Author: Barbara A. Barnett

I'm an avid rejection letter collector--or, what is more popularly known as a writer.

In which I explain how opera snobs don’t want your filthy uneducated ears listening to their music

Opera is among the musical genres I enjoy, both as an audience member and as a singer. Opera is not to everyone’s taste, of course, but that can be said of any musical genre. Rap is not to everyone’s taste. Nor is country. Nor polka. The list is quite long.

There’s an unfortunately common perception that all opera fans are elitist snobs, but really, we’re not. Some are, true–no one musical genre has a monopoly on dickish fans. But most of us don’t look down at our noses at all other musical genres. In fact, a good many of us listen to other types of music as well. Here, to keep a running list of what’s been playing on my computer as I write this entry: Vienna Teng. Loreena McKennitt. Lisa Gerrard. Garbage. U2. Amy Winehouse. Elvis Costello. Dar Williams. All not opera.

(That said, I do think some people write off opera without giving it a fair chance. For those who think it’s nothing but fat people singing, I suggest you look at this little clip of operatic beefcake. Even if you don’t find the music impressive, the abs on those guys most certainly are.)

Now, the rant: yesterday I came across an opera-related blog post, and one of the comments on the post accused folks in the opera world of purposely keeping the art form dependent on private donors and grants in order to keep uneducated lowbrow undesirables from listening.

Cue me falling out of my chair in a fit of hysterical laughter.

[sarcasm font on]

Yes, as an opera lover and someone who has spent most of the last decade working in fundraising for performing arts organizations–four of those years at an opera company–I can assure you that it is true: we love begging for money and remaining dependent on the whims of people with deep pockets. Especially the cranky eccentric ones who might stop donating if we take an artistic risk or do a production they dislike. We certainly don’t want to increase revenue from ticket sales; that would bring in the riffraff.

And the grants. As a grant writer, my job description has always specifically stated that I am responsible for securing grants so that we can keep the undesirables out of the seats. I’ve certainly never spent time writing proposals asking for money to fund the education department’s efforts to provide curriculum-based arts enrichment programming to inner-city students whose cash-strapped schools have cut all of their arts teachers and activities. We certainly wouldn’t ask for funding to help bring those kids to see a performance. They might enjoy it and want to come back. We can’t have that.

I’ve also never had to write proposals for marketing initiatives specifically aimed at attracting new and diverse audiences. No partnering with other non-profits for community outreach activities that will be free and open to the public. No radio or television broadcasts. No movie theater simulcasts. No ticket discounts of any kind. In fact, we should probably cut the advertising budget next fiscal year. The elitist insiders know where to go.

And it’s especially fun depending on government grants. Because it’s not like government arts funding sources are ever in danger of being cut.

[sarcasm font off]

On that note, I leave you with an example of how the Opera Company of Philadelphia is trying to keep away the rabble:

The Writerly Update: Rising from the Grave Edition

Holy crap, has it really been that long since I’ve posted something? Sorry not to have been keeping up lately, but life has continued to dance on the insane side of the fence. Hopefully come fall I’ll be able to settle back into a blog reading and writing routine. Until then, I’ll probably remain my current scattershot, occasionally resurfacing self.

In the meantime, here’s the bullet points of what I’ve been up to in the writing department:

* My zombie apocalypse story “The Holy Spear” has been accepted by Black Static. This will be my second appearance in their pages, which I’m thrilled about.

* Speaking of Black Static, reviewer Peter Tennant wrote a nice post about my story “The Wounded House” from issue 20 on his blog.

* Received my shiny contributor copy of Aoife’s Kiss (10th anniversary issue) this morning. Pretty.

* Gearing up for this summer’s TNEO workshop for Odyssey alum. As of last night, all the critiques I had to do are officially done! I’ve still got a ton of other things to do, but it’s nice to put a big fat check mark next to that beast of an item.

* Unfortunately, progress on the writing front has been mostly non-existent. I got in a good afternoon of revision work on My Big Fat Epic Fantasy Novel a couple weeks ago, but otherwise, that’s been kind of it. But now that TNEO critiques are out of the way, I can hopefully get back in gear. I’ve got some revisions to do on a short story, several flash pieces I should probably polish up and send out somewhere (anyone have suggestions on where to send an unabashedly liberal-leaning gay superhero flash story?), and then back to the novel grind.

A sale, and unexpected responses to saying you write fantasy

I’m happy to say that I’ve sold a twisted little flash piece of mine called “Mr. Fluffy” to the wonderfully named Untied Shoelaces of the Mind.

And on a non-pimpage note, I’ve now encountered the following situation enough that I’m curious to know if any of my fellow fantasy writers have as well:

I’ll be in a conversation with a non-writer and/or non-speculative fiction reader who finds out I’m a writer and asks, “What kind of stories do you write?” The “science fiction” and “horror” parts of my answer usually go over as expected, but saying “fantasy” often earns me awkward silence and a strange, questioning look. So, even though I’ve never written anything with an elf in it, I elaborate with, “Elves, magic, Lord of the Rings, that sort of thing.” The person then laughs in relief and says, “Oh, when you said fantasy, I thought you meant like sexual fantasies.”

Erm, no, I did not. At least not unless one of my characters has a sexual fantasy relevant to the plot.

Three things make a long overdue post

1) First, I’ll get the pimpage out of the way: The Best of Every Day Fiction, which includes my story “Dumping the Dead” and a slew of other flash fiction stories (including some fellow flisters), is now available.

