Why Does it Matter?
Seems the authors v critics/reviewers thing just won’t go away. Today I was asked why I think it’s so important that authors not respond to critics. Basically what the question boiled down to was: Why does it matter?
A close friend also demanded that I explain why I am so keen on silencing authors.
I’ll take the second one first cause it’s so laughable. The very idea that I’m trying to silence anyone. I am an author. I am full of opinions. I share them here every single day. There’s nothing I don’t have an opinion on. Seriously. Ask me about anything at all and I will have a large loud opinion.1
I am not saying that authors shouldn’t have a response to bad reviews. I’m saying they shouldn’t share that response with the intramanets. By all means bitch to your friends. I sure do. Scream your anger and woe and hurt feelings. Print the review out and burn it.2 Do whatever it takes.
But do not go after the reviewer.
Because you will look like a thin-skinned, self-obsessed doxhead.
Because most of the time reviews are not about you. All you did was write the book. The reviewer is engaging with the book you wrote, and their relationship with it. They are bringing to bear their entire reading history as they do that. They will see and feel things you did not intend them to see. But you are not your book. If you can’t make that separation you are in for a world of pain.
Because if the reviewer is going after you specifically that’s their problem. Ad hominem attacks disguised as reviews are not hard for readers to spot. The problem is they’re very difficult for most writers to identify because so many of us cannot make that separation between ourselves and our books. Many of us authors feel that any criticism of our books is an attack on us. Rarely is that so.
Because it may well hurt your sales. I can think of several writers whose books I will never ever buy because of the way they attack anyone who disagrees with them. Because of their constant insistence that everything is about them. A blogger uses cover copy from their book jacket to discuss class and how it affects who does and does not get published and down they descend like an avenging angel in order to talk about the injustice done to them. When the blogger was, in fact, opening up a discussion about class and the politics of publishing. That author has revealed that they are a total doxhead.
Because you’re a published author. You have heaps of power. You have a right of response. In your books or on your blog or in an article or essay. I think it’s always wisest to address the criticisms generally rather than respond to a specific review. I’ve had a few people be upset about certain events in books 2 & 3 of my Magic or Madness trilogy. I have responded to their complaints and explained why I wrote them the way I did. I did this because they came to me and asked for an explanation. By all means talk about your motivations, explain the bits people have problems with. But there’s a big difference between doing that and attacking someone specific for giving you a bad review.
See? I’m not saying authors should be silent. I’m saying we shouldn’t behave like lunatics. If you scream at every reviewer (on blogs, goodreads, amazon, the NYT, wherever) who doesn’t worship you, exhort your fans to tear out their entrails, you not only look like a thin-skinned crazy person, you’re wasting your own time and energy. Write another book already.
It matters that you not behave like a lunatic because there’s no percentage in it.
Here’s my newsflash to you:
No matter what a genius you and your fans think you are not all readers are going to agree. There is not a book in existence that isn’t hated by someone. Me, I loathe Moby Dick. I have ex-friends who hate Pride and Prejudice. That is how the world is.
Get over yourself already.
I am now done and dusted with this topic.
- Corks are an abomination! Jack Nicholson is a tosser! Don’t Ask Don’t Tell must be abolished! Radio National is the best radio in the world! Mangosteens are the best fruit! Ugg boots are hideous! I have to stop this! I could be here all year! [↩]
- Though not very environmentally sound that. [↩]
Pontificating About How Writers Get Paid
John Green’s been posting about what he sees as the broken way in which most writers of books get paid in the publishing industry. He’s proposing smaller advances and higher royalties.
Go over there and read what he has to say. Otherwise nothing I say in this post will make any sense.
Finished? Okay then.
First up, I agree with John that his model could be better for the industry. I would love to have higher royalties.
However, the only agents I’ve known who’ve asked for them have not had much success. I don’t have as much faith as John does that it’s a possibility for writers like me i.e. for solidly successful mid-list writers who have never had a six-figure advance. I’d love if he was right and that was about to change.
I have much less faith than John does in the rationality of publishers. (I’m not saying writers are particularly rational either. I happen to think that most people aren’t rational and that’s what’s wrong with most economic models.)
Here’s the only way I would agree to be paid under John’s proposal:
- There would have to be a minimum of four royalty payments per year. Though I’d prefer six. Under the current model authors get their royalties twice a year. That’s a very long waiting time. Hard to pay your bills without a decent advance when money’s only coming in twice a year.
- Publishers would have to guarantee up front that they’d put money into sales & marketing as well as publicity for my books. My getting a higher percentage of royalties means the publisher has given up some of its cut and thus has less invested in my books selling.
The problem with no. 1 is that royalties paid twice a year is a very convenient arrangement for the publisher. Pay outs to gazillions of authors twice a year is way less of a headache. I can hear the accountants screaming at the very idea of having to do that four or six times a year. Two payments also means they get to hang onto the money for much longer, accruing interest. I can’t imagine publishers being in a hurry to change that arrangement.
The problem with no. 2 is that publishers frequently make promises about publicity and sales and marketing when they’re bidding on a book but sometimes they do not do what they said they’d do. I’ve been extremely lucky on that front. Bloomsbury and Allen & Unwin have done every single thing they promised they’d do for my books. I trust them to do well by my books. But there are publishers who don’t stand by their promises. Sometimes that’s because the person who made those promises is gone. Sometimes it’s because there was a misunderstanding about what they were promising. And sometimes, well, sometimes it’s hard to come up with a charitable explanation for the behaviour. (Just as it can often be hard to come up with charitable explanations for some writers’ behaviours. People aren’t rational.)
