Excited About

I guess it's no secret that I do a lot of stuff. People are always telling me they see me as productive and creative and prolific. I guess that's true. And here's the secret:

I dive in and start working on something pretty much as soon as I'm excited about it.

And then I bust that thing out quickly instead of dragging it out over a long period of time, all while I'm still sort of in the honeymoon phase of that idea.

Usually it works out great. Sometimes, maybe not.

Novels are famous for being multi-draft works. You have to rewrite them several times (usually), and sometimes there's even a complete overhaul or two. Some people spend weeks, months, years planning a novel, and just as long writing it. I do very little active planning. Although sometimes an idea has been percolating for a long time and I explode into writing it as soon as it finally connects to something I can grab onto.

I have really not been doing that with writing lately. That's why you see blogging, singing, ukulele playing, activism videos, drawings, photos, book reviews, and no news of writing.

It's mostly the other ideas that are jumping in and seizing me these days. I am not sure WHY, and it's unusual, though not unprecedented. I had a short story I was excited about a while back. I started writing it and I didn't like the tone or the mood of it so I stopped, figuring I'll just scrap this and start over at some point. I haven't done that. I was excited about my new YA novel with an asexual protagonist, but I haven't written anything new for her in a long time. (I think if I reread what I have, I'd be able to jump-start the next chapter, but I haven't sought it out.) And I haven't written any new novels, or started Bad Fairy 3, or done any editing/rewriting on other novels I could maybe show my agent. (She's still reviewing Bad Fairy 2.)

Now, I know for a fact that if I got a book deal for the Bad Fairy series and it included the third as-yet-unwritten volume, I'd bust it out in a flash. (I'm like that, first of all, and secondly, I've written the story before in a less expanded form, so I know what happens.) I know I could decide to write that short story and get it out in an evening, or go back to writing Ace of Arts and see it finished probably in a couple months. But I don't do that. Because right now, for whatever reason? I'm not excited about it.

I'm not sitting around bummed out that I "can't" write, and I don't have writer's block. I just have a system that has always served me well in producing things, and right now that system isn't directed at writing fiction. It's maybe a bit distressing, because a) I know how much I enjoy doing that and b) not producing anything when I have an agent ready to read it and send it to publishers is kinda silly. But to be honest, I've never messed with that formula before, with the exception of, like, school papers. I've never sat down unexcited about something and written it anyway.

My method, if I were to decide I wanted to write stuff again right now, would be to get excited about it. And that's easy--rereading old stuff, applying creative exercises, checking out other writers' stories of success to inspire me. (Mostly that first item--reconnecting with my stuff makes me want to make more of it.) But it seems like right now I've been content just not making any new writing for a while. I'm not sad about it, though maybe I'm a little weirded out thinking "I SHOULD be doing this." But I don't feel like it right now. I'm enjoying creating some of my other things, like the fan comics and blog essays and webcomics and stuff.

I figure this can't last much longer. But you never know. 

Maybe I'll see what happens this week if I reread some chapters of my in-progress novel.

Personal Digest Saturday: February 11 – February 17

Life news this week: 

• This week was the opposite of last week in that I didn't get ANY interviews! Haha. I did get a couple phone calls about potential interviews, but one never resulted in a follow-up and one was for a job that was wrong for me for a few reasons. But I did get one offer that I'm seriously considering and may accept next week as soon as I have a little more info.

• Saturday involved blogging, drawing and inking the comic I've been planning for months, and applying for jobs. I also made a really cute post on Tumblr involving some character screenshots and the Internet LOVED it. I got a few hundred notes on it and enjoyed reading through them.

• Sunday I woke up to THOUSANDS of notes on the character screenshot post. This sounds silly but it was very entertaining to see so many people excited about how cute it was. I started getting dozens of new followers because of the post, which made me think maybe I'd actually have an audience to care once I got around to posting this comic I'd been working on so painstakingly.

• I spent Sunday doing music stuff like I usually do, and also some sketches--all fan art. I made a doodle to post when the blog hit 200 followers, and got to post it that night. And I did some job applications.

