working hard at her second love, becoming a chemist. Only when that and her resulting teaching career were rudely yanked away from her by illness, did she return to trying professional writing. She had never given up writing, just never tried to sell it.
I've dragged her to many SF cons over the years where she's seen the wrong turns so many young writers make. Her question to traditional publishing has been, "Why does everyone in publishing, from editors to secretaries to agents, make a decent living, but the providers of what they sell have to fight for scraps?"
I haven't been able to bring myself to ask one young writer we've met if he's really been careful with his contracts. He's got 3 books out and is doing well, but I worry that they're conning him into giving away his e-rights. I don't want to be one more voice saying, "You're doing it wrong," but I worry none-the-less.
When I was a teenager, my mother destroyed all of my writing because she disapproved of my subject matter. She also told me I was a dreamer and actively discouraged me from pursuing the arts as a career. I find it a little ironic that she now respects what I'm doing because I'm making some money at it. But she's a Depression kid, so maybe she can't help herself. I like your idea of a bunker mentality, Kris. I see it in myself, and in other new writers. The strange thing, to me, is how many writers do see their publishing relationships as personal even when they're not. I don't know if this is related to the bunker mentality or not, but I see it all the time. Writers who want to view their agent or editor as a buddy/mentor rather than a business associate. Maybe people are grasping desperately for allies in a situation they find incredibly stressful. I'm the type who'll withdraw and view everyone suspiciously when I feel threatened, but different types may feel the need to align themselves with others, especially people they perceive as powerful and able to protect or help them.
This is such an excellent post that I'm hesitant to disagree with any part of it, for fear that people will disregard the accurate and helpful majority of it.
So please consider this one specific point regarding the second step: instead of trying to determine what caused the beliefs or actions to develop, try to recognize instead what is maintaining those beliefs or actions in the present.
Psychologists have learned over the past several decades that people do not, in fact, need to understand how certain thoughts or behaviors developed. Most of the time, it's enough to find out what is maintaining them now and learning how to change them. The difference,and it's not insignificant, is a focus on the present (which is mutable), rather than the past (which is not).
I'm excited by this series of blogs, and I can't wait for the next one!
Another great post, Kris.
I come from a decidedly non-artistic family and got the parental "But you must do something practical to earn a living first" lecture from the beginning. So I did not go to film school, which was what I really wanted to do, but studied something more practical and still failed to find a job after university in spite of a very good degree. Writing actually suits me a lot better than filmmaking, but sometimes I still wish I would have gone to film school instead of compromising.
Interestingly enough, my parents respect my writing a lot more now I am self-publishing my backlist stories and actually making a bit of money.
Discouraging kids from the get-go is bad and it's something the German school system is very good at. One of the "practical" things I ended up doing is teaching and I try never to discourage a kid, no matter how impractical their dreams may seem. I always tell them, "It won't be easy and you will have to buckle down and work. But if you really want to, you can do it." I have two kids in my English class who are aspiring writers, kids who were labeled not academically gifted at that. I encourage them as much as I can, talk to them about writing, etc… You can see how happy they are that an adult is taking them seriously for once.
This is a great article, and helps me understand just what the heck was going on before the Big Internet Bang spawned this New Universe of Publishing.
I'm young, new, and failed to receive an Arts education (beyond "Here's a house full of books and no TV. Shut up and read, son!"), so I missed out on most of the myths & misconceptions & "Old Universe Thinking" (as detailed in this and the last post).
I like that nobody really knows how it'll all shake out, but the framework I've thrown together only has two 'rules': Write More and Don't Sign Anything (Yet).
The disparaging of artists who "make it" looks quite widespread, through many kinds of art. I guess part of it is a way of "othering" the artist and a way to avoid facing our own unfulfilled dreams.
WRT abused writers: have you been introduced to the work of Rory Miller? Besides his "Violence, a Writer's Guide" [*] and some workshops he does on that, he's pretty good at describing the way social AND "real" survival changes our brains –he's got a psychology background AND a LEO one–. If I follow your points, publishing would make for a "resource predator" mindset, like, say, a mugger.
Also, on Vets: are you familiar with Dr. Shay's work? ["Achilles in Vietnam" and "Odysseus in America"]
Your role playing is what, in other places, is called "scenario training" or "adrenal stress training". It does kinda work, does it not? 😉
Take care. Also, this kind of posts [mine] might seem a bit from the left field –to say nothing about the ones I do NOT send ;)–; if you'd rather I didn't, or I did privately so as to avoid derailing things, no hard feelings.
Again, take care.
[*] https://www.smashwords.com/books/view/27439 –I'd say it's required reading for any action writer–. You can get him at http://chirontraining.blogspot.com/


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I've always felt that baseball is the sport of choice for the goddess Eris. Mainly because there are so many statistics involved. I know that sounds boring to most people who don't know their OPS from their WAR or their ERA+ from their WHIP. But baseball is so interesting because of sample size.
Baseball season is ridiculously long. It starts today, the last day of March, and won't be over until last out of the World Series sometime in October. During that time every single team will play 162 games (plus playoff games). Every starting player will see around 4 or 5 plate appearances during each of those games. There will be roughly 120 pitches thrown during those contests. On each pitch, almost anything can happen. A liner back to the pitcher. A dribbler to short. A monster 400 foot homerun. A weak foul ball to the third base side. A bean ball placed in the third rib of the batter. Each at bat is a paragraph. Each pitch is a sentence.