I have seen many writers get huge advances and in almost all cases the publishing house put a lot of muscle behind those books to promote them. I have also seen publishing houses put a big push behind a low advance book but no where near as often. And usually the publisher doesn’t do that until they see external signs of enthusiasm for the book, such as a strong reaction from big accounts and big sell-in, great word of mouth and reviews etc. I have also seen publishers see all those strong signs of enthusiasm for a low-advance book and STILL not get behind it. Whatever John may say, big advances do concentrate the minds of publishers most powerfully.
Also many of the big advances I’ve seen have not been irrational. Paying a six-figure advance to a proven bestseller is not a huge risk. I’ve seen many six-figure advance earning out. I think publishers are being totally rational paying a known earner a big lump sum to write books. It works for the author; it works for them. And that big lump sum gives the author breathing space by taking financial stresses away thus allowing them to write more.
Where I think publishers are nuts is when they pay crazy money to unknowns or non-writers (think all those failed books “by” Hollywood stars). That so rarely works out that it bewilders me that they haven’t learnt their lesson.
But, hey, I keep sticking my fingers in electrical sockets. We’re not all rational.
Kendra
Last week I mentioned how much I loved Coe Booth’s Kendra. I have much to say about this book but let me start with the notion of realism. I am on the record as saying that I am not a fan. Yet Kendra is indisputably realist. It is set in the real world. There are no zombies, vampires, space ships or magic. So how can I say I don’t like realism when I love Kendra?
Last night I was called on my anti-realism stance. It turns out that when I say I don’t like realism I’m talking about a very specific kind of book. I don’t like most John Updike or Philip Roth. I disliked Joseph O’Neil’s Netherland. When I say I don’t like realism what I mean is that I don’t like unplotted books with protags who are naval-gazing bores. I need plot! I need texture! I need to care one way or another about the main characters! Something other than complete indifference.
I had strong reactions to all the characters in Kendra. Very strong. I wanted to kill Kendra’s mother. And sometimes her grandmother and father. But never Kendra. I worried about Kendra. At the end of the book I had a big ole cry for Kendra. Several weeks after finishing the book I’m still hoping Kendra’s doing okay and that things work out better with her mother. Colour me, cautiously optimistic.
Kendra’s set in the Bronx and Harlem in New York City. It’s the story of a girl who was raised by her grandmother because her mother, Renee, had her at the age of 14. Rather than give her life over to looking after Kendra she concentrates on getting educated and out of the projects. At the beginning of the book Renee graduates from her PhD program at Princeton. Kendra thinks this means Renee’s coming home. It doesn’t. Kendra’s desparate need for her mother’s love and approval and Renee’s ignoring of her is almost painful to read about. She does everything she can to keep her daughter at arms length. Her priority is her career, not her daughter. Did I mention that I wanted to kill her? In the meantime Kendra’s left with her overprotective grandmother who does not trust her at all. (Thus making me want to strangle her.) And occasionally her hapless father.
I will not tell more of the plot and characters. I want you to discover them yourselves.
What’s remarkable about Kendra other than its effortlessly clean and elegant prose is that you wind up understanding everyone in it no matter how much you want to strangle them. It’s also an astonishingly honest novel, rendering Kendra’s actions understandable even when she’s making mistakes. There’s a lot most of us will do to be loved. And that’s what this novel is about.
Highly highly recommended.
Some More Incoherent Thoughts on the Author/Reviewer Relationship
My last post generated quite a bit of discussion. Some people seem to be under the impression that I was saying authors shouldn’t reply to any reviews at all. In my capacity as lord god of the internets1 I only forbid responding to negative reviews or reviews the author perceives as negative.2 I have yet to see an author respond to a bad review in any way that didn’t make them look like a petty loser. Responding to positive reviews is a whole other thing and as Diana Peterfreund points out can lead to very interesting discussions.
Though I have seen authors respond to positive reviews in comment threads and unintentionally shut the conversation down because everyone panicked on realising that the author was watching. That’s why I no longer drop in to thank a blogger for a positive review. But I definitely don’t think it’s a terrible thing.
Walter Jon Williams talkde about how annoying some online amateur reviewers can be:
Some of them are just bad readers. They miss major plot points and then complain that the plot makes no sense, or they say that something is impossible when it’s something I’ve actually done, or they complain that a plot twist is unmotivated when I’ve foreshadowed it sixteen dozen ways . . . these guys I’m sometimes tempted to respond to. Not in abusive way, of course, just by way of information. (”If you would do yourself the kindness to reread Page 173, you would realize that your chief complaint is without foundation.”) That sort of thing.
Sad fact: most readers are crap at it. We read too fast and carelessly. We judge books by what we expected to read so often don’t see what is actually there. We get mad at books for not being the book we wanted them to be. We read when in a bad mood and blame the bad mood on the book. Most of us suck at noticing all the carefully laid foreshadowing, backstory, clues that the hardworking authors wrote for us and then we have the gall to blame them for our own stupidity in not seeing them. Damned readers!
