The Bluestocking Arms Women's Pub, where women make friends with Beetles, Androids, Cakes, Dragons, Hedgehogs and other women, where wit and wisdom flourish

[inkymoose]

Here at the Bluestocking there's a place for all women. A break from Reality, and many laughs and stories to share. Have your fill of Tunnocks bars and tea cakes, sing feminist anthems, drink as much beer or gin or hot chocolate as you desire. It won't make you fatter or drunken but oh, it's fun. Sit in the garden with our Lion resident or the Quokkas and Capybara. Express your opinions loudly in Pedantry Corner. Ask for whatever you fancy to be served by our obliging Gerbil staff. Come in, all women, welcome!

Sorry missed the publishing bit. Tbh am not sure how that works as I’d probably only want the 25k thesis bit accessible. I wouldn’t be able to take the novel to an agent/publisher if that had been published, even if its only in an academic repository. A PhD through practice, rather than publication, has slightly different rules I suspect because the researcher retains the rights to their work and not the university?

I am now going to email my tutor to ascertain that!

Meanwhile, has the bar opened and how are the gerbils? Anyone read anything good in the funnies? Am pleased to see the news about the Ladies Pool comp now being only for, well, the ladies, but not even a funny story about the Orange Man out there today?? Surely he’s done something with a sharpie at least?

You want something funny, Cautious? Always happy to have a laugh, me

With so much writing being done by Stockingers, I think we need to add a Scriptorium!

I imagine that those people in the scriptorium would have been wearing glasses, had been available then, especially the one in the middle.

Will there be a bank of reading glasses in a corner of our scriptorium for us to borrow?

I thought that too!
It makes you think how revolutionary reading glasses were, enabling people like scribes - like the one in the middle! - and seamstresses and painters to continue working for many more years, instead of lapsing into poverty because they've lost their livelihood.

Hurrah! My goodies have arrived ❤️

😍

Happy reading!

Loving the dinosaur badge!

I think it's one of those iykyk things and most people won't get the reference. I just need to get off MN now and get stuck into the books

You are not deluded! You are cautiously optimistic.

Everyone thinks that they can write a book. Funny, because not everyone thinks that they can paint a masterpiece, or play the grand piano, but if you talk to 10 people probably 8 or 9 of them will say they're writing a book or they thought about writing a book or they have a friend who has been writing and they've been thinking about writing one themselves, or they wrote one 20 years ago but they didn't get round to getting it finished published blah blah blah blah.

But that's not you. You are writing your book. You are planning how you want to continue writing. You are seeking and acting on advice, and have some good support by the sound of it, on your course.

Getting your book published is the first hurdle (after writing it, of course). But that's followed by a series of other hurdles.

The world of publishing is like a crowded, shallow, seething pool, full of sharks, with some amorphous semi-opaque things that lurk in the dark corners (some of which are parasitic organisms, and some of which fell into the pool by accident and don't know how to escape).

Sometimes it seems that it's impossible to find an agent and then get a publisher. But we know it's not impossible. It's hard though, and disheartening because there are so many mediocre/ shite books out there that have done ok, thank you very much. There are also the occasional authors who don't have an agent, but get a bargain publishing deal (not much upfront money) then hundreds of people buy their book and the agents come rushing to snap the author up. Very rare indeed, that.

I don't think it is possible to be quite prepared for what happens after you get a book deal. It's a bit like when you get married or move house or have a baby, you imagine what it will be like and it absolutely never turns out like that, for a myriad of reasons.

But that is not a reason not to do it. You're a writer, you have to write. Hone your craft, and all that.

Finding the way that works for you is an excellent start. I know you can do it, Lurky ... and BabyOrca and Myrtle too. Keep on writing. And if you want anyone to read your books let me know (for a very reasonable fee) 😁

@Boiledbeetle out of interest (and it may be in the books but I haven't started them yet) how did you get Under the Cover of Darkness published and on sale ?

Duvet of Darkness ...

but yes, Boily! Do tell.

I'm going to get my Duvet right now! Thanks for the reminder @GreenFriedTomato

I've clearly seen the title, but somehow i'm malfunctioning and thought it was duvet 😂my tired old lady brain
Edit, thought it was cover. Nevermind

You are up late late @GreenFriedTomato! Are you a-watchin' the dawn skulk in from under your Duvet of Daaaarkness?

