It Came from the Mailbag

Bored today.

Let’s take a look at my inbox and see if I can’t get a good blog post about of it.

Sarah, of Missouri, writes…

I notice you tend to talk about and hang around Leanna Renee Hieber a lot.  She’s one of my favorite authors!  Is she as great in person?

It’s true, I do talk about Ms. Hieber with an almost suspicious amount of zeal.  The truth behind this is somewhat complicated, though.  It is true that, since I met her at Comicon, she has been probably my best friend in the publishing world and we talk about many things that are considered gauche to discuss in decent company.  Fortunately, since we are both distinctly indecent, we discuss everything from critics to sales to future hitlists.  Yes, she is a great person to know.

…but at what cost?

See, every month or so, I get a phone call.  It is not Leanna Renee Hieber on the line–or rather, it is, she just refuses to acknowledge that as her name.  Instead, she insists that she be referred to by her rapper name “Lee Lee Hiebz.”  Sorry, Ambassador Lee Lee Hiebz.  Asking what country she represents or, indeed, whether or not she is intoxicated at the time of the call is met with profuse/obtuse swearing.  The only option is to sit back and listen as she begins to recite a rap song, always entitled ‘I Always Hated Winnie the Pooh’ and always, always consisting of lyrics profoundly, specifically and oftentimes gratuitously critical of Egypt.

The length of the song varies (her record is fourteen minutes, twelve seconds), but toward the end of it, the tempo withers, the words become garbled and the lyrics eventually degenerate into soft, gentle sobbing.  This tends to last for much longer as she recites every grievance she has with the listener before absolving them and assuring them that she is “definitely not the kind of woman you want in a sidecar.”  She then waits for a moment and, in that time, you are expected to thank her for the rap before she hangs up.

It’s a little weird, but she always sends a muffin basket the next day, so I guess it’s okay.

JCrew4U writes…

I’ve been wanting to get my work published for awhile.  Can you tell me a little about SFWA and if they can help me?

In fact, I can!

But they can’t.

You actually have to be published before you join SFWA, as it’s one of the requirements.  I can tell you what SFWA does for a writer, though.  As you know, they do charge a membership fee.  And, according to the membership guidelines, this is for upkeep, benefits and the things usually associated with maintaining and operating an association.  This is what they’d have you think.

Don’t you believe it.

In fact, all the money goes to its current president, John Scalzi.  Well, let me rephrase–the way I said it makes it sound like he’s robbing members blind.  In fact, all the money goes to the training, conditioning and feeding of its current president, John Scalzi.  See, while the world of writers may put up a lot of signs suggesting that we are civilized, as one of the world’s oldest professions, we continue to settle matters internally through one of the oldest means.

Everything from booth space at conventions to signing schedules to font is decided by brute force.  Whether it’s against the convention organizer, the bookstore owner, the publisher, the author or the author’s mother, the president of SFWA represents his members’ best interests by fighting and sometimes bleeding in the arena.  John Scalzi, in effect, speaks for all of us with his two fists, whom, when he is wearing his “business pants,” are to be referred to as “Mavis” and “The Wheels of Industry,” respectively.

Most organizations still abide by the rule of the pin, in that the quicker John Scalzi can pin another man, the more booth space or panel time we get.  As we’ve suffered no shortage of that, one can surmise that John Scalzi is probably the strongest fighter of our day.  Allegations of his fighting/riding dirty are completely unfounded, as the last two lawyers with two black eyes will testify.

I hope this helps, as I could be disbarred for sharing this information.

Jeremy writes…

How do you feel about being compared to Joe Abercrombie?

It’s not a bad feeling, but it’s a little off the mark.  People are always suggesting that one writer writes like another writer or some such rot.  The truth of the matter is that I am Joe Abercrombie.

See, there are only about six or seven authors per genre that work round-the-clock to produce hundreds of novels per year.  This used to be the unapologetic case, but around 1983, readers began to complain that every book began to run together.  Thusly, pen names were invented and circulated throughout the industry, even though the practices are still the same.

Joe Abercrombie, Sam Sykes, Brent Weeks, Scott Lynch, Sherrilyn Kenyon and Alistair Reynolds are actually written by one mild-mannered accountant named Kevin Mourney of Algona, Iowa.  To maintain the illusion of multiplicity, various people were kidnapped off the streets of various backwater cities and told to act like the other authors, up to and including accent memorization, familial lineages and noticeable diseases.

After putting in twenty years on “the circuit,” the publisher releases an announcement that “the writer” is retiring and the actor representing the writer is free to go back to his family, who should still be alive and well…assuming the actor did everything the publisher told him to.

Anyway, that’s it for today!  Keep writing those messages so I can keep making blogs!