There are so many games each season that odd outliers start to crop up. Teams will score 20 runs in a game. Players will hit 4 home runs in a game. Guys will go on 30 game hitting streaks. Relief pitchers will hit three run homers in their first major league at bat. Second basemen will pull off unassisted triple plays. And yes, at some point you will have a pitcher throw a no-hitter while high on LSD.
Baseball is exciting because the possibilities are endless and ever new season is a blank canvas just waiting for something strange to happen. So get the lawn mowed, pop open a beer, and let's play ball.

subset: commoncrawl


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Limited Stock
Fawcet Hexagon Optical Frame in Yellow Gold
Prescription Free Optical Lens in a Yellow Gold Frame
Dispatched on Friday
These delicate hexagonal eyeglasses from the LINDA FARROW collection draw inspiration from the 1970s heritage of the brand. The Fawcet is crafted from 22 carat yellow gold plated titanium which is intricately layered with the lens. The metal frame cuts across the silhouette to expose the corners of the lenses for a contemporary finish. Teamed with tapered temples and adjustable nose pads to provide superior comfort.
During this difficult period LINDA FARROW is proud to announced that for the month of March and April 2020 we will donate 10% of all sales from this frame to the National Health Service (NHS) in the UK.
-Optical lens free from prescription lenses
-Titanium frame with titanium temples
-Made in Japan
-Titanium frame with titanium temples
-Made in Japan
Size & Fit
61mm lens width
12mm bridge width
140mm temple length
12mm bridge width
140mm temple length
Fawcet Hexagon Optical Frame in Yellow Gold


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An Interview with Brandy Sacks
Mindfulness Bell: Brandy, where did you grow up and what were your first religious experiences?
Brandy Sacks: I've lived all my adult life in San Diego, California. My parents were non-practicing Jews, and I really wasn't raised with any spirituality. As I grew up, however, I was attracted to Buddhism, but most of what I saw here in California was Japanese Zen practice. The Zen Center in San Francisco was very prominent. Japanese Zen really didn't click for me; it seemed too strict, with too many rules. I did, however, become a Reiki Master.
MB: How did you first encounter the teachings of Thich Nhat Hanh?
BS: I first became aware of Thich Nhat Hanh through my Reiki teacher, who would quote from Thay's writings and talks. In 1993, I heard Thay was coming to Malibu to lead a Day of Mindfulness. It was one of his earliest retreats on the West Coast; there was no Sangha in Los Angeles or San Diego at the time, and we might get a hundred people for a multi-day retreat, several hundred for a one-day event—much smaller than now. I went to the '93 Day of Mindfulness.
MB: Obviously it was a life-changing experience.
BS: It was. What really resonated for me were the Five Mindfulness Trainings, Thay's vision for a global spirituality and ethic: reverence for life, true happiness, true love, loving speech and deep listening, and nourishment and healing. They were clear, direct, but not ten commandments. We weren't striving for perfection, but by following these trainings we could become happier. That really made sense to me. I wanted a spiritual practice that emphasized happiness. So I took the Five Mindfulness Trainings at that retreat.
MB: Where did you go from there?
BS: I began reading Thay's books and continued my sitting here on the West Coast. Then I heard he was coming in 1997 to lead a multi-day retreat in Santa Barbara. We had a huge turnout. People still talk about that one and the one that followed in 1999 as solidifying the West Coast community.
There was still no San Diego Sangha in 1997, but after the retreat there was a lot of talk about Sangha building. Thay stressed that if you wanted to become a member of the Order of Interbeing you had to lead or start a Sangha. About the same time, Christopher Reed, a lay Dharma teacher, started a meditation class that became the first San Diego Sangha. We later moved to the Wat Lau Temple for the Sangha's meetings and I began leading it. I took the Fourteen Mindfulness Trainings at the retreat in 1999.
MB: How has your personal commitment to Buddhism influenced your professional career?
BS: I was an elementary school teacher for a number of years. Later I became the manager of operations for a nonprofit called Bread for the Journey. I currently work for another nonprofit, GroundSpark, which uses documentary filmmaking to ignite social change. It's a great organization and won an Academy Award in 1991 for Deadly Deception, its documentary film on the environmental and health dangers of creating nuclear weapons. Our current project is called Respect for All, a series of films aimed at elementary, middle, and high school audiences on respecting diversity. The middle school films focus quite a bit on stopping bullying; the high school films deal with bullying, sexuality, and other issues.
Around 2001, once the Community of Mindful Living office in Berkeley closed, I took over running the iamhome.org website. The website featured, as its successor still does, an international Sangha directory and a listing of retreats and talks by Thay. After five or six years I appealed to Janelle Combelic, then editor of the Mindfulness Bell magazine, for assistance with content and direction for the website. We got together a small team of OI members, Dharma teachers, and monastics. We decided to broaden the focus of the website to include the online version of the Mindfulness Bell magazine. We changed the name to mindfulnessbell.org and I've been webmaster ever since.
MB: You've been engaged in this practice now for almost twenty years. Looking back, what has it meant for you?
