Author: terribleminds (page 165 of 480)

It used to happen once every couple of months. Then once every month, now I’m up to about once a week. What I’m talking about is, authors emailing me to see if it’s time to leave their agents.

When this happens, the writer often frames it like, “Well, how do you and your agent do things?”

And I say things like:

ME: She sells my books? I dunno, I write them, and then Stacia helps them navigate the BOILING CHAOS STORM that is the publishing industry?

THEM: But what about emails?

ME: Emails, like, Hillary’s emails?

THEM: No, does your agent answer your emails?

ME: Well, of course.

THEM: In what timeframe?

ME: A reasonable one? Actually, an unreasonably fast one, usually — within the day, sometimes within the hour. Pretty fast turnaround to questions and stuff.

THEM: She not only responds to your emails, but she responds to them quickly?

ME: She does, and in fact endures a great deal of nonsense from me, including occasional Career Freakouts and other psychological gesticulations. But given your response, I’m guessing yours doesn’t… respond at all?

And from there, we uncover a host of uncomfortable sins. And this can be for a lot of reasons. Maybe the agent is wrong for you, or you’re wrong for her. Maybe she’s too new. Maybe she has too many clients. Maybe you’re too small a client and she’s got bigger beasts to hunt. Maybe she’s a terrible agent — or maybe you need to recalibrate your needs.

I never really like to recommend that a writer leave her agent — not because that’s a bad idea, but because I’m not comfortable being the one to say, YEAH, TIME TO JUMP OUTTA THE PLANE, as that’s awfully easy for me to say, because I’m buckled up in a nice, cozy seat. Telling you to do the hard thing is easy when I don’t have to do it with you. Plus, then you jump out of the plane, get sucked into a turbine, are turned into a red mist, oops.

That said, there is a calculus involved in determining whether or not to persist in the relationship, and that calculus is different for every author. But — but! — I do think that there are things, mmm, nnny’know, you should look out for, just in case. If enough of these boxes are checked, maybe it’s time to consider moving on. Let us discuss some of these:

1. Your agent doesn’t communicate with you in a timely manner — or at all. That’s not good. Your agent is the champion of your book and ostensibly, your career. They are its babysitter — and I don’t mean that dismissively, I mean, you want your child to be in capable hands, and further, you want that babysitter to answer the phone if you would like to find out how your baby is doing. If you go weeks without hearing anything from an agent, or months, or forever, you have a problem. It probably means they forgot your baby at the mall.

2. Your agent has little idea about your career. I am a firm believer that an agent should rep more than a book — the agent reps the author and, by proxy, the author’s drinking habits I mean career. I’ve had long conversations with my agent about strategy and about different editors and publishers and genres and also about where you can get a really good margarita. Okay, the margarita thing is secondary, but just the same, my career is viewed as having a trajectory — an arc, not a single point in time — thanks to talks with my agent.

3. You pay the agent. I shouldn’t even have to say this, but if you’re paying the agent up front — as in, not a commission off sales — you probably got yourself a scammer on your hands. Remember: the money flows to the author, not away from the author. A reputable agent is one you pay a commission to — meaning, they’re only making money when you’re making money.

4. Your agent doesn’t seem to like your books. This is a thing. I’ve seen it. I don’t understand it. But any time the agent gets a new draft of your book, they tell you in words minced or unminced that they don’t like it, they can’t sell it, won’t rep it. Now, a good agent will tell you the truth about a book if it doesn’t work — it’s not their job to pass a hunk of crap up the publishing ladder just because Baby Huey will throw a tantrum otherwise. But it’s also possible there’s a very real disconnect between you and the agent in terms of what they like. Worth a look at the rest of the agent’s catalogue in terms of authors and books she reps. If you’re made to feel like an ugly duckling in a flock of preening peacocks, might be time to scout elsewhere.

5. Your agent doesn’t seem to like your chosen genres. This is also a thing. You write erotic epic choose-your-own-adventure books, your agent reps self-help books for narcoleptic parrot-owners, and ne’er the two shall meet. You want an agent familiar with the genre of what you write, not just in terms of the books themselves but also in terms of the industry circles and imprints that support that genre.

6. Your agent is not the right size. It sounds great having a rock star agent who reps mega-clients, and certainly it can be. But having known a few authors who were with some high-profile agents at the time they were debut authors, they often felt lost or under-sized in comparison — they were not, quite simply, a priority.