• Monday my only "work" was going to the grocery store. I drew, talked to Mom on the phone, did job applications, and talked to my apartment complex manager about my noisy neighbors. (I've tried this before, but the previous manager did nothing. Maybe this new one will.)

• Tuesday I did more job applications and got the one phone call about a job that isn't right for me. I colored and posted a Valentine's drawing featuring fanart. I finished up some edits on Bad Fairy 2, went to my mom's house to help her move a table and let her feed me (lentil soup left over from my sister's visit, plus corn), and FINALLY sent the manuscript to my agent.

• Wednesday I got woken up by a telemarketer, hung around doing applications and drawing, organized my sock drawer, and met Jeaux for McAlister's grilled cheese. We chilled at my house and I did some sewing and some drawing, and he and I watched a recorded livestream of Kat Morris drawing. After he left I finally finished my inking for the comic I've been planning forever. It's 12 full pages.

• Thursday I basically spent the whole day cleaning my fan comic up for the Internet. I learned an AWESOME new technique for making talk bubbles that really look like comics, though I want to use a better font next time. I drew an episode preview drawing for the next day's cartoon, wrote a storyboard for my webcomic, and talked to Victor on the phone while drawing the webcomic.

• Friday I applied for jobs, processed my webcomic and posted it, and went to Jeaux's house for new Steven Universe and new Night Vale. Jeaux bought me french fries from PDQ so I ate them and hung out discussing the new episode for a bit until I went home. I did some more processing on the fan comic but decided I was afraid to post it on Tumblr for now so I just hid it on my website. I'll post it on Tumblr later.

• I also got a job offer in my e-mail on Friday. It's for one of the places I interviewed last week and there are a lot of things I like about it but I want to make sure I don't decide too hastily. I have to consider benefits, location, whether I can do/will like the job, and the other positions that are in the works (especially one I qualified for after a long test). But I'll do some research in the coming week and make my decision soon.

New reviews of my book:

• Bini gave it a four-star review on Goodreads.

Interviews, Features, Mentions:

• Avia-Veridis included me in their "sexual orientation files" on their site.
• My book appeared on 100 Must-Read Sex Education Books (For Grown-Ups) on Notey.

Reading progress:

• Finished this week: I just did a bunch of arting instead of reading. I will definitely read this coming week, though.
  
• Currently reading: Dykes to Watch Out For by Alison Bechdel.

New singing performances:

This week's performance was "Criminal" by Fiona Apple.



New drawings: 

Buckle up, there are a ton of them.

Happy Eyes Garnet for my 200th follower, with partial digital coloring

Valentine's Day with the Gems, say it with me now, awwww

 

Episode doodle for "Storm in the Room," drawn in Prismacolors
that my mom gave me for my holiday gift!

If you would like to read the comic I planned for four months and spent an inordinate amount of my time on this week, you can do so if you click the image below. But please be advised that a) it contains significant spoilers for Steven Universe, so if you want to watch the show but never have, you don't want to look at this AT ALL!!; and b) I assure you it makes ABSOLUTELY ZERO SENSE to people who do not watch the show and just basically sounds like a bunch of raving gobbledygook? But if you like the show and are caught up, you will probably really like this vignette about Opal and Garnet having a chat at night on the beach.

Disclaimers aside, please read "Vacation."  

Webcomic Negative One Issue 0614: "Follow the Fantasy."






New videos:

My latest unlisted ukulele video is "The Hardest Part" by Coldplay.



New photos:

Snapshot of my doodle of Garnet that I did for hitting 200 followers on my side blog.

Preparing for a feelsy Rose Quartz episode by wearing a Rose Quartz shirt

And the haircut comparison photos (holy wow 3 years!):

Front, February 2014	Front, February 2017
Back, February 2014	Back, February 2017

Social Media counts:
 
YouTube subscribers: 5,294 for swankivy (lost 3), 616 for JulieSondra (2 new). Twitter followers: 848 for swankivy (lost 4), 1,319 for JulieSondra (lost 6). Facebook: 293 friends (no change) and 205 followers (no change) for swankivy, 652 likes for JulieSondra (no change), 55 likes for Negative One (no change), 127 likes for So You Write (no change). Tumblr followers: 2,496 (lost 2). Instagram followers: 102 (lost 1).