My old-lady brain is perfectly addled, too, tonight this morning. But I am not entirely dismal, I'm cheered by the Vipers out there, plus the Creatures and Women here at the Bluestocking Arms. Oh, and some entertaining TV, and a comfy sofa to stretch out on, and hot cocoa with sweet medjoul dates. Real life is a bit patchy. Physically, I've been better. I'm also trying to improve my Mental Elf (sorry, haven't been to sleep yet). I've got 2 things to do tomorrow today and I am definitely going to do both of them.

zzzzzzzzzxzzzzz

No, I'm on the other side of the world on a mental health break, aka holiday, so it was mid morning. On and off scrolling MN in-between dips in the pool and mocktails. The lovely warm weather is doing my various aches and pains the world of good

I’ve just been reading the history of glasses - looks like they took off pretty quickly after their invention, unsurprisingly.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Glasses#History

reading down a bit, surprised to read that in the US you can’t buy glasses without a recent prescription. All sorts of pharmaceuticals available OTC but not simple cheap reading glasses, can that be right?

Firstly... Did you know... duvet was actually an autocorrect fuck up! I'd posted to another poster that they'd snuck in under the cover of darkness. Autocorrect decided I wanted to say that they had snuck in under the duvet of darkness!

Both volumes are self published, so you just upload the file to Amazon and they print a copy each time a copy sells. I did have to get everyone's copyright permissions though which was joyous!!!!

Oh that's interesting. I'd heard about self publishing on Amazon but I don't know how it works.
Autocorrect eh. So I was right, sort of 😁
ETA: they print quick then. It took 24 hours from ordering to delivery

Well there's your weekend activities sorted, GreenFried😃
Enjoy, and I love the dino badge too!

@GreenFriedTomato there’s loads on self-publishing on a website called Jericho Writers, along with warnings about the vanity publishers. Agents and reps from Amazon often come to the talks and are on the event panels and are are keen to both promote the service and try to ensure the quality of what is self published is maintained at a high level. The chap who set JWs up is very comfortably off from self-publishing so often gives marketing/master classes on it, though I’ve not really gone to those as always thought I’d try the trad route first. That said, though, if my tutors etc think my work is good enough and I’m still failing to snare an agent, I might eventually go down that path. LJ Ross has always self published and is award winning in crime genre and I’m fairly sure she’s not alone.

Not sure I have the entrepreneurial and marketing mojo myself…

Interesting about the glasses. I remember Mary Bennet wearing them being mocked in one of the Jane Austen novel adaptations and assumed they were a ‘new thing’, but Google tells me they were invented in the 1200s and fairly commonly worn from the 16th century!! Am assuming they were mainly only accessible to the wealthy, though, as I am pretty sure the victorians weren’t handing them out in sweatshops to all those poor women doing their darning and embroidery by candlelight.

Something we take for granted today, but probably only because they are available on the NHS. I am guessing they are ‘prescription only’ in the US to protect the private medical industry, whereas in the UK anything that bypasses the NHS is generally encouraged.

So, I got a bit tired of a particular pedantic, invasive, patronising PP on another thread (obviously wouldn’t be this one) and in a moment of exasperation told them to just fuck off. Sincerely thought it would be reported/deleted within minutes - and usually would self-report - but it’s still there this morning. 😆

I now feel like a kid who graffiti-ed their tag on a walkway at Waterloo and sees it every day on their way to college… 🥹

Going to put this on the wall behind my desk in our scriptorium.

That's going on the wall behind my desk.

Glasses seem to have been fairly widely available by c1800. There is a wonderful book called 'The Midwife's Tale' about a woman called Martha Ballard who worked in Maine in that era and kept a detailed diary over many years. She comments on 'my spectakles' (iirc her spelling varies) at intervals, and she wasn't rich.

The book is a fabulous read if you like social history esp one that is mostly concerned with women.

<looks around>
VERY quiet in here tonight. Gerbil staff playing Scrabble in the corner and arguing over speling spellin spelling because Geraldine swears blind that it's 'swimzuit' and therefore she gets a triple word score including the z.

Gosie (her parents couldn't spell either) has gone to find the dictionary, which is somewhere in the scriptorium under piles of parchment.

I've poured my own whisky and am refusing to get involved.