Sadly, there’s zero percentage in going after them and pointing out their stupidity no matter how much we writers ache to do so.3 Because this is the biggest power imbalance of all. Amateur reviewers on good reads or Amazon or Barnes & Noble or on their almost zero-trafficked blog are the least powerful criticism that can be made. Sometimes authors do attack them. I heard from a blogger who wrote a negative review of [redacted well-known author] and had said author set their fans on the blogger who was inundated with hate mail for months. Authors, DON’T DO THAT!
And reviewers please don’t do the opposite. Adrienne Vrettos said:
Once I had a reviewer who had written a not very nice review in a widely read trade magazine approach me at a crowded event to tell me - in detail - what exactly she didn’t like about my book.
I had *no* idea how to handle it. I stammered out a ‘thank you’ for reviewing the book, which now sounds suspiciously like ‘thank you sir, may I have another?’, and hurried away.
How extraordinarily rude. While I’ve never (thank, Elvis!) had anyone tell me in person about their hate for my books I’ve had reviewers write me with their lack of love. I have no idea what these people want from us authors. To make sure that we read their review? Why does that matter to them? Reviews of books are not for the authors, they’re for potential readers. So leave us authors alone! Thank you!
I have to admit that I miss the era of loud, passionate, messy literary feuds, so have been pretty entertained by this whole mess. Norman Mailer vs Gore Vidal, Tom Wolfe vs Updike/Mailer/Irving, Dale Peck vs everyone…those were the good old days. (Authors — and it seems important to note that Hoffman’s reviewer is also an author in her own right — still have plenty of books and authors that we despise, we just do our despising behind closed doors.) And this morning I discovered that after Alice Hoffman published a horrible review of Richard Ford’s “The Sportswriter,” Ford got a gun and shot a bunch of holes through Hoffman’s latest opus. (http://s7y.us/uqr) So maybe she can be forgiven for her misunderstanding of “appropriate” behavior!
Sure. Feuds can be extraordinarily entertaining. I enjoyed those spats mightily. You’ll note that most of them were between equals with roughly the same reputation and access to media. Most of the flare ups in the past few years have been well-known author going after much less well-known reviewer and/or punters on Amazon. Which I happen to think it’s flat out awful.
And while I enjoy those stoushes between equals, I enjoy them in the same way I do seeing what hideous outfit Chloe Sevigny or Gwyneth Paltrow are wearing right now. Fun for me, sure, but embarrassing for them. I enjoy their sartorial mistakes mightily just as I enjoyed Mailer and Vidal etc posturing. But I still think they’re arrogant self-obsessed drop kicks. I will always advise other authors not to follow their lead.
- Yes, that is a joke. [↩]
- And that’s a whole other thing. I have seen authors go berko over a starred review that had one negative phrase in it: “while occasionally overwrought”. [↩]
- And, boy, do we. [↩]
Some Incoherent Thoughts on the Author/Reviewer Relationship
Recent events have gotten me thinking once again on why I feel so strongly that authors should never respond to bad reviews. I think I’ve previously talked about it in terms of politeness, and of not looking bad, stuff like that.
But what I think I really mean is that most authors have more power than the reviewer. Often reviewers aren’t as well known as the person they’re reviewing. So when the disgruntled writer says, “What about my rights? Why can’t I respond?” The answer is that you can. But what will it gain you? Besides you already have a reply to your critics: your books. Your last book, your current book, your future books.
Why does an established writer with an army of books feel the need to go after a critic who happens to not like their latest book? They have a much bigger audience than that critic does. Many more people will read the book in question than the bad review. It’s madness.
Even when the author is brand new and has only one book what will they achieve by going after a critic? They’ll make themselves look small and petty minded and incapable of taking criticism. If you’re irked by a bad review respond by making your next book even better.
I have yet to see anything good come out of an author turning on a specific critic.
Water without Ice
One of the hardest things for me in the US of A is getting a glass of water (or any other not hot beverage) without ice. The default, even in the very depths of winter, is a glass that’s at least half ice, half water.
They even put ice in orange juice! In bubbly water! It’s INSANE!
I do not get it. Why so much ice? Why do USians want to have their teeth painfully assaulted with sub-arctic temperature liquids?
Is that truly what they want?
I will never understand it.
Want to Know More About Liar?
The Liar pages are live. Ta dah!
There’s a plea for those who have read the book not to spoil it, a lengthy excerpt, a list of places in the world where Liar has sold, and a non-spoilery discussion of some of the influences on the book.
There’s also a review section on account of the astonishing number of early reviews that have appeared. (Bless you, book bloggers!) Though I decided not to include the blurbs from dead writers because I didn’t want my fellow alive writers to get jealous of my powerful ouija board:
Liar is almost as dark as one of my books. Not bad, Larbalestier.
—Patricia Highsmith
If you can’t get hold of a good book I suppose you could give Liar a go.
—Chester Himes
So creepy I had to put it down and seek solace in Anne of Green Gables.
—Shirley Jackson
Liar proves everything I said about parents was true.
—Philip Larkin
There was also going to be an essay on how Scrivener influenced the writing of the book. However, I’ve decided to hold off on posting that until after Liar is published. On account of how the Scrivener essay won’t really make any sense unless you have read the book. And not many people have at the moment on account of Liar doesn’t publish for another three months. Such a long time . . .
So there you have it some Liar content that is not even a tiny bit spoilery.