Personal Digest Saturday: January 21 – January 27

Life news this week: 

• Saturday I had Drink and Draw! I scurried like a bunny to get everything I needed to do done before heading out, and then the night was pretty nice. I got to see Victor there and receive some more birthday presents, and I got to see Joy and Eric and some others. I drew a webcomic and some fan art.
  
• Sunday I got up and started two fights on my phone before I got out of bed, and later finished one of them. (The other person didn't even try to come back at me after that.) Then I did some karaoke, practiced ukulele, and spent a bunch of the day trying to get a good recording of a song that was really hard for me. I goofed off a lot except for submitting a couple job applications and doing laundry. And I drew a new piece of fan art on a whim.
  
• Monday I had a phone interview for a position that sounded pretty good. After it was over, I went to the office and things really started happening. I worked on a report and some binding stuff, and my mom picked me up to help me get my stuff home since we are closing down the office. We hung out and chatted and I helped her with roommate stuff. (She's looking for someone to rent her spare bedroom.)
  
• Tuesday the remaining four members of the Tampa office went out for a last lunch together. We ate at Gino's and they tried to talk me into drinking wine but I did not do it. Then I boxed some things up and did more report stuff afterwards. Then I went grocery shopping, had some dinner, and called my agent. Michelle and I had a little chat and she said she wants to see a couple of the books I talked about so I guess I gotta get them ready. (I'm a writer sometimes, who'da thunk?)
  
• Wednesday I had to go to the office early to help really get the gears turning for closing down. The corporate secretary from California was there and she is really amazing at getting things done fast! We got so much packed up or thrown out. Then I met Jeaux at Panera and we had some good food and watched Crazyhead on Netflix. We completed the series. Then I called my mom and we chatted a little while I drew.
  
• Thursday was the last full day in the office. My last coffee, my last task on the work computer, my last bike trip to the good old building. Sigh. I didn't help with the tasks very much because I was still trying to do clerical stuff for Jerry! But I did help with a few things. It was a weird and sad day. My mom came to my house after and picked up some renter applications, and after she left I drew webcomics and talked to Victor on the phone.
  
• Friday I biked to my boss's temporary office space for the first time. It's nice, but it's a closet! I helped unpack some supplies and chatted with the computer guy who was trying to get the Internet working. And I got to eat a donut. :] After I helped with that a while, I went back to the old office and helped finish up packing and tossing stuff, and it took way longer than I expected! I also changed the business's address. And I got to take my computer home, plus a bunch of supplies nobody wanted! My boss drove me home so I could get it in my place. I had a bunch of boxes and computer stuff clogging up the living room but it's okay. I finished my comics and went to bed.

Reading progress:

• Finished this week: Nothing--I'm preoccupied, sorry.
  
• Currently reading: Fluke by Christopher Moore.

New singing performances:

This week's performance was "Caramel" by Suzanne Vega.



New drawings: 

Fan art: Opal and Garnet. It's very funny to see someone
as tall as Garnet get called "shorty" by a giant woman. So laugh, will ya?

Webcomic So You Write Issue 68: "Original."

Webcomic Negative One Issue 0611: "Basic Respect."






New videos:

My latest unlisted ukulele video is "Strong in the Real Way" from Steven Universe.



New photos:

Wearing the visor Victor made me. I have suddenly become the coolest person in the world.

Eric wearing my visor. With wine. Wine glasses? HAW HAW!

They had this banner up at Drink and Draw.

Look at all our junk.

Ready to go. . . .

What a shambles.

Me eating a sad cookie in the aftermath of the office pack.

Social Media counts:
 
YouTube subscribers: 5,307 for swankivy (1 new), 614 for JulieSondra (lost 4). Twitter followers: 856 for swankivy (lost 6), 1,329 for JulieSondra (2 new). Facebook: 294 friends (no change) and 204 followers (lost 1) for swankivy, 652 likes for JulieSondra (2 new), 55 likes for Negative One (no change), 127 likes for So You Write (no change). Tumblr followers: 2,499 (lost 1). Instagram followers: 102 (lost 1).