BS: I'm very dedicated to the Five Mindfulness Trainings and once every six weeks I lead a recitation at our Sangha. They remain for me one of the most concrete and real aspects of our practice and underlie all Thay says in his books and all we do.
Looking back, I'm a lot happier, a lot less anxious and fearful, a lot more compassionate and caring. I got ninety percent of that from the practice. It helped me realize and stay mindful of the impact that my words and actions have on those around me. As Thay says, it's not just about you, it's about the community of family, friends, and colleagues around you, about the whole world, really, and the impact you have on it, moment to moment.
Thay talks about not turning away from suffering. That's a continuing challenge for me, but I draw strength from his encouragement to have solidity, be mindful, be content and happy in myself so I have the energy and inner resources to look at the suffering in the world. It's inspired me to have a career devoted to helping others.
MB: And because of all this, you've decided to leave half of your estate to furthering the work Thay has begun.
BS: Yes! As soon as I heard that the Thich Nhat Hanh Continuation and Legacy Foundation had been created, I decided making a planned gift was a really good thing to do. Planned gifts are going to be essential to helping the monastic and lay communities continue to grow and thrive. Many of us want to ensure that the teachings and the monastic order continue in the future, but we may not have the wealth to make a major gift at the present moment. That makes planned giving an attractive option: if you've got a retirement plan, you have assets that you can give after your lifetime. All it takes is filling out a codicil to your will, and changing your beneficiaries if you have a retirement plan, which is what I did. It's very easy to do.
How to Leave a Legacy of Love and Compassion
You can leave a legacy of love for our beloved teacher, Thich Nhat Hanh, and his inspirational work around the world by making a bequest gift to the Thich Nhat Hanh Continuation and Legacy Foundation. Your bequest allows the Sangha to care for our U.S. monastic practice centers, support worldwide humanitarian efforts, and promote programs that bring the practice of mindfulness into schools. Your gift transforms suffering into compassion—bringing peace and joy to millions around the world.
What is legacy giving or planned giving?
A legacy or planned gift is a gift that a donor decides to make available at some future date. Through your will, you can make a generous gift that might not be possible during your lifetime—and have a huge impact on continuing to spread mindfulness and peace around the world.
Who can make a bequest?
Anyone can make a bequest. You do not need to be wealthy; it does not cost a thing, and if you change your mind at any time, you can simply alter your will.
Is it possible to make a gift through my will, and do you want a gift like this?
Yes. A bequest is the most common type of legacy gift and is often the easiest way to make a significant contribution toward the continuation of Thich Nhat Hanh's teachings of mindfulness and peace around the world. The suggested language below can help you and your advisors include us in your will or other estate-planning documents.
May I designate my gift for a specific purpose or practice center?
Yes. Your gift may be designated for any program or practice center supported by the Thich Nhat Hanh Continuation and Legacy Foundation. We would be happy to review your designation options with you.
Is it possible to name the Thich Nhat Hanh Continuation and Legacy Foundation as a beneficiary of my retirement plan?
Yes. Leaving a retirement plan or IRA (or a portion of it) is a tax-wise gift because you will avoid all estate and income taxes on the plan assets after your lifetime (or at the death of the survivor of you and your spouse). To make this gift, you simply notify your plan's administrator of your wish to change the beneficiary. A "change of beneficiary" form will be required. The Thich Nhat Hanh Continuation and Legacy Foundation can be designated as a full or partial beneficiary of your plan.
Can I use my life insurance policy to benefit the Thich Nhat Hanh Continuation and Legacy Foundation?
Yes. You can name the Foundation as a primary, partial, or alternate beneficiary of your life insurance policy by filling out a change of beneficiary form with the insurance company. Furthermore, if you no longer need the policy proceeds in your estate, you can transfer ownership of the policy to the Thich Nhat Hanh Continuation and Legacy Foundation.
What if I already have a will and I want to make a bequest to the Thich Nhat Hanh Continuation and Legacy Foundation?
Generally, you would not need to rewrite your will, but you could create a sort of amendment called a codicil. It is very important to consult a lawyer where you live, so your codicil complies with local laws that will govern your estate.
The beneficiary should be designated as Trustees of the Unified Buddhist Church, a Vermont charitable corporation, tax identification number 03-0356845, ("UBC"), and if you like, you may designate that UBC shall use this gift: (examples)… at the discretion of the TNH Continuation and Legacy Foundation Board of Directors… for Blue Cliff Monastery… for Deer Park Monastery… for Magnolia Grove Monastery.
Whom should I consult about making a planned gift?
You may consult attorneys who practice estate planning, accountants, financial planners, trust officers, insurance agents, stockbrockers, and/or any professional advisor you know and trust who has knowledge about planned giving.
Your will is your legacy of love. Please take a moment to breathe and experience the joy of compassionate giving through a bequest gift that ensures the continuation of Thay's work. We bow in gratitude for your compassionate heart and would be honored and grateful to be notified of your bequest intentions.
For more information on including the Thich Nhat Hanh Continuation and Legacy Foundation and Unified Buddhist Church in your bequest gift or estate plans, please contact:
Community Liaison, Lorri Houston
Thich Nhat Hanh Continuation and Legacy Foundation
2499 Melru Lane Escondido, CA 92026
Phone: 760-291-1003 ext. 104
Email: email@example.com
Website: ThichNhatHanhFoundation.org


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Getting poster data...
