internet! internet!
Mar. 21st, 2006 01:59 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
dragonlady7Have been struggling with Broken Internet all day. I chronicled my Struggles As A Network Technician over on my Elmwoodstrip journal (I should get a syndicated feed of that on my flist, eh?): Home Networking.
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z0bar's link works, but he hasn't updated since I made it, so, it doesn't have anything in it. V. annoying: I want to see how it works.
I wrote an entry to go here while the Internet was instead the Inertnet (HA I am funny), so I guess I'll paste that in now.
:::::::::
Man. Internet's busted. Composing this in Word, trying to think of Eternal Truths instead of spur-of-the-moment declarations. Amazing how time puts pressure on you.
Am irritated, as I was in the midst of researching agents and the publishing biz, thanks to some faboo links fromsartorias who has no idea who I am but I love her entries.
Not that I need an agent yet. Not that I'm ready to be published yet.
But I have been making tremendous progress the last two days, at least wordcount-wise. So there's that.
I'm actually really impressed with my progress of yesterday-- I didn't have my usual wait-10-min-for-bus, ride for an hour, sit in airport undisturbed 2 hours stretch, but I still managed an incredible wordcount, in the hours between interruptions. In fact I wrote nearly a thousand words more yesterday than I did during my 8 hours in the Club. So I'm really impressed with myself.
Naturally I'm overwriting like whoa. The first round of edits will probably cut a third of the length (you're right,tehta) just in excessive dialogue and tangential action. But. I won't need any plot rewrites. At most a scene here or there. So. I am drawing nigh to the end of the book and I'm psyched.
When I finish I should have a party.
Thought: Is it true that nonfiction is written on proposals? Like, polar opposite to fiction, which you write and then shop around, for nonfic you shop your idea around and only once you've got a buyer do you write it?
Hm. Holy hells is that ever convenient. Cuz it's not like someone's going to steal my great idea.
Should I tell you my great idea?
Z and I have been joking about starting our own bar for years now. But neither of us knows the first thing about it. We know that there's a very, very high failure rate for new ventures. Now that Z works for the altnewsweekly, he knows that very well, as their advertisers are probably 80% restaurant/bar/venues (or more). A lot of these places fold before they even get the bill, much less pay it.
I would love to interview bar and restaurant owners and managers about the business. What drew them to it in the first place? (Did they start their own place, or buy someone's from them?) What's hard about it, and what's easy? And so on, and so forth.
What would make the book fascinating, I think, is that these sorts of people are crazy, many of them actually crazy, and it is so simultaneously cutthroat and seat-of-the-pants. I have a very limited front-of-house perspective, having waited tables over a year now, but I know there is so much that goes into it even behind that...
I originally thought that it would be smart to travel around a little and look at other cities, but the more I think about it the more I think having it be about just Buffalo would be fascinating. Buffalo is a very atypical city in its restaurant scene. I have never been so spoiled for choice. Even though the city's been on a downward slide since the seventies (and indeed had its real heyday in the twenties), the dining scene remains complex and competitive. The average non-gourmet Joe has very demanding tastes in what he eats-- you cannot slap a gourmet French label on something and slide on your laurels unless what you make is really fucking good. There are no laurels here. It's even more dog-eat-dog than New York City's legendary scene. I've eaten more mediocre food over there than out here.
And Z's coworkers know the scene inside and out. Several of the ad sales reps have been with the paper for the better part of a decade, and could tell you (me!) intimately who has been in business, who has not, who is spending what money, who has no sense and who is canny: who would be the most interesting people to talk to.
So this would be a fasciating book, and I have the connections, at this moment, to write it.
And if nonfiction is written to proposal, then I could shop the proposal around while I let BarbariansNovel stew a while and edit VikingsNovel, and so hopefully by the time I (witness the mindless optimism!) get started writing Nonfiction Blockbuster, I will be done enough with VikingsNovel to either put it away to let it start maturing, or be shopping it, in turn, around to agents or publishers.
But that could be my internet-deprived brain shorting out. Who knows.
Meanwhile, stay tuned for me to throw a party to celebrate my finishing the writing of my manuscript. it's a pity that nobody who lives nearby in meatspace would understand what a simultaneously huge and trivial thing that is. Finishing it is essential to the forward progress of the rest of the process, and yet... the rest of the process may well take another decade. It will certainly not be on shelves this year, not even if God Himself likes the manuscript so much he comes to my house to pick it up.
z0bar's link works, but he hasn't updated since I made it, so, it doesn't have anything in it. V. annoying: I want to see how it works.I wrote an entry to go here while the Internet was instead the Inertnet (HA I am funny), so I guess I'll paste that in now.
:::::::::
Man. Internet's busted. Composing this in Word, trying to think of Eternal Truths instead of spur-of-the-moment declarations. Amazing how time puts pressure on you.
Am irritated, as I was in the midst of researching agents and the publishing biz, thanks to some faboo links from
sartorias who has no idea who I am but I love her entries. Not that I need an agent yet. Not that I'm ready to be published yet.
But I have been making tremendous progress the last two days, at least wordcount-wise. So there's that.
I'm actually really impressed with my progress of yesterday-- I didn't have my usual wait-10-min-for-bus, ride for an hour, sit in airport undisturbed 2 hours stretch, but I still managed an incredible wordcount, in the hours between interruptions. In fact I wrote nearly a thousand words more yesterday than I did during my 8 hours in the Club. So I'm really impressed with myself.
