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For Novice Writers: the quick test for Are You Being Scammed Or Not...

I read a sad case today of a young writer who had had her story rewritten into illiteracy by a so-called publisher, who then abused her in email when she wrote to complain. She wsn’t getting paid for her story – instead she was actually buying copies of the anthology to show people that she had sold a story. And I thought, it is time to remind the world, and to enlighten young writers, about…

Yog’s Law: 

Money flows towards the writer.

That’s all. All writers should remember it.  When a commercial publisher contracts a book, it will pay an advance against royalties to the writer. Money flows towards the writer. Literary agents make their living by charging a commission of between 10 and 20% on the sales that they make on behalf of their clients, the writers. When advances and royalties are paid by a publisher the agent’s percentage is filtered off in the direction of the writer’s agent but the bulk of the money still flows towards the writer. If a publisher ever asks for any sort of financial contribution from a writer, they’re trying to divert money away from the writer, in direct contravention of Yog’s Law. If an agent ever asks for up-front fees, regardless of what they call them (reading fees, administration costs, processing fees, or retainers), then they are trying to divert money away from the writer, in direct contravention of Yog’s Law. It’s a brilliantly simple rule. We should thank James D Macdonald for it in the best way there is. Buy his books

Money flows toward the writer.

No, that doesn’t mean that the author should get paper and ink for free, or that he won’t pay for postage. It does mean that when someone comes along and says, “Sure, kid, you can be a Published Author! It’ll only cost you $300!” the writer will know that something’s wrong. A fee is a fee is a fee, whether they call it a reading fee, a marketing fee, a promotion fee, or a cheese-and-crackers fee.

Is this perfect? No. Scammers have come up with some elaborate ways to avoid activating it. But it’s still a good and useful tool, and will save a lot of grief. Any time an agent or publisher asks for money, the answer should be “No!”

"Should trans women be allowed to compete in women's sports" I don't think there should be women's sports. I think it's a silly artificial construction that only upholds the gender binary while it's benefits are incidental and would be better addressed directly.

Care about giving people with different body types and muscle mass a shot? Split your league by weight categories like boxing, or some other direct physical measurement. Gender is at best a poor proxy for these and we only do it because we still treat women are a different species. "But that still wouldn't be fully fair to everyone?" Sport isn't fully fair, it's about rewarding people with the most biological advantage. That's the whole point of it.

You want to give more sporting opportunity to women and minorities specifically? Okay then do that. Create your own opportunities league, but if we're giving up the pretense that it's about essential biological advantage then you better let trans women in.

What's that, the extra league would be treated as a novelty afterthought and would lack the prestige of the real main event? You mean like how women's events were treated when they were introduced? True! In fact women's leagues are still largely treated as secondary now, and you know how we can fix it? Make the main leagues open to everyone with weight, height or muscle mass categories so that people with different body types can excel. Like I suggested before. Problem solved.

Women's sport is bad actually.

Sometimes it's really hard being emotionally intelligent and self-aware, and also being good at analyzing people and yourself, especially when combined with being an overthinker. I know I'm right, even if it doesn't appear true yet, because my brain recognizes the patterns and has this cycle of self doubt that probably leads to self sabotage. I'm so tired of people not being able to be as emotionally intelligent as me, as it just leads to the loss of relationships and me being jaded, when everything could have been avoided with just simple communication

every surprise song on the first leg of the eras tour (x)

"Don't vote to teach the Democrats a lesson!" Great thanks my Jewish disabled queer ass will just die then

When I was a kid, my dad hated when I hung up anything on my walls. My art, band posters, movie posters, anything. Not with taxks, not with tape (it “ripped the paint off”) not with anything. At one point in 5th or 6th grade he came in my room and found me hanging up a Diary of a Wimpy Kid poster with tacos and he was like “EVERY HOLE YOU PUT IN THE WALL TAKES $10 OFF THE VALUE OF THE HOUSE.” so when I was mad at him, I’d insert tacks into the wall in places he couldn’t easily see just out of spite. Whoever owns the house now is probably wondering about it.

“Let’s face it - English is a crazy language. There is no egg in eggplant nor ham in hamburger; neither apple nor pine in pineapple. English muffins weren’t invented in England or French fries in France. Sweetmeats are candies while sweetbreads, which aren’t sweet, are meat. We take English for granted. But if we explore its paradoxes, we find that quicksand can work slowly, boxing rings are square and a guinea pig is neither from Guinea nor is it a pig. And why is it that writers write but fingers don’t fing, grocers don’t groce and hammers don’t ham? If the plural of tooth is teeth, why isn’t the plural of booth beeth? One goose, 2 geese. So one moose, 2 meese? One index, 2 indices? Doesn’t it seem crazy that you can make amends but not one amend? If you have a bunch of odds and ends and get rid of all but one of them, what do you call it? If teachers taught, why didn’t preachers praught? If a vegetarian eats vegetables, what does a humanitarian eat? In what language do people recite at a play and play at a recital? Ship by truck and send cargo by ship? Have noses that run and feet that smell? How can a slim chance and a fat chance be the same, while a wise man and a wise guy are opposites? You have to marvel at the unique lunacy of a language in which your house can burn up as it burns down, in which you fill in a form by filling it out and in which an alarm goes off by going on. English was invented by people, not computers, and it reflects the creativity of the human race (which, of course, isn’t a race at all). That is why, when the stars are out, they are visible, but when the lights are out, they are invisible.”

— (via be-killed)