Bang Wong, Aravind Subramanian, Josh Gould, Corey Flynn, Todd Golub, and the CMap team (Broad Institute, 7 Cambridge Center, Cambridge, MA 02142, USA)The Connectivity Map, a LINCS data generation and analysis center, generates a genome-wide transcriptional expression data from cultured human cells treated with bioactive small molecules and genomic perturbations. The Connectivity Map leverages pattern-matching algorithms to enable the discovery of functional connections between drugs, genes and diseases through the transitory feature of common gene-expression changes. Here we present both an overview of the data generation process and a live demonstration of data analysis and visualization.


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Microsoft is about to reveal their next generation Xbox console, and our own Stephen Totilo is at the conference in Washington state to report to you live. Watch him liveblog the festivities right here.
The 3 Best And 3 Worst Korok Challenges In Tears Of The Kingdom
The conference officially starts at 1pm EST, but should be seeing Stephen sooner than that while he settles in his seat. Hang tight! Or watch the livestream here.


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Informasjon på engelsk:
Get ready for the rural lifestyle! This game is set on your own farm! Enjoy the life of a farmer with all its amazing tasks and challenges! Drive your original vehicles, cultivate your fields, take care of your animals and market your produce! Different seasons and weather conditions guarantee realistic game fun.
Earn from your experiences as a farmer, use your knowledge to enjoy the satisfaction a farmer feels when sitting in front of the fireplace in a beautiful farmhouse after a hard working day. Your efforts will be rewarded … the better your fields are tilled, the more animals you breed, the more products you produce, the better the income available for new machines, larger fields and tractors. Get ready for the ultimate farming fun!
- Huge, open game world
- Various, realistic seasons
- Original tractors and machines
- Career mode and detailed tutorial
- Different types of grain
- Dynamic Ground and visual field stages


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I'm linking up with Small Success Thursday at CatholicMom.com!
If you'd asked me on Monday whether I would be participating in Small Success Thursday, I'd have flat-out told you NO. Monday was not a good day around here. It was a crazy day of caregiving and housework with no breaks, and I'd woken up at 4 AM thanks to that lovely custom of "falling back" to Standard Time. (Just pick one already and be done with it!) I usually spend about 2 hours a day writing (I do freelance work, mostly web content) and there was no time for that at all. But there was a lot of time for fretting about what I wasn't getting done.
All of that is just a lead-up to the small successes I have managed this week (it's just about 3 PM on Wednesday as I write this).
1. After gutting it out on Tuesday and earlier today, I got caught up enough on work that I don't HAVE to do any more until Saturday, if I don't have the time.
2. I am caught up on laundry. My bed has fresh sheets. I cleaned both bathrooms today.
3. While listening to a podcast about podcasts, I heard Lisa Hendey mention two parts of CatholicMom.com that are near and dear to my heart: Tech Talk and Meatless Fridays. It's my privilege to be a contributor for both of these features. Hearing something that I'm involved in mentioned on a podcast really gave me a lift.
4. I managed to get over to Little Brother's school and meet him as he shopped at the Book Fair. He let me know this morning that it meant a lot to him for me to be there. Unlike other years, I'm not able to block out 3 days to volunteer at school and help with this event, and he really wanted me to be there when his class was shopping.
I was a little extra freaked out about getting stuff done by the end of the day Wednesday, because on Thursday and Friday I will be substitute-teaching at Little Brother's school. (TheDad will work from home and take over the caregiving.) On Thursday I will have the middle-schoolers, including 8th-grade Language Arts, where they're reading my very favorite creepy Edgar Allan Poe story: "The Cask of Amontillado." Friday will be a challenge: I'll have 3rd grade, self-contained. I don't think I've taught a self-contained class since I substituted during my college days. I'm used to kids coming and going every 45 minutes.
Here's what happened the LAST time I taught a self-contained class. (Remember, I was still a college student.) It was a 3rd-grade class at the parish school where my uncle was the pastor. When the morning bell rang, I went out to the playground to collect my students. We entered the classroom and the kids got busy with their morning routine…until the kids whose job it was to feed the fish noticed that the class pet had gone belly-up in the aquarium. Pandemonium ensued, with all the girls shrieking and all the boys yelling, "The fish is dead! Can I flush it?" In the middle of all that, my uncle strolled by the classroom.
I'm praying that Friday's 3rd-grade classroom has no pets.
Join the rest of the participants in Small Success Thursday and celebrate those little (and big) accomplishments! It's bound to put a smile on your face, even if you had a Monday like I did.