Personal Digest Saturday: August 1 – August 7

Life news this week: 

• I got my first royalty check! Meaning I got paid for my nonfiction book's sales for the first time. I was paid an advance when it sold, but after that's earned out I get a percentage of every book that sells, and I just got paid for the books that sold between its publication date and the end of December 2014. It's neat. :)
  
• Pitch Wars went live with mentor bios! I'll be participating as a mentor in a couple weeks. My bio describes what I'm looking for in a mentee's unpublished, unagented book.
  
• I got to talk to my fiction agent about future stuff and we had a good old chat on the phone. We always end up off topic. Hard to do business sometimes with someone you also like! But that's how it should be.
  
• Also got to have a lovely phone chat with the Meggie. There's just nothing I can't tell her.
  
• I finished reading my friend's science fiction book Half-Wit and I'm still working on pulling together the feedback for him. He's thinking of entering Pitch Wars but I'm not sure if he will--we'll see if he has time to write a query letter before then.
  
• Jeaux and I met on Wednesday and our restaurant choice was Moe's for cheap burritos. We ate there and watched Gravity Falls and America's Got Talent at his house, and also heard the latest episode of Welcome to Night Vale.
  
• I redecorated for the first harvest, which was fun because for some reason I always get excited about filling the candy bowls with new seasonal candy. Yay orange slices!

New reviews of my book:

Just sharing some from Goodreads first that I never noticed before because Goodreads has a terrible system for showing new reviews and will mysteriously put older reviews at the top of lists that claim to be "newest first":

• No-rating partial review on Goodreads from Giulia, who is putting the book aside for now for Reasons.
  
• Four-star review from Hezekiah on Goodreads.
  
• Five-star review from Averie on Goodreads.
  
• Five-star review from Amy on Goodreads.
  
• Five-star review from Sarah on Goodreads. (This one was actually from this week.)
  
• Five-star review from J. DeCourtney "author Recapture Yr Health" on Amazon.

Places featured:

• A Place to be Ace discussed the difference between sexual attraction and sex drive, and quoted liberally from my book to do so.
  
• gloryandus on Tumblr quoted something from my book about being unpartnered in later adulthood.

 Reading progress:

• Completed reading: Benny and Omar by Eoin Colfer. Three-star review.
• Currently reading: Landline by Rainbow Rowell.

New singing performances:

Here I'm singing "Rush Rush" by Paula Abdul.


 
New drawings:

Webcomic Negative One Issue 0534: "My Place."

New videos:

None.

New photos:  

Me looking quite tired with my first royalty check.

Social media counts: 

YouTube subscribers: 4,901 for swankivy (22 new this week), 498 for JulieSondra (1 new). Twitter followers: 667 for swankivy (3 new), 1031 for JulieSondra (28 new). Facebook: 286 friends (no change) and 183 followers (1 new) for swankivy, 588 likes for JulieSondra (no change), 54 likes for Negative One (no change), 110 likes for So You Write (no change). Tumblr followers: 2117 (3 new).

Perpetually waiting

I've become very good at waiting.

Before I signed with an agent for the first time, I usually had a few queries out at a time and maybe a few short stories being considered. The only thing I really expected to see in my inbox was letters that started with "Thank you but unfortunately." Sometimes the responses would startle me by asking for a partial or full manuscript. Eventually one of those letters turned into a request for a phone call and an offer of representation.

It's kind of one of those things you don't really know what it will feel like when it happens. Like, you're always expecting that one day someone will say yes, and then they do and you're like "oh."

"Oh, okay."

"Wow."

Since then, the waiting has continued, but it feels different.

I know what yes feels like. I've since gotten to "yes" on another agent offering me representation, a book deal, and several short stories and short nonfiction pieces. I have developed a cautious expectation of seeing "yes" in the inbox instead of "no." And that's pretty nice--developing the confidence to know that they won't be rejections forever and they do sometimes turn into actual publication offers and I will be able to handle it when it happens.

