Apologies for non-responsiveness, since I'm fighting off something viral and am a bit tired. Plus, I'm knee-deep in drafting the first batch of the Admonishments (almost done!). In lieu of a long an interesting post, then, I direct you to this instead, where shadesong asks her readers why they direct-sponsor fiction online.

The answers are fascinating, particularly if they represent trends. My observations:

1. This niche scratches people's short fiction itch. It's unclear whether people prefer it to novels, or if novels can be done credibly online.

2. The current offerings in short fiction magazines, on- or off-line, bore people, or they feel that they pay too much for stories they dislike to get the one or two stories they do. In essence: they feel they're still going through slush, because they have to sift through anthologies or magazines to find the one or two stories they enjoy.

3. They like paying a specific artist/writer. That means they like to feel invested in your career as an artist and you in particular as a person.

4. They like paying for something they have enjoyed, rather than paying to see if they'll like what they get. Giving things away and then asking for compensation is more enticing than making people pay first and then giving them what they want.

5. However, incentives are highly prized. People enjoy paying for extras: epilogues, back-stories, extra material, insights into the artist's mind, etc.


All in all, my observation is that people are aware that their entertainment budget is finite and that 1. their choices are not limited to what traditional venues are offering; and 2. leaving those venues allows them to feel better about the choices they make, in terms of getting better value for their money and supporting artists they feel good about.

This is a significant paradigm shift, if it continues to grow. As dracosphynx commented, it's away from a consumerist model and toward a patronage one.



Stardancer Home.

Tags: art, marketing, new publishing paradigms, technology, writing
Current Mood: exhausted/sick

I am tense, mask under one arm. "Forgive me," I say, quiet but without hedging. "It's been over a year. I have forgotten all that I know."

"Let us see," he says. We salute one another and then he says, "Let's start with a simple exercise. En garde. Keep your distance, now."

And then--

--I remember. Everything I thought I'd forgotten. How to stand. How to move. How far away I have to be for a lunge to succeed. How to parry. All my fancy disengages. I even remember obscure rules--"That wasn't my point, was it." "No... you're right. I attacked first and you didn't parry."

But there are things I'd forgotten--

--the smell of sweat and steel and nylon. The way five minutes of this has me working harder than twenty minutes of jogging. How good it feels to make no excuses for aggression or cunning. How much you laugh when you fail... how much you crow when you score the unexpected point.

An hour later, I am ready for another hour. For another two hours. I am perched on the concrete ledge just off the strip, sucking down a bottle of water and panting like a wolf in the summer sun, watching other people assemble for the group practice I can't stay for tonight... and I feel at home... as if I'd never left. I never want to leave.

There is exhiliration in running. Solitude has its pleasures, and you should know who you are when no one's around. But it's nothing to this. This is a fierceness of joy I wish I'd known about as a teenage girl, when I misspent my youth's most resilient years hiding in dark libraries, thinking that flesh was a cage I had to rise above in order to reach more spiritual aims. How I wish I could go back and tell myself that you can't rise above your body by ignoring it. Like a crack in a dam, the longer you neglect the flesh the more power it has over you, until at last it is your master and you drown in the tide of its demands.

"Are you staying?" one of the other fencers asks.

"Not tonight. Next time, though," I say. And grin. "You'll have to be nice to me, though. I just got back from being pregnant. Hey, coach!"

"Yes?"

My eyes have caught on their uniforms. "Do I get a patch now? I have my own gear."

"Ah! Of course." He hands it to me. "You didn't forget so much as you thought, eh?"

"No!" I say. "No."

"It's hard to forget these things," he says. "The body remembers. And of course, it helps when you have an excellent teacher!"

I laugh. One foot behind the other, plié into a curtsey, hands folded over the grip of the foil I hold against my chest. "It is the truth." I straighten. "I will see you Saturday."

"Very good."

Once I get home I assemble all the necessary tools and sit, light gleaming on the needle as I stitch. Fleetingly I think of getting this done by a professional seamstress, because it's no small work to sew a patch onto the arm of a jacket... but only fleetingly. I will do it myself as a commitment, written in cloth, sealed in steel. I will not be that girl again.

As I work, I sing.


Stardancer Home.

Tags: fencing, health, life
Current Mood: fierce