7. You’re doing the work. Some authors end up being the ones to pitch editors and seal deals, with the agent there mostly skimming off the success of the author. This isn’t common, but I’ve seen it happen — the author is the one doing the leg work, the submitting, the everything, and then the agent just passes along the contract and boom, 15% collected.

8. The agent seems to be on the side of the publisher, not the author. An agent who defends unethical publishing behaviors is not an agent you want to have. You certainly don’t want an agent who is hostile to publishing, and who has a realistic view of what you can get away with and what slings and arrows you’re probably going to have to suffer — further, you also don’t want to be a prima donna to the agent, acting like, WELL, YOU DIDN’T GET ME A MILLION DOLLAR ADVANCE SO OBVIOUSLY YOU LOVE THE PUBLISHER MORE THAN ME. But at the same time, an agent who seems to be more interested in protecting his relationship with the publisher than the relationship he shares with you, the author… eek, yeah, no, not good.

9. Your agent just ain’t selling your books. Something just isn’t coming together, but your books ain’t moving. Assuming you have confidence in those books, it may be time to look further afield for a new agent. It’s not a personal thing — but if a real estate agent were not helping to sell your house (or at least helping you to understand why the house isn’t selling), then some new blood may be necessary. And by “new blood” I do not mean human sacrifices, please be advised. Human sacrifices are a no-no. That’s how publishing used to work but new regulations have strictly forbidden it blah blah blah, so now it’s no longer “politically correct” to sacrifice humans and — well, it is what it is, so you may just need to find a new agent.

10. Something just isn’t right. This is an unquantifiable thing, I know, but sometimes in any relationship — things aren’t jiving. The gears keep slipping. The agent doesn’t like you. Or you don’t like him. You don’t ever feel on the same page. Something feels off, weird, like you’re forever out-of-sync. You and your agent don’t need to be friends, but this is ideally a relationship that will go on, so if something isn’t right, it’s worth figuring out what it is and if your gut is trying to tell you something.

Listen, I get it.

Getting an agent is tough. It feels wildly special, like you’ve been given the keys to the first gate of the kingdom, and you feel like losing the agent is giving away the keys. But understand now that a bad relationship with an agent is almost certainly worse than no relationship at all. And if you were good enough to get an agent on the first go around, I’d argue you have a good shot the next time, too. (Plus: self-publishing remains a viable, if crowded, arena. Though even there I’d argue you should eventually get an agent. I’ve sold some self-published stuff to publishers domestic and foreign, and that happened only because of my agent.) You need to recognize that you’re the one with the power — meaning, you’re the one with the kick-ass book that needs a home. The agent is a liaison, a loose partner, a valuable player with real insight — but the agent is not your boss. The agent is not the only agent that exists. The gate to the kingdom isn’t even real in the first damn place. You do what you gotta do for you and your book.

Before you go voting your agent off the island, though, do a few things —

First, make sure it’s not just you. Like, ask the tough questions — are you being unreasonable? Are you overreaching and creating unfair expectations?

Second, talk to some other authors — successful and unsuccessful. Ask around how they do things with their agent. Talk it through. Establish a baseline for “normal.”

Third, talk to your agent. Be upfront and honest about your concerns — politely, duh — and try to suss out what’s up. Maybe the agent feels it too. Maybe the agent can course-correct. You don’t need to throw the baby out with the bathwater. You can save the baby for later, because babies make great baby jerky when brined and smoked and dried and — wait, I’m doing the thing where I talk about eating babies again, aren’t I? Ha ha ha, my therapist told me I needed to stop doing that. *smacks self in forehead* STUPID WENDIG. STUPID STUPID WENDIG.

Then, if it’s time to truly say goodbye to your agent, you do it the right way, the correct and kind way, which is to say you gently pull the lever next to your desk and open the trapdoor beneath the agent’s feet, thus plunging them into the ACID BATH or BARRACUDA TANK that you built and —

*receives note*

*reads note*

Okay, don’t do that.

No acid baths.

No barracuda tanks.

Trap doors also a no-no, apparently.