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Saturday, October 17, 2015
Trick Or Treat? There's Someone We'd Like You To Meet... ♥
36 comments
OH MY GOODNESS!! Congratulations to you and your beautiful little family! I've read your blog for a long time so I know how excited you must be, I'm thrilled for you! xxReplyDelete
- Anonymous13 October 2015 at 15:26
Aw huge congrats to you all Fiona! Lovely news xReplyDelete
Oh My God Fiona! Congratulations and all the best. That is such a cute announcement. xxReplyDelete
Fiona!!!!!!! Amazing amazing news, I'm so happy for you lovely xxxReplyDelete
Congratulations Fi, this is amazing news - I love the announcement. The baby pumpkin is adorable xReplyDelete
Congratulations lovely!! I'm so excited for you and your little family xxxReplyDelete
- Anonymous13 October 2015 at 16:03
Hugeeeeee congrats my lovely!! What a beautiful announcement xxReplyDelete
Congratulations and I love this with the pumpkins :) xxReplyDelete
Congratulations! Love the way you announced your news :) xReplyDelete
Awww congratulations to you all! That is wonderful news xReplyDelete
What fantastic news. Congratulations.ReplyDelete
- Anonymous13 October 2015 at 16:34
Congratulations Fiona-and what a gorgeous announcement!Wishing you a healthy, happy pregnancy xxReplyDelete
Aw love this! It is super cute and congratulations! :)ReplyDelete
Aww this is the cutest ever baby announcement :) huge congratulations, what wonderful news about lil pumpkin! :)ReplyDelete
Mahoosive congrats to you and your family - what an adorable way to announce.... ahh I'm broody now... no wait, thats my 8 month old crying, scrap that! H xReplyDelete
Omg congrats =] Love how you announced itReplyDelete
What an adorable announcement! Congrats :)ReplyDelete
Yaaaaaay congratulations! Amazing announcement! xxReplyDelete
Abbie | www.lilymaeadventures.com
Huge congratulations to you all! And what an amazing way to announce your special news! xxxReplyDelete
Aww congratulations huni! xxReplyDelete
What an amazing way to announce your news, Congratulations to you all it is such wonderful news. xxReplyDelete
Ahhhh so many congratulations my love, I am just beyond thrilled for you! xxReplyDelete
Congratulations Fiona and Jacek and of course big brother to be Tyler Lee :-D :-D !! love your lil' pumpkin announcement, so cute. Wishing you all the best during your pregnancy xReplyDelete
So exciting and I love your lil' pumpkin announcement! Congratulations lovely. XXReplyDelete
Ahhhh omg congratulations! I am SO SO happy for you all!!ReplyDelete
Congrats! I love the announcement! I recently miscarried back in late August, and we've been thinking about if/when we want to try again. Thinking about having another baby after going through a late second trimester miscarriage seems impossibly scary. Seeing posts like this makes me hopefully for our family's future. :)ReplyDelete
Massive congratulations, and what a lovely way to announce it xxReplyDelete
Awwwww congratulations hunny!ReplyDelete
Very creative :D
Charlotte x
Aww, congratulations lovely! So happy for you 😊ReplyDelete
Oh Fi!! I am absolutely thrilled to read this, I am so delighted for you.ReplyDelete
Massive congratulations to you
Thank you for reading my blog and taking the time to comment. I appreciate all your comments and try to reply whenever I can.


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You can start an IM conversation from your iPad with any group that shows up in Lync, including distribution groups and groups of contacts you've created yourself. Here's how:
Find the group in your Contacts list or via search.
Tap the Contact Card for the group.
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By Phillip Smith | Published in Stop The Drug WarThe new bill would allow judges to show discretion when sentencing; which if applied to drug laws would free up space and money, not to mention a positive affect on the individual, their family, and community.
Senator Rand Paul (R-KY) joined Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Sen. Patrick Leahy (D-VT) in introducing legislation that would give federal judges greater flexibility in sentencing in cases where mandatory minimum sentences are involved.
The bill, Senate Bill 691, also known as the Justice Safety Valve Act of 2013, would expand the "safety valve" to apply to all federal crimes.
Currently, the "safety valve" allows judges to impose a sentence below the mandatory minimum only in some drug cases.
Only about 25% of federal drug offenders are currently able to take advantage of the "safety valve" to earn reduced sentences.
The bill comes as the federal government faces chronic budget crises and a federal prison population that has grown nearly 10-fold in the past three decades and by 55% since 2000.
In 1980, there were some 25,000 federal prisoners; now there are more than 217,000, and almost half of them are drug offenders.
At more than $7 billion this year, the federal prison budget now accounts for almost one-quarter of all Justice Department spending, and is up by $2 billion in the last five years alone.
The bill also comes amidst a rising hue and cry to move away from mandatory minimums.
The non-partisan Congressional Research Service issued a January report that suggested that instead of expanding federal prison construction, Congress "could consider options such as modifying mandatory minimum penalties," as well as increased resort to probation, reinstating parole in the federal system, and "repealing federal criminal statutes for some offenses."
Similarly, the US Sentencing Commission surveyed federal judges in 2010 and found that 70% of the 600 judges who responded favored expanding the "safety valve" to all mandatory minimum sentences. Rising federal prison budgets and sentencing reform have also been a continuing concern for Chairman Leahy.
He held hearings last summer on the issue, and now he has sponsored legislation to do something about it.
"As a former prosecutor, I understand that criminals must be held accountable, and that long sentences are sometimes necessary to keep criminals off the street and deter those who would commit violent crime," Sen. Leahy said.
"Our reliance on mandatory minimums has been a great mistake. I am not convinced it has reduced crime, but I am convinced it has imprisoned people, particularly non-violent offenders, for far longer than is just or beneficial. It is time for us to let judges go back to acting as judges and making decisions based on the individual facts before them. A one-size-fits-all approach to sentencing does not make us safer."