But I've also been waiting for a very long time.

I'm waiting for updates on when we start edits for the paperback release. I'm waiting for news from my agent on whether any publishers have nibbled on my fantasy trilogy. I'm waiting for news from my agent as to whether she wants to represent my next book. I'm waiting to find out when an accepted short story is going to be published. I'm waiting for verdicts on half a dozen short stories.

And I've developed this fizzy feeling of always expecting someone's opinion to hit my inbox any minute.

It comes and goes. Sometimes I'm sure that it's going to happen any minute, and I'm keeping the inbox open in another window all day, eying it to see if that (1) pops up to notify me of a new message, flipping out when spam filters in. And sometimes I feel like it's a long way off--that I can't expect any news today or this week or this month. Sometimes I see a new message from an editor and immediately think "Oh, who's rejecting me today?" (Spoiler: I've actually thought that immediately before opening a message that said yes.) Sometimes I see a new message convinced that it's going to be good news and it blindsides me with a rejection. Sometimes I just look at the empty inbox and yell something into it to see if it echoes.

But, despite how maddening and heart-rending WAITING is, I think I've gotten to the point where I want to be waiting. Waiting means I always have something new on the horizon. Waiting means good news could be right around the corner, while bad news can be processed and forgotten. Waiting means I always have balls in the air and possibilities cooking. Waiting means even if I'm not actively creating new material right then, I'm also technically not stagnant.

Waiting is exhausting and invigorating at the same time.

Whenever the waiting comes to an end, I know I'll do something to get it going again.

Personal Digest Saturday: January 10 – January 16

Life news this week: 

• I spent last weekend drawing, reading, making videos, eating tasty food, and getting a ton of stuff done. I was very productive, especially on Sunday!
  
• I finally turned my latest novel in to my agent. She's reading it now and I guess soon I'll know whether she liked it and if she wants to represent it. It will feel really weird to have a new book on submission.
  
• Got BIRTHDAY PRESENTS from Mommy, Ronni, Daddy, and Jeaux!
  
• Monday I released a blog interview of my friend and crit partner J.C. Fann and did a bunch of stuff online to draw attention to it. I hope it caused a little bump in sales from the attention--and that better yet, more readers will find something they love!
  
• Tuesday I spent a restaurant gift certificate I got for a holiday gift on taking my mom to Carrabba's. We had a good time except she seems to have gotten food poisoning and spent the rest of the week sick. I hope she gets better soon. :(
  
• Jeaux Day was Wednesday, as always. Jeaux bought me Gail's book (Gail is a Pitch Wars pal) and we ate at Best NY Pizza. Then at my place we watched two more episodes of Galavant and listened to the Night Vale episode we didn't get a chance to hear last week. And we found out they're actually finally coming to Florida! We might get to go to one of their live shows! YES NIGHT VALE!!! We'll see if I can slide in and get tickets when they go on sale. Supposedly tickets sell out in like under an hour.
  
• Thursday was kind of a bummer day--I had to ride my bike in the rain after dark to go buy things that might help Mom feel better and help her keep herself hydrated, and got my sister to take the stuff over to her, and then I fell down in the parking lot while picking up my mail and scraped my knee.
  
• And Friday I didn't have to go to work because IT IS BIRTHDAY VACATION TIME! I spent Friday morning packing and panicking because I hate packing. Really really hate it. But I just didn't have time to do it the night before because I was finishing Negative One and it turned out to need 14 frames instead of the usual 10. Trust me to plan a long issue for a night when I have a time crunch.
  
• I got to begin my vacation with Meggie driving to Cape Coral and getting into our rental home with no hiccups. We went out for a celebratory pizza, went grocery shopping to stock the house for our vacation festivities (we'll be here Saturday, Sunday, and Monday, leaving Tuesday), and watched The LEGO Movie after we got home. I hadn't seen it and wasn't disappointed. :)

New reviews of my book:

• Nobody loves me this week.