ALL THAT AND NO BABY-EATING

FIONA APPLE WAS RIGHT, THIS WORLD IS BULLSHIT

*long sigh*

Fine, I guess what you do is, you write a nice letter and blah blah blah you let them go live on a nice farm upstate. Be sure not to procure a new agent before you end your relationship with the former, and also if you have existing books on submission or contracts in play, you need to talk to the agent to see how that gets handled. (If you have an agency agreement, it should outline that. You want to make sure that the agency gets its due for work done, but also isn’t able to invest in you or your work long after you have left them. Like with any publishing relationship, read the damn contracts and protect your booty.)

It’s hard out there in PublishingLand, so do what you gotta. As always try to approach others with empathy and compassion. Be smart, be kind, watch your six, eat your Wheaties, buy my books.

(EDIT: it’s also worth noting the obvious thing that’s not always that obvious, but if the agent is also in some way bigoted, creepy, or harrassment-y, yeah, that’s also a tremendous red flag.)

* * *

INVASIVE:

“Think Thomas Harris’ Will Graham and Clarice Starling rolled into one and pitched on the knife’s edge of a scenario that makes Jurassic Park look like a carnival ride. Another rip-roaring, deeply paranoid thriller about the reasons to fear the future.” — Kirkus Reviews (starred review)

Out now where books are sold.

Indiebound

Amazon

B&N

Contrary to my desires last week, I did not get to scoot around the house looking for interesting macro photo opportunities, and instead we spent time playing in the snow that fell. Which means I have a new surplus of POOCH PHOTOS of our two dogs, Snoobug and Loa, to post.

So, I’mma post them below.

No, they’re not macro photos, but feel free to pretend the dogs are somehow microscopic and that I’ve just captured them up close with my magic camera.

Please to enjoy, humans.

THE CHOICES HAVE BEEN CHOSEN.

Last week I said, hey, gimme a three-word title, and a lot of you complied. I randomly chose ten, and here are those ten (in parentheses is the creator of the title).

1. All Flags Fall (lbstribling)
2. The Gallows Girls (travishall)
3. Discount Skin Ticket (boydstun215)
4. The Last American (mags)
5. Guppy Must Die (jeanette hubbard)
6. Omen of Seven (stella winters)
7. Not Tonight, Honey (squeg)
8. One Fell Swoop (kaitlyn)
9. Not Today, Satan (momgoth)
10. Long Way Home (alisa russell)

Your job now:

Choose one either freely or with a random number generator.

Then, write a story using that title.

Length: ~1000 words

Due by: 2/17, noon EST.

Post at your online space. Give a link in the comments so we can read it.

Go write.

Amberlough is a vintage-glam spy thriller, set in a world with all the glamor and terror of 1930s Berlin. The economy is faltering, the government is riddled with corruption, the shadow of fascism is creeping across the political landscape, and the populace is partying hard enough to ignore their precarious situation.

Secret agent Cyril DePaul has betrayed his country to protect his lover, black market kingpin Aristide Makricosta, but when he gets in over his head he turns to street-smart stripper and drug dealer Cordelia Lehane for help. As the twinkling lights of nightclub marquees yield to the rising flames of a fascist revolution, these three will struggle to survive using whatever means — and people — necessary. Including each other.

* * *

I learned a lot writing Amberlough. These five things are just the things that changed me the most. Some changed the way I approach writing. Some changed the way I evaluate relationships, the way I consume media, the way I see the world. Some of these things feel eerily, unfortunately timely.

1) The second book is harder

This is technically cheating, because it’s something I learned as I moved on to my next project after Amberlough. I remember Amberlough coming out in a giant surge of joy and inspiration and furious typing. That is not what happened. What happened is I struggled and moaned and gave up a few times and then came back, and tweaked, and reordered, and killed off some characters, brought some back to life, and ascribed different actions to different people.

I was really, really beating myself up, wondering why the next project wasn’t as easy, why it wasn’t coming out as effortlessly. The truth is: human brains are bad at remembering pain and unpleasant experiences with clarity. My brain wrapped the difficult process of novel writing in a clever disguise. Well, brain, I have news for you: it just makes the second novel harder.

2) Question your unconscious bias

Amberlough is an anachronistic novel — I based a lot of the culture on late 1920s and early 1930s Europe. Which meant I kept defaulting to familiar norms. Female secretary, male boss, white people everywhere, etc. for no particular reason. But I knew I wanted the book to be about the forcible streamlining and homogenization of a messy, diverse place. And I couldn’t do that if I didn’t start with messy diversity.