"Our country's mandatory minimum laws reflect a Washington-knows-best, one-size-fits-all approach, which undermines the constitutional separation of powers, violates the our bedrock principle that people should be treated as individuals, and costs the taxpayers money without making them any safer," said cosponsor Sen. Paul. "This bill is necessary to combat the explosion of new federal criminal laws, many of which carry new mandatory minimum penalties."
Drug and sentencing reform advocates celebrated the bill's introduction, although some thought that even more should be done.
"I am thrilled that Sen. Leahy and Sen. Paul are promoting this common-sense sentencing reform," said Julie Stewart, founder and executive director of Families Against Mandatory Minimums (FAMM). "The mandatory minimum sentences Congress might be appropriate in many cases, but certainly not in every case, especially those involving non-violent offenders. By giving courts more flexibility, Congress will ensure that judges use our scarce prison beds and budget to keep us safe from truly violent offenders."
"Congress must reexamine mandatory minimum sentencing to determine whether they are necessary and appropriate while also analyzing the racial disparities that have arisen in the imposition of mandatory sentences," said Jasmine Tyler, deputy director of national affairs for the Drug Policy Alliance.
"This bill is a step in the right direction. While overdue, the recent reform of the crack-powder cocaine sentencing disparity did not do enough to alleviate mass incarceration, or racial disparities, in the federal system. Passage of this bill will hopefully mean more judges won't give low-level drug law offenders draconian sentences reserved for drug kingpins. Research has shown that more than half of all federal drug law offenders had little or no criminal history but they make up more than half of all federal prisoners."
"We are pleased that after decades of 'lock 'em up' rhetoric, Republicans and Democrats are beginning to realize that ever increasing penalties are not the most effective way to keep Americans safe," said Jeremy Haile, federal advocacy counsel for the Sentencing Project.
"Nowhere is this more true than in the area of mandatory minimum penalties, which are limited because they address severity of punishment, not certainty. A recent Congressional Research Service report shows that mandatory minimums are a primary driver of our high prison populations and costs. Moreover, they are rife with racial unfairness. While it would be better to eliminate mandatory minimums altogether, we are pleased that Senators Leahy and Paul have introduced legislation that would mitigate their harshest effects. Congress should take up this legislation to address ineffective 'one size fits all' mandatory minimum penalties that allow little consideration for individual characteristics and drive racial disparities in sentencing."
And, as Nora Callahan of the November Coalition, a drug reform group that concentrates on federal prisoners, has been pointing out for years, mandatory minimum reforms and sentencing reforms in general are "back end" solutions. While such measures are a necessary corrective to ameliorate what Leahy called the country's "mass incarceration problem," the more radical solution is on the "front end" — stopping those federal arrests and prosecutions.
"It's a good news bill, don't get me wrong," Callahan said Thursday. "Dismantling the drug war a brick at a time is one way to get rid of it — or will we just create more space for more people to do less time? I can't help but know that leaders can get bolder than this. And those judges would do well to use a lot more discretion pretrial and start disallowing various 'extrajudicial procedures' like count-stacking, reliance on informants and rewarded witnesses; fast-tracking–and it wouldn't take an act of Congress."


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Whitner v. South Carolina (1997)
In the case Whitner v. South Carolina in 1997, the South Carolina State Supreme Court defined the concept of a child to include viable fetuses. This allowed grounds for prosecution of a pregnant womanÕs prenatal activity if those activities endangered or could potentially endanger the fetus within her. The case brought the issue of fetal rights versus pregnant womenÕs rights to light.
Format: Articles
Subject: Legal, Reproduction
Human Fertilisation and Embryology Act (1990)
The Human Fertilisation and Embryology Act 1990 established the legal framework that governs infertility treatment, medical services ancillary to infertility treatment such as embryo storage, and all human embryological research performed in the UK. The law also defines a legal concept of the parent of a child conceived with assisted reproductive technologies.
Format: Articles
Subject: Legal, Reproduction, Ethics
Paul Kammerer's Experiments on Salamanders (1903-1912)
In the early twentieth century, Paul Kammerer conducted a series of experiments to demonstrate that organisms could transmit characteristics acquired in their lifetimes to their offspring. In his 1809 publication, zoologist Jean-Baptiste Lamarck had hypothesized that living beings can inherit features their parents or ancestors acquired throughout life. By breeding salamanders, as well as frogs and other organisms, Kammerer tested Lamarck's hypothesis in an attempt to provide evidence for Lamarck's theory of the inheritance of acquired characteristics.
Format: Articles
Subject: Experiments
Organic Seed Growers and Trade Association's suit against Monsanto, 2012 and 2013
In March 2011 the Organic Seed Growers and Trade Association and around sixty agricultural organizations (OSGATA et al.) filed a suit against Monsanto Company and Monsanto Technology L.L.C., collectively called Monsanto. The hearings for Organic Seed Growers and Trade Association (OSGATA) et al. v. Monsanto (2012) took place at the United States District Court for the Southern District of New York in Manhattan, New York. The district court's Judge Naomi Reice Buchwald dismissed OSGATA's suit.