Places featured:

• Gail's post on Kidliterati showed off several photos she got of her book "in the wild" during release week, and the picture I tweeted was one of them.

Reading progress:

• Completed reading: Fangirl by Rainbow Rowell. Five-star review.
• Currently reading: Love Me, Love My Broccoli by Julie Anne Peters.

New singing performances:

Here I'm singing "Love Song" by Sara Bareilles.


 
New drawings:

Webcomic Negative One Issue 0505: "A Word About Me."

Webcomic So You Write Issue 44: "Always a Hobby."

New videos:

I published Not-So-Frequently Asked Submission Questions, which is all about questions authors might have while on submission to publishers. 

  
New photos:  

I ate cellophane noodles while wearing glasses and . . . they fogged up.

Here's me with Gail's book, Breaking the Ice!

Here's me with Meggie in the pizza restaurant at the start of our birthday vacation!

Meg with her pizza. (We shared that pie and ate it!)

Me with pizza. It was a cheese pizza with mushrooms!

Back in the vacation home, it's sweatpants o'clock.

And finally, the monthly haircut comparison photos:

Back, February 2014	Back, January 2015
Front, February 2014	Front, January 2015

Social media counts:YouTube subscribers: 4,254 for swankivy (20 new this week), 429 for JulieSondra (1 new). Twitter followers: 602 for swankivy (1 new), 815 for JulieSondra (3 new). Facebook: 273 friends (no change) and 156 followers (no change) for swankivy, 509 likes for JulieSondra (lost one--someone unliked me lol), 54 likes for Negative One (no change), 91 likes for So You Write (1 new). Tumblr followers: 1,782 (1 new).

Personal Digest Saturday: May 31 – June 6

Life news this week: 

• I went to my sister Lindsay's wedding after-party with my sister Patricia and brother-in-law Yusuke. They left the baby with my mom and it was the longest they'd left him with someone else! We had a good time.

• I tagged along with P, Y, and Ash to go see Grandma. They were driving to Sarasota that day and asked if I wanted to come along last minute. So we saw Dad and Connie, visited Grandma at the home, and went out to lunch with my aunt Elisa and my grandpa. It was a good time. And really inspiring to think that now that Ash is here we had four generations in one room. Poor Ash haaaates his carseat though. He cries when he's in it.

• More good publishing news this week! But it's stuff I don't talk about publicly so. My agent and I ended up rambling in e-mails about the Maleficent movie. (Neither of us have seen it.) Haha.

• My publisher for the nonfiction book is going to give me a few advance reading copies to raffle off at the Ontario event! Excited to see them. Even though they have mistakes and I hadn't finalized the acknowledgments page.

• I'm allllmost done with the third-pass edits for my book. I have done no writing this week at all because I'm trying to get this done. I'm only about 50 pages from the end.

• My passport arrived. :) I'm safe for Canada! And the room and my tickets have been finalized--Yusuke gave me frequent flyer miles and I didn't have to pay for my ticket. I'm so amazed. WOWWW.

• I hung out with my mom and P, Y, and A at Mom's house. We ate leftover Chinese food, some extra tofu and mushrooms we sautéed up, and then we made banana bread from scratch because Mom had old bananas. :) And the baby tried to eat my face and my shirt!! Such cuteness.

• I ate at the new Five Guys with Jeaux this week. Then we listened to Night Vale and watched part of an episode of America's Got Talent. We like that show. When the live shows start I'll be going to his house to watch them, since I don't have TV.

Places featured: 

I lack famousness this week.

Reading progress:

• Finished The Maxx #1 by Sam Kieth. ★★
• Currently reading Lord of the Flies by William Golding.

New singing performances:

Recorded "Losing My Religion" by R.E.M.






New drawings:

Webcomic Negative One Issue 0473: "I Won't Look."






 
New videos:
None!



New photos:

Newly married sister Lindsay and husband Mike
at their after-party.

Patricia, Lindsay, and me at the after-party.

Four generations--a great-grandpa/great-grandma, a grandpa,
a mom and dad, and a baby boy!

My dad is a good grandpa.

My dad is trying to wear Ash's tiny hat.