Naturally I'm overwriting like whoa. The first round of edits will probably cut a third of the length (you're right,
tehta) just in excessive dialogue and tangential action. But. I won't need any plot rewrites. At most a scene here or there. So. I am drawing nigh to the end of the book and I'm psyched. When I finish I should have a party.
Thought: Is it true that nonfiction is written on proposals? Like, polar opposite to fiction, which you write and then shop around, for nonfic you shop your idea around and only once you've got a buyer do you write it?
Hm. Holy hells is that ever convenient. Cuz it's not like someone's going to steal my great idea.
Should I tell you my great idea?
Z and I have been joking about starting our own bar for years now. But neither of us knows the first thing about it. We know that there's a very, very high failure rate for new ventures. Now that Z works for the altnewsweekly, he knows that very well, as their advertisers are probably 80% restaurant/bar/venues (or more). A lot of these places fold before they even get the bill, much less pay it.
I would love to interview bar and restaurant owners and managers about the business. What drew them to it in the first place? (Did they start their own place, or buy someone's from them?) What's hard about it, and what's easy? And so on, and so forth.
What would make the book fascinating, I think, is that these sorts of people are crazy, many of them actually crazy, and it is so simultaneously cutthroat and seat-of-the-pants. I have a very limited front-of-house perspective, having waited tables over a year now, but I know there is so much that goes into it even behind that...
I originally thought that it would be smart to travel around a little and look at other cities, but the more I think about it the more I think having it be about just Buffalo would be fascinating. Buffalo is a very atypical city in its restaurant scene. I have never been so spoiled for choice. Even though the city's been on a downward slide since the seventies (and indeed had its real heyday in the twenties), the dining scene remains complex and competitive. The average non-gourmet Joe has very demanding tastes in what he eats-- you cannot slap a gourmet French label on something and slide on your laurels unless what you make is really fucking good. There are no laurels here. It's even more dog-eat-dog than New York City's legendary scene. I've eaten more mediocre food over there than out here.
And Z's coworkers know the scene inside and out. Several of the ad sales reps have been with the paper for the better part of a decade, and could tell you (me!) intimately who has been in business, who has not, who is spending what money, who has no sense and who is canny: who would be the most interesting people to talk to.
So this would be a fasciating book, and I have the connections, at this moment, to write it.
And if nonfiction is written to proposal, then I could shop the proposal around while I let BarbariansNovel stew a while and edit VikingsNovel, and so hopefully by the time I (witness the mindless optimism!) get started writing Nonfiction Blockbuster, I will be done enough with VikingsNovel to either put it away to let it start maturing, or be shopping it, in turn, around to agents or publishers.
But that could be my internet-deprived brain shorting out. Who knows.
Meanwhile, stay tuned for me to throw a party to celebrate my finishing the writing of my manuscript. it's a pity that nobody who lives nearby in meatspace would understand what a simultaneously huge and trivial thing that is. Finishing it is essential to the forward progress of the rest of the process, and yet... the rest of the process may well take another decade. It will certainly not be on shelves this year, not even if God Himself likes the manuscript so much he comes to my house to pick it up.
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no subject
Date: 2006-03-21 07:14 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-03-21 08:46 pm (UTC)So I wanted to be a restaurant critic or an opinion columnist, but I'm really, well, not very suited to either, as I don't really have logical opinions. (I absolutely love my favorite bar because a) the staff are all funky yet pleasant, they appreciate weirdness, and the decor is really understated and old-fashioned in a way that makes me comfortable. (Oak paneling and what have you.) Could I write that in a review? No, but I go back there every time I go out.)
But this topic has fascinated me for a while, and I know I will never find out anything about it unless I have an excuse to ask people annoying questions. I loved interviewing people for the cover story I did months ago-- it was an excuse to talk to strangers! I love talking to strangers but I'm terrible at it and terrified at it, but with an excuse? Such fascinating things they told me! Oh heavens.
But it would be so neat, I think, just to find out How It Works. It's not like they'd be revealing trade secrets-- I know already, for a fact, that 90% of making it in the business is Hard Goddamned Work, for which there is no substitute, and about 9% more is Not Making Stupid Mistakes. But I'd love to hear about what it's like.
Also I want an excuse to go into crowded bars and take photographs of unsuspecting people. I think this book should be photoillustrated.
no subject
Date: 2006-03-21 08:11 pm (UTC)The bad news is that who you are counts for a lot more than in fiction writing. Publishers often want you to have a "platform," which is marketing-speak for a high profile or qualifications in the field you're writing about. A glut of books on a similar topic can also ruin your chances (see Miss Snark (http://misssnark.blogspot.com/2006/03/compelling-versus-competitive.html)'s latest post for more on that).
no subject
Date: 2006-03-21 08:39 pm (UTC)an outline, TOC, and 2 or 3 sample chapters
Hm. So I would, really, sort of have to write at least half of it to start with...
Hmm. I haven't any "platform" myself, but I do have some excellent contacts... Although if those would mean anything to anyone outside of Buffalo (not a lot of publishing houses here, and the fact that we're in the same state as New York City doesn't mean jack-- it's still four hundred miles by highway)...
I'm wondering if I could publish parts of it in Altnewsweekly, actually. But I don't know enough about any of this. They're really trying to push themselves as being The Source for everything entertainment in this city-- I know firsthand because Z's working so damn hard on the Menus section of the website that they broke down and hired a whole second person so he'd have time. So maybe I should pitch it to Altnewsweekly first... Especially since it would be so much easier to write with at least their nominal help.
no subject
Date: 2006-03-21 08:39 pm (UTC)