I guess this is what "adding insult to injury" looks like

[fpb]

So I had a fire. I get evicted, because the landlord wants to renew the flat and cannot do it with me in it. I am having serious trouble, due to my rather precarious employment status, in finding anywhere to stay in London. But at least my grotesquely long suspension from FA is finished. So I send them a short story - Amethyst Phoenix' birthday fic Why? - and the third chapter of my Schnoogle fic The Quest for Cleo Malfoy. The chapter gets sent back for supposed grammatical issues that neither I nor my talented beta (take a bow, kikei) can see. We do our best to revise the damn thing. (Meanwhile Why? seems to have completely vanished, even though I have their automatic reception note for it.) I send it this morning. Have you ever had the feeling that someone really, really does not like you? FA is apparently having some sort of crisis, and most pages, including the submissions page, are not accessible.

And people wonder I get fat. Given the amount of frustration I have suffered, the wonder is that I should not get fatter.

Comments

[dreamer-marie.livejournal.com]

I don't know what to say. FA can be bad.
I heard that housing in London is even worse than in Paris, so I can guess that it's hard to find a flat. Is it even legal to evict someone in September?
And what's up with your employment status? I assumed that you worked at a University as a recognized lecturer, seeing as you proved that King Arthur existed and you wrote a whole series on the History of England.

[dreamer-marie.livejournal.com]

Go to Sugarquill, or Veritaserum, or anywhere else. They don't want you? Their bad. If they like Mary Sue stories better, or lame HBP parodies, they're not worthy of your attention.

[kikei.livejournal.com]

Actually, I second that. Gun could use some good fic on Veritaserum, and you could use an unbiased outlet.

don't let them get you down (which is rich of me to say, because all I have to deal with is a stomach bug that thankfully has died down somewhat in the past 24 hours)... but yeah. *huggles*

-Kiks

[fpb.livejournal.com]

Ah, you assume that, just because you make serious research and get it published, universities will notice you. That may be the case in science, I hope.

FA has been an unmitigated nuisance for a long time, but this time it seems to be some sort of accident rather than malevolence from anyone. Certainly Gun can have my stories at Veritaserum, however.

[dreamer-marie.livejournal.com]

Damn the universities. Why don't you write a historical vulgarization book? That could sell. Hey, you could even make it the real story of the Crusades. That could become really controversial, and what with the indignant press and people wanting to know what the fuss is all about, you could get really rich. If you can stand the controversy, of course.
Seriously, if crooks like Dan Brown can flood the market with their crap, then you, who know your stuff, who write well and who have integrity, should at least give it a try.

[dreamer-marie.livejournal.com]

And if you need help on evil antimatter canister design, you know where to find me :-)

[fpb.livejournal.com]

Hmmmm.....

[fpb.livejournal.com]

I sent my book to 60 (sixty) publishers. Answers from almost every one of them: interesting, but we cannot afford to publish a 500,000-word item on Dark Age Britain - it would cost too much. Never mind that it sheds light over an obscure and hugely important period of history, and that it proves Arthur not only to have existed but to have been a major figure. Don't get me going about publishers. Why do you think I just placed it on the Internet and forgot about it?

[dreamer-marie.livejournal.com]

1) Where can I find it?
2) Why don't you rewrite it with more antimatter canisters and naked women? (just kidding)

[fpb.livejournal.com]

1) http://www.geocities.com/vortigernstudies/fabio/contents.htm
2) That's an idea. Seriously, the problem is that, in order to have a work of history at all, every one of those 500,000 words is needed. They are all parts of the process of evidence, argument and demonstration. If I just summed up what I think happened in the period I investigate, without setting out the reasons why I think so, what I would have would be - exactly - a work of historical fiction, a novel. And I still might.

[dreamer-marie.livejournal.com]

You could make it a novel. Just the life of Arthur. He's bound to have an interesting life, and just think of the advertisement:
"What Umberto Eco would have done had he been in England"
"Rejected by Universities, rejected by serious publishers, Fabio Paolo Barbieri turned years of research into a novel about King Arthur's life. The REAL King Arthur. Read about the life of the man who inspired legends in this compelling book. The struggles of a King in a Dark Age in England."
"The Historical Novel of the Year."
"Must read."
...

[thepreciouss.livejournal.com]

Ooh, I would love to read it!

[fpb.livejournal.com]

(*in a patient tone*)Stephanie, I gave you the link once already. However, here it is again: http://www.geocities.com/vortigernstudies/fabio/contents.htm.

[fpb.livejournal.com]

Very interesting. Thank you. I had never heard of it. There really seems to be no limit to what you can find on the Internet. I will have to look into the law of it - I have given all Internet rights, at least, to the owner of the site where the book is currently published - but this might also be a way to get any future project out. Thanks again.

[fpb.livejournal.com]

By the way, what's that on your icon? It looks pretty, but I cannot see it clearly enough. (I have somehow got my computer screen stuck on 100% luminosity and cannot manage to scale it back to a sensible value, so anything in grey tone or pencils - including my own drawings! - gets hard to read properly.)

[fpb.livejournal.com]

I have seen them on book stands, I think, at least when I was young - frightening amount of time that was! It has a thirties kind of look, though? I thought it was more recent.

