2020 Writing Log, Part Eight

- I got rejected from the Path of the Goddess zine, and this hit me surprisingly hard. I think that, because I love Skyward Sword so much, and because I love drawing Skyward Sword fan art, the affective impact was much stronger than it should have been. I spent the entire week carrying this sense of rejection around with me, and it was tough.

- But I still finished the pencilwork for the illustration I was going to submit to the zine, and this week I started inking it. It’s really cute, if I do say so myself. I hope that, after a few more zine rejections, I’ll have put together a much stronger art portfolio.

- Gosh I need a good ritual for dealing with rejection. Perhaps I should make one up myself.

- I posted Chapter 29 of Malice on AO3. Idk, maybe it was the zine rejection, but I’m starting to feel like this story is a waste of time. Maybe I’ll take a break after posting Chapter 30.

- I edited and posted Chapter 27 on FFN.

- I reached peak nerd by writing the beginnings of a glossary of some of the Zelda-themed equivalents of contemporary technology I came up with for the story. (Photoshop is "Pictoshop," for example. Also, Grindr is "Tinglr." Aren't you happy you have that image in your brain now, you're welcome.) In an earlier writing log, I mentioned possibly needing to create something like a concordance, but that seems like a lot of work. Do people use wikis for that sort of thing?

- The artist I contacted about doing a Legend of Zelda comic with me accepted the commission, put together an amazing reference sheet, and sent me the thumbnails. This is going to be good.

- I also spent time editing the stories in It Never Happened. One of them I ended up expanding substantially, and one I decided to commission an artist to turn into a comic. I asked them to do an illustration, and they asked me if it would be okay to make a comic instead. I was like, YES!!!!

- You know who would make a really good art director? This person right here! Maybe I should start looking into those sorts of positions after I move to Philadelphia.

Time Costs Money

A dirty secret: you can only be a writer if you can afford it
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2020/feb/27/a-dirty-secret-you-can-only-be-a-writer-if-you-can-afford-it

According to a 2018 Author’s Guild Study the median income of all published authors for all writing related activity was $6,080 in 2017, down from $10,500 in 2009; while the median income for all published authors based solely on book-related activities went from $3,900 to $3,100, down 21%. Roughly 25% of authors earned $0 in income in 2017.

I would argue that there is nothing more sustaining to long-term creative work than time and space – these things cost money – and the fact that some people have access to it for reasons that are often outside of their control continues to create an ecosystem in which the tenor of the voices that we hear from most often remains similar.

Where is the lie smh.

Something the article doesn't address is that, putting the act of writing aside, actually submitting your work for publication is another full-time job. Although I have a ton of ideas for original stories, one of the reasons I've stuck with fanfic since I started getting serious about writing is that not having to deal with the fiction market has given me the space to write, edit, and be a part of a community while still putting in all the necessary hours at my actual job. I don't want to say that it would have been impossible for me to publish original fiction as a tenure-track professor, but I feel much more comfortable facing the challenge now that I've left that position.

Technologies of Behavior Modification

The Age of Surveillance Capitalism by Shoshana Zuboff review – we are the pawns
https://www.theguardian.com/books/2019/feb/02/age-of-surveillance-capitalism-shoshana-zuboff-review

While insisting that their technology is too complex to be legislated, there are companies that have poured billions into lobbying against oversight, and while building empires on publicly funded data and the details of our private lives they have repeatedly rejected established norms of societal responsibility and accountability. And what is crucially different about this new form of exploitation and exceptionalism is that beyond merely strip-mining our intimate inner lives, it seeks to shape, direct and control them. Their operations transpose the total control over production pioneered by industrial capitalism to every aspect of everyday life.

I'm not sure I'm up for reading the actual book, which sounds miserably depressing, but this is an interesting review. Two paragraphs are devoted to a blunt deconstruction of Pokémon Go, which is fair.

Even though most of the people (especially artists) I used to follow on Tumblr have moved to Twitter and Instagram, I still feel a bit weird about engaging with those two platforms. Despite its flaws, I appreciate that Tumblr is relatively chaotic and isn't making money for anyone. Activity on the site has dropped off since the beginning of the year, and I'll miss it when it's gone. Also, as much as Discord annoys me for being exclusive, inaccessible, and difficult to use, I've found myself spending more time on art and sketch channels during the past few months.

Meanwhile, AO3 remains the Gold Standard of Internet and continues to be my happy place.