Creating a diverse fantasy world full of fair representation is a worthy pursuit, but it’s also an excellent narrative tool. Diversity instantly creates tension. For instance: Cyril, one Amberlough’s main characters, is an affluent white man from a politically-powerful, old-money family. His boss Ada Culpepper is the daughter of two black immigrants—asylum seekers from a nation essentially destroyed by Cyril’s family. Though the race and gender politics in Amberlough are different than those in our world, and even though Cyril and Ada’s differences don’t contribute directly to the plot, they don’t see the world quite the same way, and this colors every interaction between them.

Similarly, Cyril’s beard Cordelia is an orphan from one of Amberlough City’s worst slums, who works as a burlesque dancer and drug dealer. She and Cyril become close friends, but there are certain things they will never, ever understand about each other. Those things create excellent opportunities for character development. For instance, when Cyril is telling Cordelia how he became a spy:

“When I was younger,” he said, ignoring her, “it seemed so exciting. Everything was a game, and ruthlessness had a kind of . . . romantic appeal.” Then, he looked up, and his eyes widened, flashing like mercury. “I’m sorry. You’re from the Mew. I wasn’t thinking.”

She licked her teeth, tasting good tobacco and clean gin. “Nah. I ain’t pinned. We’re all idiots when we’re kids. Only difference is, I stopped being a kid a lot sooner than you.”

The shame was plain on his face, and satisfying.

3) Espionage isn’t glamorous

Ian Fleming did a great job convincing us all that spies are sexy, and Amberlough follows in those scandalous footsteps. Very seldom do spies act like James Bond. Far more often they are like le Carré’s Smiley, or even less assuming. They’re usually just normal people, gathering information that might be useful handlers who hope it’s relevant. Intelligence is built on a foundation of thousands of separate, simple reports that make one complex picture.

One of the sexiest things about espionage is that important secrets are traded among people who generally have access to them by virtue of their position in life. This means ambassadors and their families (or their lovers); old money, society journalists, high stakes gamblers; well-known authors, actors, and other famous people who travel around the world in wealthy and elevated circles.

These aren’t generally the same people who are trained in Krav Maga or sharp-shooting. More often, they’re in the camp of people reporting on seemingly banal overheard conversations that, in the context of a larger operation, can become vitally important. During World War II, for example, one man was selected as an agent for Operation Doublecross simply because he bore a startling resemblance to General MacArthur. He had no training in tradecraft whatsoever.

4) We’ll root for anybody if they’re compelling

When I sent a draft of this book to my mom, she called when she was done and asked me where I’d learned to write such awful characters. And, more than that: how had I made them so likeable?

The people in this book are not good or nice. They are scheming, manipulative, devious, selfish, secretive, meddling, violent, and destructive. They commit horrible crimes and destroy other people’s lives to save their own. But my beta readers loved them. I loved them. I reveled in coming up with new ways for them to connive and conspire. It’s amazing how invested you can become in someone’s awfulness, if you’re sympathetic to their motivation. Amazing, and a little scary.

5) Injustice has no signpost

Reading history, it’s easy to point to a juncture and say, “That’s where things went wrong. I would notice something as crazy as a rigged election, or a fascist coup, or the dismantling of democracy.” But not if it looks like business as usual. And usually, it does.

For instance, I did a lot of research about rigged elections, though much of this information didn’t end up in the book. Mostly because, like spy work, the details are a little boring.

Rigging an election is as simple as workers at certain polling places saying, “Did you bring your ID?” Or people “losing” ballot boxes. Or candidates telling bald-faced lies, saying they’ve won when they haven’t, and steamrolling any objection. Or, I don’t know, making a stink about some emails at a critical point one week before people head to the polls.

As I read my research material (sent to me by a friend who consults on electoral conflicts) I remember wondering, “That’s it? Why didn’t people…do something?” If rigged elections were decided by one momentous handshake in a dark, smoky room, I could understand—no one would see the problem to stop it. But these weren’t cloak and dagger operations. These were the end result of many banal injustices, piling up in the open.

There is no moment of “This Far and No Further.” These things happen by slow increments, a current growing swifter each moment as the river approaches the falls. Change is wrought by small actions, multiplying and metastasizing into something huge.