Demon’s Lexicon
Lately I’ve read quite a few books people have been raving about and been really disappointed. So it was a relief to read two books that I loved, Sarah Rees Brennan’s Demon’s Lexicon and Coe Booth’s Kendra. Today I’ll be talking about DL, next week I’ll talk about the fabulously brilliant Kendra.
Demon’s Lexicon is told from the point of view of a sociopath. Nick does not get other people. He doesn’t understand what they’re thinking, why they do the things they do, or why they talk so much. He’s a classic case of a character who’s fabulous in a book but I would run a mile if I ran into him in real life. He has no qualms killing! This is not a quality I look for in my friends. Just saying . . .
Demon’s Lexicon is funny, fast-paced, packed with fabulous 3D characters and has some awesomely convincing world-building. I love me some magic that makes sense. I found it unputdownable. It’s my favourite fantasy I’ve read this year. I need want to read the sequel right now.
I have heard from a couple of people that they found it a little hard to get into. I have two responses:
1) People frequently find new books hard to get into. Scott’s even been told that Specials starts too slowly. It begins with a hoverboard raid on an illicit party. Things blow up! It is the opposite of slow. Similarly very exciting things happen in the first few chapters of Demon’s Lexicon. I suspect it just takes some people awhile to get started reading a new books. 2) DL may be a bit hard to get into because it takes a little while to adjust to Nick’s voice. But trust me, once you get into it you will love this book as much as I did. I know this because I already bullied a friend into reading past the first chapter and she loved it and thanked me for hassling her about finishing it. She now wants me to get her the sequel immediately. Even though I have it on good authority that the sequel exists only on Sarah Rees Brennan’s and her editor’s computers. My friend points out that I know both these people and could thus be all ninja-y and steal it. I pointed out to my friend that that would be wrong.
The other objection I’ve heard is to the cover. I’ll be honest I don’t like the US cover either. But books are not their covers. Authors have very little control over the covers of their books. We readers need to get over worrying about the cover. Seriously, readers speculate on which character is portrayed on the cover and how it relates to the the book and blah blah blah. But mostly covers are an image that sales & marketing think will sell the book. The cover artist rarely has time to read the books they illustrate. The author frequently isn’t consulted and if they are and don’t like the cover they are often ignored. Please, readers, let it go. Assume the cover has zip to do with the book. A hideous cover does not mean a bad book. Not does a genius cover mean the book will be brilliant.
Go forth and read Demon’s Lexicon!
Here’s Sarah talking about writing a sociopath. And here’s a prequel story that in no way spoils Demon’s Lexicon but is an excellent taste of what the book is like.
Enjoy!
Things I Learned Recently
- Most politicians and journalists would rather spend time arguing about total trivialities than important stuff. No, I do not care about ute-gate. Not any of it. Could you please get back to governing and how about actually doing something about climate change?
- In the Heights is every bit as wonderful and entertaining as people have been saying. Especially when seen with Robin Wasserman. Musicals make me so happy!
- Never go anywhere with Maureen Johnson where cockroaches may show up. She told a story about dining with me and Scott and our good friend Alaya Johnson. The way she tells it is very operatic and entertaining but not exactly how I remember it. A cockroach landed on Scott’s shirt, I leaned forward to flick it off, and then something terrible must have happened because MJ started screaming. Alaya leapt up, me too, our hearts pounding, looking in the direction that MJ was pointed, while still screaming so loud my hearing is probably permanently damaged. There were no zombies shambling towards us. It took several seconds to realise that she had screamed down an entire restaurant over a cockroach. Mental note: no camping with MJ. EVER.
- Sarah Rees Brennan and Diana Peterfreund do not know how not to spoil books and tellie and movies. I’m thinking of starting up a spoilerer re-education camp for them. Perhaps I will use MJ’s screams as part of the aversion therapy . . .
What have you learned this week?
You Helped Me
I just listened to a wonderful speech by Paul Gilding about how our current economic model—all obsessed with growth—is doomed. It’s a powerful and energising speech and you should all listen to it.
Gilding also talks a little bit about happiness, about how owning more stuff does not actually make us happy. Or not for very long:
We know that for example, what does make us happy is love, relationships, community and doing something meaningful with your life.
Doing something meaningful with your life. The part of my job that makes me happiest is the impact some of my books have on some of my readers. Every time I get a letter from a reader saying, you helped me I am moved. It makes what I do worthwhile.
I have heard dozens, if not hundreds, of other writers say the exact same thing. It’s what Maureen Johnson said about The Bermudez Triangle that no matter what the banners say the letters from readers talking about how Bermudez had helped them outweighed the banners a million, gazillion, quantaribillion to one.
We may worry about our careers: sales, reviews, prizes, blah blah blah. Why aren’t we bestsellers? And if we are bestsellers—will our next book be a bestseller? But those things are worries. If they do make us happy it rarely lasts long.
Every time a readers tells us that our book helped them deal with their problems, helped them realise that they’re not alone, helped get them through a really awful time in their life, every single time that happens it gives meaning to our work.
You helped me is a tremendously powerful statement. I have heard it more in the four years since my first novel was published than I’d heard it in my entire life prior to being published. It gives me great joy. It helps me get through when the writing is crap. It helps me.
When I was a teenager books were a very powerful force in my life. They helped me. It’s a long time since I was a teen but books are still helping me.
Fan v Pro
The discussion in the fanfic post got me thinking about the differences between writing to make a living, as I do, and writing solely for fun.