[kikei.livejournal.com]

oh, oh! *huggles* another idea I just got... what about having your own site for your work? I'd link to you from my page so at least you'd get some decent readers, for your fanfic and even your essays if you wish.

-Kiks

[fpb.livejournal.com]

I've been trying to design and set up a site for a long time, but it was mucked up by my previous computer going belly-up and ripping the half-finished site to pieces, and then all the stuff that happened since. I don't know, maybe if and when I find a new house I will also find the time to get it done. Thanks for the link offer.

[dreamer-marie.livejournal.com]

I second the link offer.

[super-pan.livejournal.com]

Oh, FPB, I am sorry you're going through this. It is horrible to be so unsettled. Just know that we are all wishing you a quick resolution to your troubles. If you were in America, you could become a controversial editorialist, or radio personality.

[fpb.livejournal.com]

And if I stayed in the South - considering the figures who filled our screens even in the days of the catastrophe - I would probably look positively thin.

Just kiddin'.

[super-pan.livejournal.com]

Well, if you lived in the south, housing is relatively cheap and plentiful. I'm a freakin waitress, and I was able to buy a house, in fact, almost everyone at the bar owns their own house, the waitresses, the bartenders, a cook, and the dishwasher! I'm just one of those people that can't imagine why other people live anywhere else but here, even really cool cities like London. I'm a church mouse.

[fpb.livejournal.com]

There is a lovely ancient Greek saying: "Nobody loves his own country because it is great, but because it is his." So I admire your attitude, even though I think I would not fare well in the Southern States - I cannot abide heat and humidity, and I gather that both are a semi-permanent feature. But if you love your country, more power to you.

[super-pan.livejournal.com]

Yeah, the heat can be abominable. In fact, it's been really hot this week, although cooler in the evenings. Most(or at least lots of) people from other places think Cola is a sinkhole.

[barnesthenoble.livejournal.com]

It can only get better from here, right? We're all praying for your situation to improve.

And I agree with you about making it into a work of historical fiction. Maybe if it garners enough publicity, those damn publishers will take your original work more seriously.

"Yes, this is what my novel was based on. It PROVES the existence of King Arthur."

[bufo-viridis.livejournal.com]

But the landlord gave you some time to find a new place, I hope?

To offer some (very little) consolation I can say that one very slow upload happened to me as well, and as far I know nobody held any grudge against me at FAP. A coder or two gets a cold and the queue grows...

[gunderpants.livejournal.com]

From what I hear, though, fic coders only work one particular area of a site and not others: meaning that if you submit one fic to Schnoogle and another to TDA, for instance, you're not going to have the same coders look at your fic.

[bufo-viridis.livejournal.com]

Exactly, so if somebody from TDA got a cold, it's unlikely that (s)he will be temporarily substituted; and the queue grows....

[gunderpants.livejournal.com]

I feel sorry for the FAP coders. There's a lot more demanded of them than there is of me, and I feel overwhelmed by it all.

[bufo-viridis.livejournal.com]

Yep, running a fanfic archive takes a lot of work.
Kudos to you and to them :)

[gunderpants.livejournal.com]

Dude, I recommend calming down about it. This shit happens. I had a fic sent back from Mugglenet because they had said they had difficulty with my dialogue: in a fic with precisely no dialogue. Sometimes, mods deny stuff which mightn't seem understandable. For you, it must be even more irritating, because I know I have people saying that they think I must hate them because I keep denying their work, even though there's literally an error every line. So for you, it must be doubly frustrating.

You know where I'm speaking, man. Sometimes, admin staff try to do their best with the work, and from my understanding I know that FAP have had a new intake of fic intakers for the last few weeks, so I don't think it's so much a vendetta thing along those lines. I do recommend, however, that you look elsewhere to host your work. I trust the quality of the work: you can always submit to VTM if you need to look elsewhere.

[fpb.livejournal.com]

What nobody seems to have noticed is that what I was grousing about was FA being apparently down so I could not upload my fic. I do not imagine that the mods would shut down the whole damn site just to spite me! It was a "What a bloody awful day I'm having" rant, not a "How nasty people are" rant. As for the Someone I was saying (in jest) might have it in for me, He ranks a bit higher than any FA mod.

[gunderpants.livejournal.com]

He ranks a bit higher than any FA mod.


... Jebus?

[(Anonymous)]

Found the link from fandom_wank, and wanted to tell you that I don't think you're paranoid. I have the same issues with FA. They'll return my fics for errors that aren't there - including canon misspellings once, which was the bulltshit that made me realize I wasn't paranoid.

[fpb.livejournal.com]

Doesn't surprise me that much. I think they have an absurdly excessive attitude to grammar and usage - rejecting stuff for reasons such as misplaced commas, which, even if they were there, could be fixed by the slightest amount of electronic subbing - coupled with real difficulties with keeping personnel. REsult, fussy and inconsistent editing and dimwitted decisions.

I also have an issue with the moral attitudes of some individuals, but that is another matter.

[(Anonymous)]

rejecting stuff for reasons such as misplaced commas, which, even if they were there, could be fixed by the slightest amount of electronic subbing

Changing the work of another individual is highly unethical. Far better to reject a chapter for missing commas than alter the work of someone who just might not appreciate it - I know I wouldn't, nor would a great many authors.