So I got an email over the weekend from an acquaintance asking me why I hadn’t blogged about the current farcockteh mishuggenah between epubbed authors and the RWA.
Meh. I don’t have much to say. It’s not my fight. Epubbed I am (and epubbed I will likely always be, whether I sell to New York next week or not, because I’m always going to write some stuff that’s too outré for NY) but RWA quit being relevant to my career a long while before I finally let my membership lapse. While I sympathize with my epubbed friends and colleagues who are members and who want to see change in how the BoD approaches different modes of publishing, I just can’t work up a head of steam about an organization that lags further behind the industry with every passing year.
There are those who are organizing under the battle cry, “Change comes from within!” and to them I say, “You go, grrrrrrrls!” I wish you much luck. I discovered early that I have neither the time nor the patience for windmill-tilting at this level. Bone-deep resistance to change is one of the most difficult human characteristics to overcome, and the RWA is nothing if not hidebound at the highest levels. (And I’m not necessarily talking about the president or the board of directors. Make of that what you will.)
The best argument I’ve heard for membership in the RWA is that the “amazing” networking opportunities will help an otherwise unpublished writer transform herself into a published author. And that’s fine…except the thing I keep hearing over and over again from editors and agents is, “It’s not who you know, or even how well you write, but the salability of your current project.”
In other words, no matter how many Sooper Sekrit Squirrel email loops and retreats the RWA holds for those members who’ve attained the holy grail of earning $1000 for a single publication, and no matter how many ribbons and pins and badges and charms the RWA gives out to its unpubbed members indicating various accomplishments on the road to being published* the bottom line will always be, “What have you written lately, and is it good enough to convince the editor of your choice that readers will buy it?”
Maybe it’s hubris – and it’s certainly not ladylike by the standards of RWA to say so out loud, in front of God and everyone – but I can do that. By myself. Without paying hundreds of dollars for face-to-face pitches at conferences or a cheerleading section beyond what I’ve got in my current crit partners, heaven bless their patient souls. I can write the book, build the synopsis, craft the query, get the agent and sell the project using my brain and my own two hands, just like many, many other authors have done and continue to do. And I’ll do it without paying dues to be condescended to or told my books aren’t “romance” or that the industry model I choose to distribute my work is an “author mill.” **
So, yeah. I guess I had more to say than I thought I did. ~iz sheepish~
* The first time I attended a chapter meeting and the president pulled out a Ziploc baggie full of little brass charms and pins and started handing them out for “finishing your first manuscript” or “sending your first query” or “receiving your first rejection” or “just showing up and looking pretty” I almost fell off my chair. What the hell, people? Is this an organization for professional writers or the fucking Girls Scouts? Name one pro organization run by men that would indulge in this kind of trivial hand-patting and cheek-pinching for every small accomplishment. On second thought, don’t, because I’m sure they exist. It’s bad enough that grown women need to play these bogus self-esteem-bolstering games with each other. Leave me my illusions about the menfolk, if you please. In the words of the inestimable Dean Winchester, “Participation trophies suck ass.”
** Note to President Pershing: You really screwed the pooch with that one, honey. That’s right up there with “Mission Accomplished!” and “Heckuva job, Brownie.” Seriously. Rescind that comment and apologize profusely. Claim temporary insanity or possession by reptile alien demons or something. But take it back and say you’re sorry, because that was not only beneath you and the board you claim to speak for, it was so far over the line, the line is a DOT to you. And while you’re at it? Educate yourself on the reality of “author mills” – for they do exist – and why reputable, royalty-paying epubs and small presses are NOT. THAT.
~~~
And because I’m on a ranty kind of roll and should probably get it out of my system while I can, what is UP with middle-school parents who dawdle in the drop-off circle, choosing that moment to strike up conversations with their children while cars line up behind them and block traffic all the way back to the main road? Shit or get off the pot, people. Are you really so fucking busy you can’t find the time for a face-to-face with your twelve-year-old that doesn’t involve inconveniencing twenty other families? And if you are, may I suggest a shift in priorities? Because I know how much that shiny new Expedition cost, and maybe if you didn’t have to pay for the full sports package, you’d have that ten extra minutes to discover why Junior’s lacrosse practice is running late tonight without fucking with everybody else’s morning schedule, hmmm? Get the FUCK outta my way.
~satisfied sigh~
I feel SO much better.
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