Have changed name on the project. Magazine will be called "JumpGate" and the whole shebang will be JumpGate Press.

At the moment, I am in the process of trying to save up $6k as start-up money. Also investigating various aspects such as how to do the conversions from RTF format to Kindle and EPub formats, how to get them sold on Amazon, etc. Have bought the domain names. Need to do some biz cards and letterhead, I suppose. Also signed up as a monetary contributor to Duotrope, which has probably the best publisher info database for authors looking for where to submit stuff.

I try to do one thing per day, however small, toward the project. Under the concept that every line is really a series of points.

So as a result of the recent therapy (on the fence about whether it's helping or not), I decided that I need to do SOMETHING even if it appears to have little chance of making a living. If I just sit here, nothing's going to happen anyway. If I go on the criteria that whatever I do must result in making a full living, I'll never get anywhere because I have no viable options.

BUT if I remove that from the table, then I have more options available. I arrive at a place where I can do something that I want to do with the criteria that it could possibly EVENTUALLY make a living, but it's not mandatory. If the criteria is, "what can I do that I could spend 40 hrs a week doing and feel as if it meant something to me", then the answer was immediately clear.

So I'm resurrecting the sci-fi novella magazine project that I was going to do just before we were told the REC was closing. It's not going to be "The Terran Conspiracy", but it will be the same project under a different title. Since I actually did file LLC paperwork and had to scuttle it, I think I should change the names so as to avoid confusion. Instead, I'm planning to call it "The Sidereal Times."

This time, I'm actually going to try to do a business plan. And I've ordered new desktop publishing, website making and photo editing programs that look to be somewhat more capable than MS Publisher. I've bought a new computer.

I've been here more than a year now in Jonesboro. I'm honestly tired of not being able to plan for the future, and I just said the hell with it. I'm tired of my life being on hold, so I'm going to assume that I'm going to be here a while and get on with my life. If I'm not, if I get excessed next week or a month from now or whatever, oh well, change all the addresses and carry on. This superstitious thing that the minute I put down roots they'll be ripped out has to stop.

In light of that, I've also put in for a week off in September. I'm going to ConStellation. I'm done with fafiating. I'm going back to fandom, and I'm going to find new friends.

There's a fanfic author I read who seems to be the fanfic equivalent of Steven Seagal. Same characters, same relationships, same situations. Only thing different is the setting. She recycles her original characters (not that they're that original). She puts in no descriptions. I was taught that a reader should be able to tell the characters apart without names -- they should be unique enough in dialogue or mannerisms or whatever that you can tell them apart without having to use their names. I was taught "show, don't tell". I was taught that the reader is not telepathic and you have to describe the sensory scene. You have to do this in as few words as possible, and so every word counts and has to pack as much info in as possible.

It's an irritation I sometimes get with fanfic. People are just good enough to get a following, but not what I would call good writers. Yes, it is frustrating. Yes, I want to be an editor and write them long diatribes on everything they are doing wrong and how to fix it.

This is not to say they're all like that. There are some fanfic writers I've read who are professional grade. But they are few and far between. Most are good, or have a good hook, or a tone or use of words I find very good. Some are clearly kids just starting out. More power to them. But this specific person has written close to a million words of fanfic. Why isn't she better than this?

I don't criticize directly because that's a disencouragement. She also has a notice on the homepage of her archive that she doesn't want any form of criticism, even constructive criticism. Her betas aren't calling her on these things, presumably because she writes great sex scenes. This is why I'm not a beta. On the few occassions I've betaed, I was quickly disinvited because I wasn't willing to let stuff like this slide. I betaed as an editor, and a lot of people can't take that or really just think "beta" means "person to kiss my ass and tell me how wonderful I am".

Bah.

Just because you do this "for fun" is no excuse to put out bad quality work.

Mr. Bradbury, you are so right. You humble me.

Stumbling through the streets of London, laughing and crying.

Well, I'm in the rhubarb now.

Got the paperwork back from the Secretary of State's office four days ago, I got the EIN number and the bank account started today. Purple Ink Publishing LLC is now official. It's real now. It's going to happen.

Just because you're doing what you're meant to do doesn't mean you're not scared. It's not easy. If anything it's more difficult. But that's the whole point of the exercise. The universe may conspire to put you on the path but it doesn't just fall into your hands. Getting to the place where I can do this is one moment in time. Staying on the path, staying true to my goals and my vision for this magazine over what may be a very long time is quite another. To say nothing of the sheer mundane challenges of running a magazine, breaking even or thriving in an economy going down in flames...