* * *

The all-singing, all-dancing Lara Elena Donnelly is a graduate of the Alpha and Clarion writers’ workshops. Her work has appeared in venues including Strange Horizons, Escape Pod, Nightmare, and Mythic Delirium. Her debut novel, vintage-glam spy thriller Amberlough, drops on February 7, 2017 from Tor Books. A veteran of small town Ohio and the Derby City, Lara now lives in Manhattan. You can also find her online at @larazontally or laradonnelly.com.

Lara Elena Donnelly: Website | Twitter | Facebook

Amberlough: Indiebound | Amazon | B&N | Goodreads | Book Trailer

I am never not in awe of Kameron Hurley’s writing. Whether we’re talking about her essays (ahem) or her fiction — like, say, her newest, The Stars Are Legion — I’m always eager to get my hands on the next Hurley book. Further, I’m always excited to have her here, because one day she’s going to be a literary rock motherfucking superstar, and I can say, I KNEW HER WHEN.

* * *

My grandmother grew up in Vichy France, under a regime propped up by and answerable to the Nazi regime. These last few months, I’ve wished she was still alive more desperately than any time since her death. I wanted to ask her how you coped when terrible things were happening all around you.

While we understand the necessity of writing during these times, figuring out how to persist in one’s writing when everything around you is so incredibly uncertain is tougher. Uncertainty breeds anxiety, and anxiety can kill your ability to do anything but go through the motions of bare bones survival. It’s in realizing that it was the anxiety unleashed by the sudden uncertainty in this country – when will the government declare martial law? Will we become a Russian puppet-state? Did a city explode in nuclear fire overnight? – also helped me figure out how to address it. If we can’t control the world around us, at least we can control the work we do in the face of it.

So here are my coping strategies. Hopefully some of them will help you too:

Ration your news. This may seem counter-productive. We all want to stay informed! The resistance needs us! But staring at a screen that’s beaming nightmares into your eyes for hours on end isn’t helpful; it’s actively harmful, because it will convince you that the problems out there are too big to address. I subscribed to The Washington Post, which I now read once a day. That’s news enough. I use Tweetdeck to view Twitter, which allows me to mute keywords from both my feed and mentions. I’ve muted, easily, over 200 keywords at this point, and I generally add a new one or two every day or so. This has also reduced the likelihood I’ll get suckered into a fake news meme. I also don’t have a personal Facebook account, which is a blessing. I recommend that you trim and mute there as well if you want to stay on it. But, again: Facebook is where fake news and your racist Uncle Joe are, so. I dunno. Your call.

Take up a hobby you don’t need to be good at. Like many writers, writing started out as my relaxing side gig. It was something I did in my spare time, and I found it deeply soothing. When I turned pro, the mad crash of deadlines and the need to level up my writing game to compete in a crowded market made the writing, well, less soothing. Sure, it’s still fun sometimes. But it became work. I needed something else to do with my brain that didn’t require angst. Then Netflix started streaming old episodes of The Joy of Painting with Bob Ross, and I found them so relaxing to watch that my spouse got me an oil painting set for Christmas. I’ve now painted something like 16 paintings, and it’s OK that they aren’t good! I don’t owe them to anyone. No one is paying me for them. I can just enjoy getting better at a new skill. It’s deeply satisfying to watch your skills level up from one painting to the next. Painting, like learning a new language, has also changed how I view the world. I’m starting to look at the angles of things when I look at building and mountains. I pay attention to the play of dark and light. I’ve also moved on to watching other painting shows. While watching a show by William Alexander on YouTube, he says, “You must add dark. You can’t have light without the dark,” and it was what I really needed to hear right then. Find something you enjoy that you don’t have to be good at, and go do it.

Chillax on the booze and other drugs. I spent a couple months post-election drinking way too much. Bad for my health and bad for my wallet. I cut myself back to once a week again, largely by replacing the booze behavior with the painting behavior. Watch your intake and reliance on drugs right now, legal or illegal, clearly. It’s easy to make “just one more because the government has imploded” into a habit, because the government is going to be imploding for a good long while. Caffeine isn’t great for anxiety, either, so stick to those two cups of coffee a day, or go cold turkey (I’m still working on this).