Many people in that thread talked about how writing fanfic was a learning experience that prepared them for becoming a professional writer. And there’s no doubt that that’s how fanfic has worked for many pros. However, the vast majority of writers of fanfic not only don’t become pros, they have no desire to do so. They write fanfic for a variety of reasons: fun, community, because writing is something they can’t not do and so on—they don’t do it as some kind of apprenticeship for becoming a “real” writer.
I know professional writers who also write fanfiction. So clearly it’s fulfilling a need that their paid writing isn’t. I also do a lot of unpaid writing. You’re reading some of it right now. Often I enjoy writing posts here more than writing novels.
Or, rather, I have a much less stressful relationship to this writing than I do to my novel writing because there’s not much riding on this blog, whereas my ability to pay my rent, buy food, stay in the profession that I love is tied up in the novels I write. Sometimes it takes awhile to push that stuff aside and just write. For me blogging is a relaxation; writing novels is an economic necessity.
Which is not to say that it can’t be fun. It can. I wouldn’t swap my job for any other job in the world. I love it. But it’s still my job and comes with all the stresses that any job has, including anxiety about losing said job.
Not everyone who spends a lot of time writing wants to be a professional writer. Frankly, I think that’s sensible. It’s very hard to make a living as a professional writer. Even if you do manage it’s just as hard to make it a sustainable career. I know lots of writers who’ve been able to support themselves for a year or two or four or ten but then demand for their work dwindle, fashion in the publishing world changes. In the 80s horror was huge, now not so much. YA’s big right now but who knows were it will be in ten years. Romance is pretty much always the biggest selling genre and yet it has the lowest advances. I know of romance writers with multiple bestselling books who only get around 20k per book.
The majority of pro novelists, who are making a living, write a book a year. Many write two or three or four a year. For many writers that’s an impossible pace to sustain and it can suck the fun right out of the writing. There are lots of reasons for not making writing your main profession. Most of the published writers I know are not full-time. Many of them claim to be happier that way.
When writing becomes your full time job it completely changes your relationship to writing. It becomes a business. You can’t wait for your muse to show up. You have to force it when you’re not in the mood. You have to meet deadlines. You have to think about whether there’s a market for what you want to write. You can’t just write whatever you feel like unless you happen to be lucky enough to have a market for what you feel like writing.
In which case you’re probably Nora Roberts. Lucky duck!
When a Book Sours (Updated)
Recently I gobbled up a book with great enjoyment only for it to fall apart as soon as I began thinking about it.
I will not name the book for it is very popular and has many voracious fans. Long term readers of this blog know that I have a policy of never naming living writers whose books I am less than enamoured with. It is not worth the grief of offended authors or fans.
This has happened to me before but never so quickly. Within half an hour of finishing the book in question doubts, grave doubts, began to creep into my mind. As I read, I thought it was the best book ever. It was only after closing it that certain thoughts crept up on me about plausability and worldbuilding and how the main character had never had to make any hard decisions. I became uneasy.
So I read the sequel. It was the exact same book all over again with all the same flaws. Only they seemed worse because the first book was a direct retread of the first.
Yet the sequel was as sticky as the first book. Once I started reading it I could not stop (though I did skim, which I did not with the first book). This time as I read I was aware of the book’s many flaws. Of how unlikely all the plotting was, how flimsy the world, and how, once again, the main character was spared making any painful decisions.
I have decided not to read the third book. Though given the stickiness of the first two I may succumb.
I will still happily recommend the first book. I had a great time reading it. I will tell people the book is crack but best not to think about it too hard. There are many books of that kind that I adore.
Have any of you had this experience? Of loving a book as you read it? Only for it to fall apart afterwards when you started thinking about it?
Do not name the book if the author is alive. I am more interested in the experience of changing your mind about a book you initially loved than upsetting any authors or fans.
Update: I want to clarify my position on not naming the books. There are several reasons for it. If I name the book and it’s one that sells better or is more critically acclaimed than my own work then it looks like sour grapes. If it’s one that’s less well-received than one of mine than I look bad for picking on someone worse off than me.
But more importantly it doesn’t matter what books we’re talking about. The discussion is about how following through implications of plot/characterisation/world building etc can cause a book to crumble. All of which applies to any number of books. It will be different books for different people. Several readers have complained that my books fell apart for them in exactly that manner. We all read differently. There is no wrong or right on this question. While I am wondering how the hell the books I’m talking about could be so loved when they’re so flawed, there are people wondering the exact same about some of my favourites.
I also want to make it clear that I am not talking about the Twilight books. So you can stop sending me cranky email on that score.
No, I am not going to tell you what books I’m talking about. Please stop writing me and asking me.
Fanfic
I keep meeting published authors who wrote (or still write) fanfic before they tried writing original fiction. I know of folks who wrote (write) Star Trek, Buffy, Harry Potter, Sailor Moon, Supernatural and Naruto fanfic. And I’m sure lots of others I can’t remember.
I’ve never written fanfic. I didn’t hear about fanfic until long after I was already writing original fiction. And it never occurred to me on my own to write stories set in other people’s worlds. I’m slow that way.
How many of you write fanfic? What kind? How did you first hear about it?
A Fabulous Letter
In my research for my 1930s NYC novel, letters are far and away the most evocative and useful primary source. This letter, obviously, is not from my period but since reading it a couple of days ago I haven’t been able to stop thinking about it.