So. $500 today. My income tax refund check, when it comes in. Whatever we can make on subscriptions, after we go live on January 1st. If we can just get, say, 1000 subscribers I'd consider the first year to be a resounding success. That would put us over the expenses, with some left over to pay my web editor and story editor and maybe pay to go to two or three cons. That's enough for me.

I was thinking earlier that by all conventional standards my life is essentially worthless. I have no kids, I have no husband, I live in a dump, I'm a three time college drop-out, and I work in a dead-end job that anyone could do with two weeks of training. I'm a non-entity. So it doesn't matter what I do with my life. I've chosen to devote my life to science fiction because it matters to me. It's the thing that makes my life matter to me, that maybe to this small world and culture I could contribute something of lasting value. There are people in this world who would stand up to a firing squad for Shakespeare, or Bach, or quantum physics or Picasso, because these things are simply transcendentally sublime. There is some quality in them that is beyond words or images or music or math. For me it's in science fiction, and I'm just glad I found it early enough in my life to be able to do something about it.

Been a while and might be a while more before I can get back on here, so make the most of the time.

There's been a lot going on and all the sudden I've got a lot on my plate. Actually I think the plate became a serving platter, and somebody tried to cram three whole fried chickens on it. And a Coke. (... oh come on you don't recognize that? The Blues Brothers. Sheesh.)

First off, I finished Telaon. I am now giving it some time before I start the editing, though I might fob it off on one of the folks I met at DragonCon and use it as a learning experience. But the first draft is done. Came out to about 52k words.

In related notes, I need desperately to do a podcast to assure my audience of this fact. I may do that today.

In other news, wild hair ideas can get your ass in deeper poodoo than you can possibly handle. On July 20th I posted a topic on the ISBW forum about a "wild hair idea I'd had for doing a quarterly novella magazine. Yesterday, I sent off the paperwork to start a limited liability corporation called "Purple Ink Publishing, LLC". There will be an e-text PDF format magazine going fully live on January 1st. It will be called The Terran Conspiracy. And I... am now Editor in Chief. Aside from my webmaster guy, I'm the only permanent employee at the moment. But hey, I've got, what, 2 months!

Don't go looking for the website yet, it doesn't exist yet.

Usually when I come up with crazy ideas either no one answers or they go "yeah, that's cool" and that's it. This time a couple people actually said yeah let's think seriously about it. So here I am, about to risk my savings and possibly get myself into deep financial trouble to start a magazine. I've never done editing of anybody else's stuff but my own. I've never run a business, much less a publishing business. I have a house that needs serious work and I'm about to go spend the money I was saving for it to buy ads and Google AdSense keywords. I'm going to need at least 800 or so subscribers in the year to pay all the bills. I'll probably spend every waking moment when I'm not at work working on the magazine. I probably will never be able to write my own stuff while I'm doing this, which will risk my own sanity. The podcast may have to be mothballed. But I'm still doing it.

If people aren't actively participating in a culture, it dies. "Actively participating" to me means getting new authors with good stories out into the minds of fandom. The roots of fandom and sci-fi are in words. This culture began with nothing more than words on pages sent through the mail. I aim to continue that with the new versions given to us by the computer -- electronic text and downloading rather than mimeographing and sending through the mail. Make it as painless as possible and people will be more likely to subscribe. $20/year or $6/issue, and an e-mail alert when each new issue is released for download. After a year, the magazines go into an archive and the issues are free for the download under Creative Commons. Each issue will be 10 novellas, and will end up being 2 or 3 novels worth of material. And I'm determined to make it 80 to 90% new authors.

It's a big idea. But it's worth it. Science-fiction and fandom are worth it to me.

I could use some help, though.

I might get in touch with the people who do the "Voices of Fandom" podcast. They're old-school fen and I think they'd give me moral encouragement at the least.


And of course there's work, and wondering when they're going to shut us down, and the possibility that whatever job they offer me I won't be able to take and I won't be able to find another job in this crazy economy. And Mom freaking out worrying about her retirement accounts with all the investment company failures and having to talk her down from her metaphorical cat-clinging-to-ceiling thinking she's going to spend 30 years eating dog food. I could always point out if she could afford canned dog food she could afford Campbell's soup and thus wouldn't be eating dog food in the first place, but what do I know I'm just the kid who won't have any social security at all because her generation ate it all. So you see, I have to have faith in the future or I'm going to go stark raving bonkers and start killing people with a baseball bat because I have nothing to live for. No future, no consequences, no fear.


