Tag: nadja salerno sonnenberg

Numbers game

Hi Kelley:

I read “Strings” as a result of an email sent (and posted) to Nadja. Wow!!!!!!! Thanks for the taste. I can see Solitaire is next on my list.

Great work and website. Isn’t it nice to be “riding high on the crest of public approval.”

Aren’t we all imprisoned by a means of our own device?

Scott

I’m very fond of Strings, glad you liked it. I’m assuming since you found the post on Nadja’s website, that you also followed the trail to C.A. Casey’s article at Strange Horizons (but here it is again for people who may not know about it). I enjoyed the article thoroughly, and was jazzed that Nadja actually read the story.

Riding high on the crest of public approval doesn’t suck, for as long as it lasts. The trick is not to turn it into heroin, because one day the fix just won’t be there. Public approval is ephemeral, and contextual. Solitaire got a very strong response for a first SF novel, but that same response might be considered mediocre for a mainstream novel with same caliber of advance quotes and the same amount of pre-publication buzz. And if the critical approval doesn’t translate into sales, well… publishing is a business, and they don’t pay royalties on good reviews.

I don’t know how much you know (or care) about the business of publishing, but what I’m waiting for now are the sell-through figures. I know how many books were printed, ordered and shipped to booksellers. If stores are going to return large quantities of the book (because they think they will never sell them, or they’re tight on inventory space, or they have policies about turning inventory on a regular schedule), they will generally do so within about 6 months –” in my case, by the end of February. It’s nice when stores order lots of books, and bad when they return lots. At the end of all this, HarperCollins will look at the percentage of books that “sold through” (shipments minus returns) and use this to roll their numbers and determine whether the book has been a financial success for them.

At the same time, bookstores will have noted the individual store sell-through. When my next book is published, they’ll go back to these records as a guide. The worst place a writer can find herself is on the downward spiral of “well, we ordered way too many last time, let’s cut that order in half this time” (as opposed to, “wow, her last book did well for us, let’s bring in a few more this time”). It’s better in some ways to sell 90% of 100 books than 50% of 180 books.

In the meantime, I am not ungrateful! I’m delighted with the response. Happy writer. I like being approved of. And even though Solitaire certainly hasn’t been universally praised, the criticism has almost always been intelligent and interesting. And really, the best part is the growing interaction I have with readers through this site. I even find myself answering Virtual Pint questions when I should be working on my new book (grin).

Sure, we’re all prisoners of our own device (the Eagles said so, it must be true). That’s what fear is. Solitaire was written on some level for anyone who’s experienced the liberation of kicking down one of her own particular walls.

Negative conflict

Now Kelley, after I sent the comments that you replied to I saw flaws in my comments before you replied. Although you didn’t really address those but you did hit on others. The thing that I decided I missed saying in my previous comment is that I do understand where you were going with both of the stories commented on. I really enjoyed them and the insights they contained. It’s just that I have this thing about putting fine points on almost everything. It can be a pain in the patootie for other people, lol. By the way, no need to apologize for a rant as far as I’m concerned, for what is a rant but a strong opinion with a place to voice it?

I don’t think we can take away the police for murderers and other people who don’t stop at the line where you cross into private and agreed taboo territory either. I really believe that negative conflict is a thing with a life of its own and infects like a virus. But maybe people can eventually get a grasp of how to eradicate that virus. Like some other viruses there will be those too hardy from adapting to be vulnerable enough to stamp out. Just makes me think that the best place for me to do the work I have chosen is right here with me. One little change at a time, exposing it to as many possible places to spread positivity.

Nadja Salerno Sonnenberg. Wow, that is who I was seeing all through your piece, “Strings.” Nadja is my heart, my secret love for all the rest of my life. I was blessed to be able to see her perform here in Anchorage last month. A network of my friends who know how much I love her work made it a reality for me to go to her concert. One paid for the tickets and another picked them up and another went with me, (the ride and shared witness), the rest cheered us all on. I give special invitation only video and CD Sonnenberg concerts here at my home. I was literally floored when you mentioned her. I wrote a poem called “Strings” which is on my web site but it was about my mother who played violin. I grew up in a family of classical musicians, the dean of music at UC Santa Barbara is my second cousin and I am or was a classical and jazz musician back when I had an ax and all my brain cells were working. And just what does any of this have to do with anything here? I don’t know but I felt like talking to another lover of the talent, the incomparable energy, the sound of Nadja.

I am so looking forward to reading your book Kelley. Just as soon as I get my hands on enough money to buy it I will. I won’t even try to wait to see if I can win it. That kind of winning, (contest stuff), isn’t prevalent in my life. 🙂 My big winning comes from having great people in my life and knowing who I am.

Sly

Thanks for the clarification, and no need to worry –” I wasn’t feeling misunderstood in any way. I was just letting your comments trigger some thoughts about rules and red herrings. I do try to stay on topic when someone asks me a question, but sometimes I just wander off into other parts of the playground.

I like the phrase you’ve used, “negative conflict.” I was socialized to regard all conflict as negative (I think a lot of us were raised this way, especially women, although it’s by no means a gender-specific phenomenon). It’s only in the last 10 years or so that I’ve learned that conflict isn’t bad. It’s just disagreement, and like any other communication dynamic it can be handled well, or it can be a train wreck. My corporate experience really helped me learn how to differentiate between the two, as has living with an independently-minded person.

Seems like so often people pick the wrong things to fight about, akin to fussing about the stain on the rug while ignoring the person bleeding onto it –” we get twisted up in the tangential details while the major issues go unaddressed. There’s no win there. I wish someone had given me an understanding of conflict management when I was young, although I understand that there are many grammar schools and high schools now where the basic principles are taught, and enforced. I’m all for it. It’s much better to learn how to deal. Avoidance is so often toxic to everyone involved: I know this is true even though I still do it sometimes. It is at those moments, among others, that I most clearly comprehend the extent and the moray-eel grip of my own socialization.

Going back to your original comments, what I think of now is how correct Timmi Duchamp is in describing red herrings as distracting (not just irrelevant). She was talking about pronouns, but it can just as easily apply to any other thing that we internalize without questioning it. That unconscious acceptance is what I think of when I read your comments about viruses. But I do think people are learning more and more how to question others, and ourselves, which is all to the good. I have hope for less conflict in the future, although reading the news these days certainly doesn’t support that perspective. And yet, I think humans have an amazing capacity to expand our inner horizons, to encompass what is strange and scary without being swallowed by it: to find ways that we can be different without killing each other physically or emotionally or psychologically. It’s a thing people can learn, if we choose to (and if there is someone around to teach us, and help us practice). It would certainly be much more useful on a daily basis than much of what I learned in school.

Thanks for the gentle and diplomatic correction of Nadja’s name. I agree, she’s wonderful, and I’m embarrassed to realize that I don’t actually have any of her CDs. When I first saw her, years ago, I was so taken by the story welling up inside me that I let the actual music get away. I will have to go fix that.