Baby plays with a hammer! It lights up!

Baby Ash reaches for his mommy's face.

Eat Daddy's fingers, baby!

This is the blanky I used as a little girl.
Now Ash gets to enjoy it. :)

Social Media Counts:

YouTube subscribers: 3,412 for swankivy (32 new this week), 344 for JulieSondra (5 new). Twitter followers: 493 for swankivy (lost one), 407 for JulieSondra (no change). Facebook: 251 friends (2 new, friended Sharon and Wayne) and 122 followers (2 new) for swankivy, 346 likes for JulieSondra (1 new), 47 likes for Negative One (no change), 70 likes for So You Write (1 new). Tumblr followers: 1,345 (7 new).

On Compromise

Yesterday, I signed my first contract to publish short fiction in a magazine.

I bought myself a cupcake to celebrate that milestone. I think I'll make a tradition of it.

More icing than cupcake, really.

I'm sure I'll talk more about that story and where you can read it when the issue I'm in is published. But today, I want to talk about compromise.

We're starry-eyed people for the most part, we writers. We have big dreams and overflowing pots of idealism, especially at the beginning of our careers. And there's nothing wrong with that. But now I want to say that for all three pieces of writing I've sold (for actual money) and for both of the agents I signed with, there was a compromise of some kind. Sometimes, it was a major one.

• This short story, a fairy tale retelling, actually invoked the fairy tale it was retelling by name and became very, as the editor called it, "meta." She loved the story but believed the association with its fairy tale should be more subtle, and asked if I would rewrite it with that in mind. My rewrite was accepted.

• The short nonfiction piece I recently sold about asexual femininity was accepted by the editor at the proposal stage and she loved my original version, but literally came back to me with a request to make it twice as long.

• The asexuality book got very few content-related revision requests, but there was definitely a fair amount of back and forth at the contract negotiation stage, and ultimately I sold my book to an imprint that specializes in library sales, not trade audiences. (There's always a possibility it will sell well enough to justify releasing it/marketing it to trade in the future, but as such, it's not part of the plan.) I would have liked to have wider reach from the beginning, but this is where everything led.

• The agent who signed my nonfiction offered me representation with the understanding that she did not think large publishers would want it, and she wanted me to understand that she would start in the middle with realistic expectations of selling to a medium or small house.

• The agent who signed my fiction loved my query and sample pages, but thought my word count was far too high. She asked me to take my 146,000-word book down to between 85,000 and 115,000 words before she would look at the rest of it. She signed me, but I had to cut over 30,000 words.

I have also made a few significant changes based on the opinions of beta readers, publishers who rejected me, and pieces I've read by other authors. So what does that make me? Would you like to say "Julie, why do you change your vision for other people? Are you a sellout?"

Well, kind of. Not exactly. But it does have to do with the word "sell."

Let's make one thing clear: if you are aiming for publication--in the sense that someone other than you is publishing your work and offering you money for it, intending to then sell your work to consumers--then you are agreeing that you will be using another entity's resources, time, expertise, and cash to forward your message. You are also agreeing that you want that entity to have input into the product that gets released--and as publishing-industry professionals, people who offer you money for your work have the right to say "I am looking to pay for THIS product, and your product is not quite THIS product. I will pay you for it if you modify it to fit my needs."

They often know more than you do about what, ultimately, will sell in the marketplace. They are not always right. But yes, if you think they are wrong, then in today's world you have the option of publishing your work yourself. You don't need to submit your poetry or short stories to established magazines and journals if you're content to post it on your blog. You don't need to find agency representation and/or get a publisher if you believe your book, as is, represents the best presentation possible of your work, and that you alone with the resources available to self-published authors can get your book out there. And yes, sometimes that works out really well for people--most of whom are both talented and lucky.

But when you offer your work to publishing-industry professionals, they will tell you how to make it appropriate for their audience's consumption, and if you don't agree with them, you can walk away. If what they ask you to do does not compromise the soul of the work--the reason why you wrote it in the first place--it would behoove you to try.