Get a dog. I mean, I’m a dog person. Dogs love you unconditionally. Pets make great therapy for folks suffering from depression, anxiety, PTSD, or any combination thereof. So you could get any kind of animal: a cat, a chinchilla, a turtle. When you want to just lie around in bed and not get up, knowing that you have to get up because you’re responsible for the care of another living thing is pretty motivating. Dogs also remind you that there is love and loyalty and pure joy in the world, even if you have lost your faith in humanity. Dogs have the added bonus of making you get up to take them outside for walks, which will get you out of your chair and increase the amount of exercise you get. Recent studies even found that people with dogs tend to get more exercise, and as a result, are healthier, than non-dog owners. It’s science, people.

Do what you can. Listen, yeah, resistance is great. Change the world! We need it. But we can’t do everything, and this is going to be a long, long haul. Pace yourself. Figure out what you can do, and do that. I subscribed to 5calls.org’s newsletter, which sends you a list of five issues every week to call your representatives about. I make my calls and check the local Ohio Resistance (yes, really) calendar to see if there’s a protest downtown that I can attend. So far I haven’t made it to one of those, but it’s on my radar now. Persist.

Write your way out. The world has not fundamentally changed. Only our understanding of it. The sun still comes up. There is still the work to do. Certainly, I’ve found that my own writing has shifted in tone and scope now that my view of the world is altered. I want to write more hopeful futures, futures where bad things happen, sure, but there are still good people out there doing good work. I want to be one of the people who makes a little more light in all this dark.

Rage against the dying of the light. Listen. When I’m feeling REALLY bad, and the dogs are curled up with me in bed and the booze is gone and I don’t want to get up, I remind myself that this is what the bad guys WANT. They want me to hide in bed, to get weary, and most of all: to shut up and stop working. On the very worst days, it is pure, blinding spite that gets me out of bed, because fuck those guys. If the only way you can get out of bed and put ass in chair to work is to yell “FUCK YOU!!” repeatedly at the clouds every morning, do it. I often say aloud, “Get up, Hurley” in the same cadence one would say, “Get up, Trinity.” And it helps. It really, really does.

So get up, folks. And get back to work.

* * *

Kameron Hurley is the author of the space opera, The Stars are Legion and the essay collection The Geek Feminist Revolution, as well as the award-winning God’s War Trilogy and The Worldbreaker Saga. Hurley has won the Hugo Award, Kitschy Award, and Sydney J. Bounds Award for Best Newcomer. She was also a finalist for the Arthur C. Clarke Award, the Nebula Award, and the Gemmell Morningstar Award. Her short fiction has appeared in Popular Science Magazine, Lightspeed Magazine, and many anthologies. Hurley has also written for The Atlantic, The Huffington Post, Entertainment Weekly, The Village Voice, Bitch Magazine, and Locus Magazine. She posts regularly at KameronHurley.com.

Kameron Hurley: Website | Twitter

The Stars Are Legion: Indiebound | Amazon | B&N

So, ICYMI, in the last 24 hours:

– The GOP voted to confirm DeVos because they were unabashedly paid by DeVos

– The GOP voted to censure and rebuke Senator Warren, thus stopping her from reading the Coretta Scott King letter about Senator Sessions — they voted to silence her unanimously, which means even the so-called “maverick” McCain has fallen right in line at the feeding trough

– On CNN, Ted ‘the President called my wife ugly and said my Daddy killed JFK and I stood up to him by sitting on his lap’ Cruz told a woman with MS, “Congratulations on dealing with MS, it’s a — it’s a terrible disease, and congratulations on your struggles dealing with it.”

– On Twitter, Trump continues — with all the subtlety of a blue whale dropped out of a C-130 onto a school bus — to point the finger at the judicial branch as an enemy in need of a culling.

Soon, the GOP will just unmask themselves, revealing moist vortices of twitching fangs, and they will wantonly eat kittens and babies on live TV. They will outlaw birds and mixtapes and hope before fucking off to their moonbase while the rest of the Earth burns.

So, with this Age of Heinous Fuckery unfolding, I continue to get emails or tweets from writers who are just saying, I can’t do it, I can’t commit words to the page, I can’t muster the feeling that any of this is worth a damn. Especially with education being one of the roots of the American tree that the madmen continue to hack at, why write? Why do it? What’s the fucking point?

On Twitter, I attempted to answer that question, and I’m putting those tweets here for you to read. (You can also just click through to the full Storify post, if that’s easier for you.)