Format: Articles
Subject: Legal
Paul Kammerer's Experiments on Sea-squirts in the Early Twentieth Century
In the early twentieth century, Paul Kammerer, a zoologist working at the Vivarium in Vienna, Austria, experimented on sea-squirts (Ciona intestinalis). Kammerer claimed that results from his experiments demonstrated that organisms could transmit characteristics that they had acquired in their lifetimes to their offspring. Kammerer conducted breeding experiments on sea-squirts and other organisms at a time when Charles Darwin's 1859 theory of evolution lacked evidence to explain how offspring inherited traits from their parents.
Format: Articles
Subject: Experiments, Organisms
Hamlin Fistula Ethiopia (1974- )
Hamlin Fistula Ethiopia is a nonprofit organization that began in 1974 as a joint endeavor by Reginald and Catherine Hamlin and the Addis Ababa Fistula Hospital in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia. Hamlin Fistula Ethiopia promotes reproductive health in Ethiopia by raising awareness and implementing treatment and preventive services for women affected by obstetric fistulas. It also aims to restore the lives of women afflicted with obstetric fistulas in Ethiopia and eventually to eradicate the condition.
Format: Articles
Subject: Organizations, Reproduction, Outreach
Oviraptor philoceratops Dinosaurs
Oviraptor philoceratops was a small bird-like dinosaur that lived about seventy-five million years ago, during the late Cretaceous period. In 1923, George Olsen of the American Museum of Natural History (AMNH) in New York City, New York, discovered the first Oviraptor fossilized skeleton on top of a dinosaur egg nest in the Gobi Desert, Mongolia. Because of the close proximity of dinosaur and nest, when Henry Fairfield Osborn president of the AMNH published on the discovery, he assumed that the Oviraptor had died attempting to steal the eggs.
Format: Articles
Subject: Organisms
Copper Intrauterine Device (IUD)
The copper intrauterine device, or IUD, is a long-term, reversible contraceptive first introduced by Howard Tatum and Jamie Zipper in 1967. Health care providers place an IUD inside a woman's uterus to prevent pregnancy. Copper IUDs are typically made of T-shaped plastic with some portion covered with exposed copper. Prior to the invention of the first IUDs, women had few long-term options for safe and reliable birth control. Those options mostly consisted of barrier methods and the oral birth control pill, which were only effective if used correctly and consistently.
Format: Articles
Subject: Technologies
Physician Labeling Rule (2006)
In 2006, the United States Food and Drug Administration, or FDA, published the "Requirements on Content and Format of Labeling for Human Prescription Drug and Biological Products," also called the Physician Labeling Rule, to improve the safety and efficacy of prescription drugs and drug products. Within the Physician Labeling Rule, the FDA includes a section titled "Use in Specific Populations" or Section 8, which refers to drugs used by pregnant women, lactating women, and people of reproductive capacity.
Format: Articles
Subject: Legal
US Food and Drug Administration's Requirements on Content and Format for Labeling for Human Prescription Drugs Rule (1979)
Format: Articles
Subject: Legal
"Guideline for the Study and Evaluation of Gender Differences in the Clinical Evaluation of Drugs" (July 1993), by the United States Food and Drug Administration
The US Food and Drug Administration, or FDA, published the "Guideline for the Study and Evaluation of Gender Differences in the Clinical Evaluation of Drugs," henceforth "Study of Gender Differences," in July 1993. The document defined acceptable practices for investigators studying new drugs. Prior to 1993, investigators excluded most women from clinical trials because in 1977, the FDA recommended that anyone who could possibly become pregnant be excluded from early phase drug research to minimize risk to a potential fetus.
Format: Articles
Subject: Publications
"Miscarriage of Medicine: The Growth of Catholic Hospitals and the Threat to Reproductive Health Care" (2013), by Lois Uttley, Sheila Reynertson, Larraine Kenny, and Louise Melling
In 2013, Lois Uttley, Sheila Reynertson, Larraine Kenny, and Louise Melling published "Miscarriage of Medicine: The Growth of Catholic Hospitals and the Threat to Reproductive Health Care," in which they analyzed the growth of Catholic hospitals in the United States from 2001 to 2011 and the impact those hospitals had on reproductive health care. In the US, Catholic hospitals are required to abide by the US Catholic Church's Ethical Guidelines for Health Care Providers, also called the Directives.
Format: Articles
Subject: Publications
"Misericordia et Misera" Section 12 (2016) by Pope Francis of the Catholic Church
Misericordia et Misera (Mercy with Misery) was a letter written by Pope Francis and published in Rome, Italy, on 20 November 2016. Through the letter, Pope Francis gives priests the ability to grant forgiveness for abortion. Before Pope Francis's letter, priests had some ability to grant forgiveness for the Catholic sin of abortion, but bishops had to grant that ability to the priests individually. Prior to the letter, the official rules of the Catholic Church did not state that priests could forgive abortion-related sins.
Format: Articles
Subject: Publications, Religion
The Food and Drug Administration's Pregnancy and Lactation Labeling Rule (2014)
In 2014, the United States Food and Drug Administration published the Pregnancy and Lactation Labeling Rule to amend previous guidelines for the prescription of drugs for pregnant and lactating women. The 2014 Pregnancy and Lactation Labeling Rule was intended to increase the safety and efficacy of prescription drugs by making drug labels easier for physicians to understand and utilize.