2) Today the procrastination gods compelled me to take a look at the “ideas” folder on my computer where I throw whatever crumb of an idea lodges itself in my brain–from quotes I’ve overhead to phrases or titles that have popped into my head to full-fledged plot sketches. The crumbs in there stretch all the way back to high school, so there was a lot of…well, dreck. Cliches. Ideas that have been done to death and that I had no original spin on. Some that were just plain stupid. So I jettisoned some of the dead weight (though not all of it; occasionally, I’ve been able to mine something cool out of an otherwise craptastic idea). But most of the stuff in that folder is there for a good reason, so I now I find myself wanting to write 20 short stories all at once. Stupid lack of a clone.

3) I’ve been feeling restless. In need of some change–which will soon be coming, but not soon enough for impatient me. Appropriately, it wasn’t all that long ago that a discussion group I was participating in raised a question about change and whether you’re someone who resists it or welcomes it. As with so many things for me, it depends.

With some things, I easily fall into patterns. I’m the type of person who tends to gravitate toward sitting in the same seat on the train and will find myself getting irrationally annoyed if someone is already in it. But with a lot of other things, I get restless if things stay the same too long. I get bored if I have to perform the same piece of music too many times. One of the things I loved about college was having a different class schedule every semester, so I’m looking forward to that again with grad school. And one of the many things that appeals to me about writing fiction is that I can write a story, and then do something completely different with the next one. Different genre, different style, different point of view, different tense, you name it.

So now that I’m done rambling, feel free to chime in with your own thoughts on dealing with change. Love it? Hate it? Too busy changing your hair color to answer?

A letter from my brain

Hello blog readers,

I’m Barb’s brain, and I’m here to tell you that she’s been AWOL from this blog because she doesn’t love you anymore. It’s ok, she doesn’t love me either. I wanted to watch this bad movie the other night, and she wouldn’t let me. She seemed to think the critique she was working on was more important than my entertainment.

After that, when she looked at her friends page and saw just how many posts you had all made, she insisted that we couldn’t stay and comment on them all. Something about having to figure out the schedule for TNEO. Please, like writing workshops need planning.

Then, when we could have been watching a hilarious YouTube video with a cat playing piano, she wanted to work on a short story. This time there was some excuse making about a deadline. I know what you’re thinking: how selfish can she get?

And even though neither one of us enjoys it, she insists on doing work for her day job. Every weekday! I don’t see what a paycheck has to do with anything.

So there you have it. Now you know how horribly abused I am having to live in Barb’s head. I would cut off ties with her immediately if I were you. Or start a fund. People United to Save Barb’s Brain. Or something with a catchier acronym.

Love,
Barb’s Brain

Podcasts & Pimpage

I mentioned in a recent post that my story “Final Report” would be getting some podcast love in the near future. Well, the future is now. Or rather, the future was Saturday. So the future is the past? Anyway, “Final Report” was read on episode 258 of Paul Cole’s Beam Me Up! program, and you can have a listen here: Beam Me Up!

And so it’s not all about me, I’m going to pimp  ‘s story Lavanya and Deepika at Demeter’s Spicebox. I had the chance to critique an earlier version of it and found it pretty awesome then, so I imagine it’s even more awesome now.

Three Squiggly Things Make a Post

~ Much to my surprise, on Monday I cranked out the first draft of a short story I hadn’t planned to work on that night let alone finish. It felt rather reinvigorating. I wrote 1,000 not totally crappy words in under an hour, which is unusually fast for me. Onto the second draft de-crapification process! (And here’s hoping I find a decent title for the story along the way.) But because my brain doesn’t like to let me enjoy such minor triumphs of productivity for too long…

~ The online world doesn’t need me to offer yet another link to a certain NY Times review of a certain HBO show based on the novels by a certain George RR Martin. But as a chick working on an epic fantasy novel, subsequent commentary and discussion generated by that review have sent my brain into overdrive on pondering women in epic fantasy—as writers, readers, and characters. Unfortunately, my brain is such a jumble right now and my time so limited that I don’t feel like I could put my thoughts down in coherent form at present. Part of that brain jumble has resulted from me obsessing over things to the point of it becoming paralyzing—this fear that, while I know what I’m trying to do with my novel, I’m going to get it wrong and end up with something used as an example of everything that is wrong with epic fantasy. I know nothing is going to please everyone, but Irrational Me, being irrational, isn’t listening to Rational Me.

~ While Irrational Me and Rational Me duke it out, I’m going to go re-caffeinate and get some more Ye Olde Day Job work done.

Escape from the Void Of Too Much Else To Do

Urgh, so much for resurfacing on the blogosphere. Well, I did resurface. I just got sucked right back into the Void Of Too Much Else To Do. I have a feeling that’s going to be happening a lot over the next few months.

So the bulleted version of what this writer has been up to:

* I’ve been encountering far too much lately that has led to forehead slapping and *head desk* moments.

* After much demanding from my brain, I returned to the slow-going revisions on My Big Fat Epic Fantasy Novel–so of course a short story idea immediately started jumping up and down and waving its arms around and asking for a little love. Stupid brain.

* I began my dive into the critique fest that is TNEO.

* I changed the look of my website.

* More details to come, but it looks like my story “Final Report” (from issue 4 of the sadly short-lived Darker Matter) will get some podcast love in the near future.

* The last few months spewed so much crazy all over the place that my attempts at establishing a routine were repeatedly thwarted. That really needs to change. I was determined to get myself onto something resembling a consistent schedule starting today. It’s not even noon yet and that plan’s already gone to pot.

And on that note, I think hear the unmistakable sucking sound that is the Void Of Too Much Else To Do.