Your mind is a temple too...

An old unpublished junior mystery manuscript (oujmm) I wrote a while back has been whispering sweet nothings in my ear and I confess I have been cheating on my university studies with it. Just a few little trysts on my laptop, sneaking around behind research project's back for an hour or two in the evenings. Oh, the guilt. I know I will pay for this. But oujmm looks better than I remember him. He's kept in shape. He wants to change. I can't resist him. Please don't tell on us...

Over the past eighteen months or so I have discovered an interesting fact about publishing, hitherto unknown to me by virtue of the fact that up until that point I had effectively only had one publisher (that's not entirely true as I had multiple publishers for different short stories over the years but they kind of have a separate set of rules to begin with so I expected differences). Anyways, what I discovered is that one publisher is not the same as another publisher. Its not just that the people involved are different, with different tastes and interests. Its also that different publishers can operate in completely different ways. Their contracts are not the same, their advances and requirements and expectations of you are not the same, their sales, marketing and publicity are not the same. Their submissions processes are not the same and how they interact with you is not the same. Justine Larbalestier says it very well here. Sometimes the only common factor across the different publishers you might get to work with is you. This doesn't make them better or worse, it just means you shouldn't expect the same experience.

I also liked this link this morning. I have talked about feeding your creative mind before. Its extremely important to put new stuff in when you are busily taking so much stuff out as you write. Running on empty isn't pretty. But Maggie Stiefvater has taken a different approach. Its not just the experiences your mind requires. Be careful about the food and drink you consume. Its not just the reactions to some substances you personally have that can dull your mind. Its not just your body that's a temple.

And this too at Stroppy Author's Blog - nothing like a call to sanity, eh? She's right - we can't go back so there's no point in whining about how things used to be. They weren't always wonderful anyway. Be smart and embrace the future. It might be better, it might be worse, but either way, with or without you, it'll be happening.

And if you haven't been over to Maureen Crisp's blog recently, you should. She's had some excellent and most useful links in recent weeks.