Format: Articles
Subject: Legal
Heart of a Dog (1925), by Mikhail Bulgakov
Собачье сердце (Heart of a Dog) is a novella written in 1925 by author and playwright Mikhail Bulgakov in Moscow, USSR, later Russia. An early English translation was published in 1968. Heart of a Dog tells the story of a stray dog named Sharik, who is found by a surgeon, and undergoes extensive surgery for experimental purposes to create a New Soviet man, someone committed to the ideals of communism in the Soviet Union.
Format: Articles
Subject: Publications
"Improving Women's Health": Section 3509 of the Affordable Care Act of 2010
In 2010, US Congress enacted section 3509 of the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act or ACA, to target issues relating to women's health. The ACA, signed into law by US President Barack Obama, aimed to increase people's access to high-quality healthcare in the United States.
Format: Articles
Subject: Legal
Studies of Thalidomide's Effects on Rodent Embryos from 1962-2008
Thalidomide is a sedative drug introduced to European markets on 1 October 1957 after extensive testing on rodent embryos to ensure its safety. Early laboratory tests in rodent populations showed that pregnant rodents could safely use it, so doctors prescribed Thalidomide to treat morning sickness in pregnant women. However, in humans Thalidomide interfered with embryonic and fetal development in ways not observed in rodent tests.
Format: Articles
Subject: Organisms, Reproduction, Disorders
Alec Jeffreys's Experiments to Identify Individuals by Their Beta-globin Genes (1977-1979)
In a series of experiments in the late 1970s, Alec J. Jeffreys in the UK and Richard A. Flavell in the Netherlands developed a technique to detect variations in the DNA of different individuals. They compared fragments of DNA from individuals' beta-globin genes, which produce a protein in hemoglobin. Previously, to identify biological material, scientists focused on proteins rather than on genes. But evidence about proteins enabled scientists only to exclude, but not to identify, individuals as the sources of the biological samples.
Format: Articles
Subject: Experiments
William Thomas Astbury (1898–1961)
William Thomas Astbury studied the structures of fibrous materials, including fabrics, proteins, and deoxyribonucleic acid, or DNA, in England during the twentieth century. Astbury employed X-ray crystallography, a technique in which scientists use X-rays to learn about the molecular structures of materials. Astbury worked at a time when scientists had not yet identified DNA's structure or function in genes, the genetic components responsible for how organisms develop and reproduce. He was one of the first scientists to use X-ray crystallography to study the structure of DNA.
Format: Articles
Subject: People
The First Successful Cloning of a Gaur (2000), by Advanced Cell Technology
The first successful cloning of a gaur in 2000 by Advanced Cell Technology involved the cells of two animals: an egg cell from a domestic cow and a skin cell from a gaur. The researchers extracted the egg cell from the ovary of the domestic cow and the skin cell from the skin of the gaur. First, the researchers performed nuclear transplantation on the egg cell of the cow, during which they removed the nucleus of the egg cell. The mitochondria of the egg cell remained intact inside the cell.
Format: Graphics
Subject: Experiments, Organisms, Reproduction
"Consensus on the Current Management of Endometriosis" (2013), by Neil P. Johnson and Lone Hummelshoj
"Consensus on the Current Management of Endometriosis", henceforth "Consensus", was written by the World Endometriosis Society, or WES, president Neil P. Johnson and chief executive Lone Hummelshoj and published in 2013 in Human Reproduction. "Consensus" makes recommendations about managing endometriosis for women and healthcare professionals. Endometriosis is a condition where endometrium, the tissue that usually lines the uterus, grows outside of the uterus and is characterized by painful periods, heavy menstrual bleeding, and infertility.
Format: Articles
Subject: Publications
Bellotti v. Baird (1979)
On 2 July 1979, the United States Supreme Court decided Bellotti v. Baird, ruling that a Massachusetts law that prohibited minors from obtaining abortions without parental consent was unconstitutional. That law prohibited minors from receiving abortions without permission from both of their parents or a superior court judge. Under that law, if one or both of the minor's parents denied consent, the minor could petition a superior court judge who would determine whether the minor was competent enough to make the decision to abort on her own.
Format: Articles
Subject: Legal
Sex in a Cold Climate (1998)
In 1998, Testimony Films released the documentary Sex in a Cold Climate, which reported the true stories of four survivors from the Magdalene asylums in Ireland in the twentieth century. Magdalene asylums, also called Magdalene laundries and homes, were institutions of the Catholic Church that sought to reform women engaged in prostitution and those who birthed children out of wedlock by forcing the women to do hard labor.
Format: Articles
Subject: Outreach, Publications
NovaSure Endometrial Ablation
NovaSure is a device for endometrial ablation, which is a procedure that removes the endometrium, that the US Food and Drug Administration, or FDA, approved for use on 28 September 2001. Endometrium is the tissue that lines the uterus. NovaSure destroys the endometrium by sending electric beams at the endometrium. Hologic, a medical technology company concerned with women's health, developed NovaSure to treat menorrhagia, or heavy bleeding during menstruation. Menorrhagia is a common symptom of endometriosis. Endometriosis is the growth of the endometrium outside of the uterus.
Format: Articles
Subject: Technologies