On the 7th of August, 1865 in Dayton, Ohio, former slave Jourdan Anderson declines his former master’s invitation to come and work for him again:
To My Old Master, Colonel P.H. Anderson, Big Spring, Tennessee
Sir: I got your letter and was glad to find you had not forgotten Jourdon, and that you wanted me to come back and live with you again, promising to do better for me than anybody else can. I have often felt uneasy about you. I thought the Yankees would have hung you long before this for harboring Rebs they found at your house. I suppose they never heard about your going to Col. Martin’s to kill the Union soldier that was left by his company in their stable. Although you shot at me twice before I left you, I did not want to hear of your being hurt, and am glad you are still living. It would do me good to go back to the dear old home again and see Miss mary and Miss Martha and Allen, Esther, Green, and Lee. Give my love to them all, and tell them I hope we will meet in the better world, if not in this. I would have gone back to see you all when I was working in the Nashville hospital, but one of the neighbors told me Henry intended to shoot me if he ever got a chance.
It gets better and better after that. Read the rest of the letter here. (Found via Twitter, though sadly I can no longer remember whose.)
In today’s news
Liar just sold to Salani in Italy. They’re the publishers of J. K. Rowling’s Harry Potter books. Cool, huh? For those keeping count Liar has now sold in six countries. This is massively more sales than any of my other books have made prior to publication. I am dizzy. (I posted recently on how foreign rights works for those who want to know why I am so excited.)
In other news: today I met someone who looks so much like Tom in the Magic or Madness trilogy I almost gasped. He’s a red head and taller and older (20 rather than 15) than Tom, but other than that identical. I had to stop myself from calling him “Tom.” This has never happened to me before and it is deeply weird. When my fictional worlds collide with my real world than my head explodes.
I may have to lie down to recover.
More Book Banning Idiocy
There’s been yet another attempt to ban Maureen Johnson’s The Bermudez Triangle. They claim the book is salacious, racy, rude, and saucy. This is flat out not true. Banning Bermudez for sexual content is utterly absurd because there is no sexual content in The Bermudez Triangle.
These banners either have a) the worst comprehension skills on the planet or b) they’re lying about why they want to ban the book.
I suspect b) though it could be both. I think the reason they really want to ban Bermudez is that in it two girls fall in love. The most these two girls do is hold hands and kiss. If they were a boy and a girl no book banner would go after The Bermudez Triangle. It would not be a blip on their radar. The same is true of many YA books with gay or lesbian protags. It doesn’t matter how clean those books are. Homophobic bookbanners still go after them.
More insidious though is the fact that many libraries in more conservative parts of the country don’t order books like The Bermudez Triangle or David Levithan’s Boy Meets Boy in the first place. They’re not banned because they never make it into the library. Given the shrinking budgets libraries are facing all over the country I get why librarians would want to spend the little money they have on books that won’t set off the local bookbanners.
But it’s a huge shame. I’ve seen some of the letters Maureen and David get from teen readers of their books. Readers thanking them for showing them that they’re not alone, giving them the courage to come out, for making their lives more tolerable.
Those letters are moving and beautiful and explain why our jobs as YA writers can be so much more than writing entertaining stories.
Lying About Who You Are (Updated)
Because my next book is Liar there has been much talk of lying on this blog lately. But for all that talk I haven’t yet touched on people who are forced to lie about who they are in order to survive. Libba Bray posted beautifully and movingly about her gay dad and the ways he was forced to lie:
My dad came of age in the 1940’s in the Deep South. Being gay was more than just not okay then; it was downright dangerous. When my father was involved with a man while stationed in Korea and it was discovered, he was given a dishonorable discharge from the Army, which in effect nullified his service to the country and haunted him the rest of his days. He was unable to buy a house using the G.I. bill and unable to explain to anyone why he couldn’t do so because it would expose his secret. Despite having a family, friends, accomplishments, my father also lived his whole life with a sense of self-loathing, of self-doubt that was painful to bear witness to. Understand—he had his faults. But one of his greatest strengths was his warmth, his fierce love. And it was a shame that he could not extend this love to himself, conditioned as he was over the years by a society that continually told him he was less than. In fact, it told him his very self was intolerable. Dangerous. He should keep himself hidden. And he did.
Throughout my life many of my friends and acquaintances have been homosexual. I have known people who were beaten up because of their sexuality, who lost custody of their kids, were sacked from jobs they were incredibly good at, who were denied access to long-term partners in hospital. All because they chose to love someone who has the same genitals as them and not to lie about it. To this day, even in Australia and the USA, there are costs to being out of the closet.
Right now the US military has a policy that forces people to lie about their sexuality or be thrown out of the armed forces. The policy is called Don’t Ask Don’t Tell. It is an absurd and destructive policy which as led to the US armed forces losing some of their most qualified and dedicated people.
It’s not just gay and lesbians who sometimes have to lie about who they are. I’ll never forget my parents telling me the story of a close friend of theirs, a Sri Lankan man. He was on a train when armed men went from carriage to carriage asking people if they were Tamil and beating them up if they said yes. My parents’ friend was Sinhalese. He stood up to the men and said he was Tamil1 refused to say what he was. They beat him badly. Many of the Tamils on the train that day said they were Sinhalese. I’m pretty sure I would have said the same.