• For the short story: I like meta, so I was sad I had to rewrite it. But I got the idea for this short story because of the magazine's theme issue prompt, and I wrote the original in forty-five minutes. I saw no reason why I couldn't write an alternate version of it for this editor's magazine if I had written the original for her magazine in the first place. Now people get to meet my characters and enjoy the weird little modernization I came up with. And I have a short story credit for my résumé.

• For the nonfiction piece: I didn't think I had anything else to say on asexual femininity, and historically I'm never asked to say more since I'm usually too wordy, so I didn't know what to do initially to double my word count. But having more space to have my say encouraged me to make the piece more personal, with a varied tone and more valuable content, and I think it's a better read now.

• For the sale of the nonfiction book: I had three offers for this book. The library imprint was the best one I got. My choices were to either wait for a different opportunity or take this one, and honestly I think the time for this book is now. Despite not being able to concentrate on trade audiences for its distribution, it will be available at least, and perhaps the decision-makers are right that it's the type of book more people would want to borrow from a library than buy for themselves. If the demand is higher than expected, it may go to trade anyway, and if not, their conservative choices will have been the right ones.

• For my nonfiction agent wanting to avoid the largest publishers for submission: I even got a few passes from middle-sized houses saying they just didn't think the audience was big enough to justify offering me a contract. I doubt the bigger houses would have said something different. My agent knows the game.

• For my fiction agent saying my book needs to be shorter, she knows that it's already so hard to get a debut book deal without a high word count hanging around your neck. Furthermore, I did have my doubts about whether I could shorten it that much and still tell the story I wanted to tell, and I found that I could; it ended up being a fantastic lesson for me in learning to write more concisely, as well as making the manuscript cleaner and more marketable. 

If you are not willing to take these risks, learn these lessons, and accept that professional publication does involve compromise sometimes, that's your choice. And it's not even necessarily the wrong one--I'm not implying that all authors need to make unpleasant sacrifices before their work will be judged worthy of publication. I'm saying professional publication is an acknowledgment that you are pursuing mainstream consumption of your work, and you should expect to adjust your vision when the end result requires you to see eye to eye with others.

There have been several times when I rejected a publishing industry professional's requests because their vision wanted to take my project in a direction I didn't want to go.

Several agents told me my seventeen-year-old protagonist in Finding Mulligan having a romance in a college atmosphere was unsaleable, and that I would have better luck getting representation if I rewrote the entire thing in a boarding school instead of college. (Happily, now that New Adult is a Thing, I should have better prospects.)

One agent said my protagonist's mature storytelling voice in Bad Fairy was unbelievable and she wanted me to reconceive it in a more age-appropriate voice. (The agent apparently didn't realize that the protagonist is presenting an autobiography "written" at the end of her life, not in her voice as it happens. Other agents, including the one who signed me, didn't misunderstand that.)

One agent I offered my nonfiction book to was very adamant that my platform was nowhere near large enough to warrant writing this book and explicitly sent me two publishers that might be "willing to consider me," one of which was a self-publishing service and the other of which was a vanity publisher. (Thanks, man. No.)

One short story magazine editor told me I should rewrite some central aspects of my protagonist to be more similar to a television character they thought was more realistic. (No.)

One beta reader told me, extremely condescendingly, that my sentences were too long and my vocabulary too complex to be palatable for mainstream audiences. "You're a good writer," he said, "but you are NOT Henry James or James Joyce. THEY can get away with writing long sentences. One day you may acquire the skill. Let's just stick with short sentences for now." The reader opined that my sentences reminded him of a thesis or a doctoral dissertation, and added, "I know because I've written them." (No one before or since believed my style was over their heads. Perhaps this fellow just had a low opinion of what level mainstream audiences read on.)

Sometimes people who read your work are wrong about it. Sometimes they might be right but you're not interested in finding out because the compromise they're asking for doesn't sit right with the reason you wrote what you did. And sometimes, it's worth the compromise to have a chance to bring your work to larger, more mainstream audiences. It's up to you to decide whether they're asking you to sing a different song or whether they're just asking you to wear a different dress while you sing it.