Am I crazy for doing this thing with the magazine?

Professor Campbell always said "Follow Your Bliss".

Douglas Adams said "Don't Panic."

I'm going with that.

There are moments when your heroes fall from the pedestal... and then there are moments when the fact that they're human makes them all the more precious to you.

If you accept the word of Michael Moorcock (of the Elric fantasy saga, among many others), Arthur C. Clarke was gay.

Go to ACC's Wikipedia entry and down to the last three paragraphs of the "Biography" section for the citation. There is also a link to the newspaper article written by Michael Moorcock which states this fact. (Citation 24)

"No, merely mildly cheerful."

Sir Arthur's reply when asked if he was gay by journalists. I can hear him saying it in my head, and practically see him grinning as he does.

Well, so maybe it's not all bad.

Yaaaaayyyy!!! Patricia Kenneally-Morrison is intending to do more Keltiad books! And she's self-publishing on Lulu!

For those of you who don't know, Patricia Kenneally-Morrison is the lady who was handfasted to Jim Morrison, the lead singer of the Doors. But before I ever knew about any of that, I knew she was one of the most captivating writers I'd ever read. I found her first novel, The Copper Crown, when I was shelving books at the library when I was 18 years old. A short description is "Kelts in Space". The more detailed description is, "What if the Celtic peoples of Earth had left Earth with the coming of Saint Patrick and made themselves a kingdom in a distant region of space, with magic and technology intertwined, a society fully infused with the true old religion and with a kick-ass Queen and about three thousand years of history behind them?"

I'm somewhat embarrased to say that the Keltiad books slightly inspired what I consider to be my best fanfiction, the Stargate SG-1 story "Bridge Between Worlds". Nothing overt, mind you, but definitely inspired. Of course they didn't have mecha in Keltia, or Goa'uld, but the planet in question is the capital world of the Empire of the Seven Nations, and the throne city Alaharu is situated on a coastline with the royal palace on a mountain and cliffs over the sea a la Eryrie and Caerdroia and Turusachan.

Loreena McKinnett's music is sort of like the musical equivalent of Keltia. Seriously. If they ever made a movie, they'd HAVE to get Loreena for the soundtrack.

Anyway, Miz Morrison didn't just do the first trilogy with Aeron and Gwydion. She went on to do another trilogy based on the Arthurian mythos, also in Keltia but 1500 years earlier than Aeron and Gwydion. Another book called "Blackmantle" about a character even earlier in Keltic history which was also a sort of biographical/tribute of herself and her other half, Mr. Jim. Lastly there was a book called "The Deer's Cry" which rather distressed me as it was not nearly as good as her other stuff and most uncharacteristic of her. I later learned she'd been trying to stuff an entire trilogy into one book. Yep, that'll do it. As detailed in her post of today, there was some trouble with her publishers and agents and editors and as usual the rassum-frassum "establishment" dropped her. And she dropped out of sight, at least until blogging came along.

But she's apparently come to the same conclusions I have regarding the publishing industry and self-publishing. What wonderment!

I got that warm fuzzy feeling of vidication. Ain't it grand?!

Question: The Choo-Choo has free wifi, and when you're in the Dealer's Room there is no password, no gateway, nada. Yet when you attempt to get online in your hotel room, there is a gateway and you need a password.

Huh?!?

(scratches head)


It's only 10:30 and already I've had discussions with two different sets of strangers regarding: The commerciality of DragonCon; starting an intentional community comprised of nothing but real fen; families who don't understand their fannish offspring; libraries and the lack of sci-fi in book form in today's younger generations; publishing and a fellow writer's curse where everytime he submits a story somewhere the publisher dies; the liberal openmindedness and social enlightenment of the fandom community.

Yet another crazy scheme...

Donating the last 25 Hugo Award winners to the local high schools around here. Assuming they have libraries anymore.


At an average of $10/book for paperbacks, that's $250 for a full set. Assuming that you can find some of the older ones still in print.

I'd like to do all of them but some of the first ones I know you can't find in print anymore.

Could also do the same thing with the Nebulas, the PKD, and the Tiptrees.

Hmm...