All around the world right now there are people not being honest about who they are to protect their lives, their families, their livelihood. People who are homosexual, transsexual, atheist, Christian, Muslim, one of the many persecuted minority religions around the world. It’s a long list.
Every time I hear someone say that lying is always wrong I think of all the people around the world saving themselves and their families by lying and of the terrible consequences of having to live a lie like Libba’s father did.
I don’t blame their lack of courage in not telling the truth when to do so would mean losing their job/children/lives. I blame the world we live in for making such lies necessary.
- Turns out I misremembered the story. Thanks, Jan & John! I think the real version makes Chandra even braver. [↩]
Writing Physical Pain
Pain is extraordinarily hard to write about. Chronic pain is hardest of all. How do you write about a character whose every day, every moment, is shaped around constant pain? And not wear out the reader’s sympathy.
It can be done. It has been done.
And when it is done convincingly; those are often difficult books to read.
Half the time we don’t want to know about the pain of people we know in real life. Part of us wants them to suffer in silence. We’re embarrassed by others’ suffering, bored by it, made to feel helpless in the face of our inability to do anything about it, afraid it might be contagious, upset by it, angered, and a gazillion other complicated feelings.
It’s even hard to write about relatively minor injuries. There are gazillions of books out there where the character suffers an injury only for the writer to forget about it for the rest of the book or totally minimise it. I am guilty of this. Reason is injured in the first book of the Magic or Madness trilogy. Somehow telling the story kept getting in the way of showing Reason’s injury and how she dealt with it. (Since the book takes place over a short period of time the injury would not have healed entirely.) If I could go back and rewrite the trilogy that’s one of the many things I would fix.
Pain is something we all go through to a lesser or greater extent. It’s something we all know intimately. Yet it’s so hard to describe and write about. It’s hard to push beyond “it hurts” and not wallow in it and also hold your reader.
I’d be curious to hear about your experience writing characters in physical pain. (For some reason emotional pain is easy as pie.) And also your experiences reading characters in pain. Are there any writers or books you think handle it particularly well?
My Gross Story
More than a year ago Cylin Busby’s most excellent anthology First Kiss (Then Tell): A Collection of True Lip-Locked Moments came out. And it was very good. Still is! I am now posting my story from that antho., “Pashin’ or the Worst Kiss Ever,” in its entirety to give you a taste of First Kiss and encourage you to buy it or borrow it from the library and experience all that goodness.
I’m extremely proud of this story. Not so much for its literary prowess but because of the responses it has evoked from its readers, which include nausea and gagging:
I didn’t love every story in this collection; some were just, “eh,” and some were good but not really my thing (I have a weak stomach, so some of them made me rather nauseous!).1
Disgusting yet hilarious.
Booklist
Hands down favorite for sheer grossness (it was so gross it was funny!) was Justine Larbalestier’s “Pashin’”, a tale of her friend’s first kiss.
Justine Larbalestier’s “Pashin’ or The Worst Kiss Ever” was my favorite, hands down. I’ve read it three times (once aloud to Josh), and it made me gag every single time. No, that’s not a typo. I said gag, and I meant it. Literally.
The most disgusting story ever.
And now the story is available for you to read right here on this site. Read it if you dare! I take no responsibility for any nausea, gagging, or other side effects. You can’t say you weren’t warned.
Enjoy!
- I know Jocelyn doesn’t specifically say that my story made her nauseous but she confirms it here. [↩]
Literary Influences
One of the questions writers get asked fairly often is who their literary influences are. I rarely know how to answer that question. Mostly because it’s usually asked about a specific book. I have no idea what writers and books influenced How To Ditch Your Fairy. And the Magic or Madness trilogy was more influence by fantasy books that drove me spare than the ones I loved. The people asking the question tend not to want to hear about negative influences.
I suspect the people best positioned to answer the question are not the writers but the readers. I’m dreadful at spotting my influences.
SPOILER WARNING: The rest of this post is going behind a cut because I discuss literary influences on Liar and I happen to know that some of you are as nutty about spoilers as I am and don’t want to know even the tiniest bit about the book before you read it. Though I think identifying specific literary influences is way more that just a tiny bit spoilery. And one of the ones I’m going to talk about below this cut is MASSIVELY spoilery. (Well, in JustineLand. I have a much broader definition of spoiler than most people, which makes conversations with Sarah Rees Brennan and Diana Peterfreund difficult sometimes as neither seems to understand the concept of the spoiler at all. Bless them!)
You has been warned.
What King Creole has Taught me
Things I learned rewatching King Creole:
Good girls are boring and whingey even if they do look a bit like Jennifer Lynn Barnes who is not in the least bit boring and knows more about monkeys than you do.
Bad girls are cynical and sad and usually dead by the end of the movie and may wind up in the Addams Family.
Walter Matthau is a very bad man.
Elvis’ hair gets messed up easily, this means he is virile but not bad, even if he accidentally kills someone.
It is not a good sign for a movie with not many songs if all the bits when people aren’t singing are boring.
Movies that were your favourite when you were little may turn out to only have1 camp value when you watch them as an adult. This may not be a bad thing. Especially if the songs are good.
Rewatched any movies lately that weren’t the way you remembered them?
- Yes, I split that infinitive on purpose. Because I can. [↩]
They’re Just Girl Books. Who Cares?
Sometimes I think the best course of action for me is to simply not read anything in the New York Times about books by women. I just wind up cranky.
Today’s piece by Janet Maslin on this summer’s books by women was astonishing. On the one hand there’s this:
The “Commencement” characters are savvy about, among other things, feminism and publishing. “When a woman writes a book that has anything to do with feelings or relationships, it’s either called chick lit or women’s fiction, right?” one of them asks. “But look at Updike, or Irving. Imagine if they’d been women. Just imagine. Someone would have slapped a pink cover onto ‘Rabbit at Rest,’ and poof, there goes the … Pulitzer.”
They’re right of course. But this is the season when prettily designed books flood the market and compete for female readers.
Too true. Women’s books are routinely lumped together even when they’re vastly different. They’re not deemed to be proper literature just because they’re written by women. And apparently this is especially true in summer which is a time “when literary and lightweight books aimed at women become hard to tell apart.”
So Maslin agrees that women’s writing is frequently compartmentalised and dismmissed. And yet she proceeds to do exactly that for for the rest of the article by lumping together eleven vastly different books and finding tenuous connections between them. All of it under the heading The Girls of Summer. Bless you, sub editor for spelling it out: it’s an article about the frivolous time of year and the frivolous gender. All is clear.
Where is the NYT piece on the boys of summer? That lumps together vastly different books by men. Oh, silly me, that would never happen because boys write real books and girls write summer fluff which is pretty much identical despite the different subject matter:
Amid such confusion, here’s a crib sheet for this season’s crop of novels and memoirs. It does mix seriously ambitious books (“Shanghai Girls”) with amiably schlocky ones (“Queen Takes King”) and includes one off-the-charts oddity (“My Judy Garland Life”). It’s even got a nascent Julia Roberts movie. But the common denominator is beach appeal, female variety. Each of these books takes a supportive, girlfriendly approach to weathering crises, be they global (World War II) or domestic (dead husband on the kitchen floor), great or small.
Let me repeat the key bit: “the common denominator is beach appeal, female variety.”
What now?
I’m confused. Is Maslin saying that no matter what subject these women write about their books are automatically light disposable beach reads because women wrote them? Or is she saying they’re automatically beach reads because of the way the publisher has decided to package the book:
Their covers use standard imagery: sand, flowers, cake, feet, houses, pastel colors, the occasional Adirondack chair. Their titles (“Summer House,” “Dune Road,” “The Wedding Girl,” “Trouble”) skew generic. And they tend to be blurbed exclusively by women.
If only the publishers had given them serious covers with non-generic titles and got a bloke to blurb them then Maslin would have been able to review their books separately and not as “women’s fiction”. Damned publishers confusing poor critics’ brains.
I think my head just exploded.
Who do you blog for?
In the land of twitter Danah Boyd passed on a question from alicetiara:
When you tweet, who do u think of reading it? Followers, followed, public, best friends, etc? Who do you tweet *to*?
I am very curious about the responses.
It made me wonder, too, about blogging. Recently there was a slight and fairly dumb article in the New York Times about the astounding fact that most people who start blogging don’t continue. Scalzi excoriated it most entertaingly. Cause the interesting question isn’t why do people abandon blogs but why do people continue to blog?
I could tell you that I keep on blogging day after day after day because my publisher likes me to have an online presence. Problem is that’s not true. Blogging has very little impact on book sales. You have to have considerably more than 1,500 hits a day for it to translate into book sales.
I can point you to many writers blogs that are way more popular than mine whose authors’ books don’t sell any better than mine and sometimes much worse. I can also show you very unpopular blogs whose authors are huge bestsellers. There really is no correlation.
People point to John Scalzi’s Whatever as an example of a popular blog that translates into great book sales. He will tell you himself that he is the exception that proves the rule. He will also tell you that he does not blog in order to sell books—that’s just a cool side effect for him. He blogs cause he’s full of opinions and loves to share them.
Me too.
I also blog because I love your comments. Take yesterday’s post some of the library stories you shared made me cry. I think that thread may be one of my favourites.
But that doesn’t answer the question above. Who do I blog for? Who do I think is my audience?
I don’t blog for my family and friends, which is why there is no personal news here, and very little about my health or mood. I primarily blog about the business side of my life, i.e. my writing career as well as my interests. So I imagine my audience to be people who find my rantings and opinings interesting as well as some people who are fans of my books. But I don’t really write for them—I write for myself.
Don’t get me wrong, I’m thrilled when what I write interests other people too. But I’ve don’t post stuff I know to be popular which I happen not to be interested in. Hence no photos of cats.
In other words, if I had no audience I would still blog. Indeed for the first two years of this blog I pretty much had no audience. Didn’t stop me.
Who do you blog for? Who’s your audience?
Library Stories
It is no secret that I am a huge fan of libraries. Why, I am currently learning to lindyhop—two lessons a week—in order to raise money for the New York Public Library System which is facing $57 million in budget cuts.1
This story of an Uzbekistan immigrant to the US who is now in charge of the Queens Library at Broadway made me teary:
My daughter didn’t know English well; I didn’t know English. I was trying to teach her myself. The library was my life at the time. We took out childrens books to hear that language. We learned 30 words a day. We memorized them, put them on the wall. The next day, another 30 words. After half a year she didn’t need English as a second language anymore. I learned with her. She just graduated from Vassar, Phi Beta Kappa. The library was everything for us. We were in the library every day, me and my husband.
My own library stories are not nearly so dramatic. I remember as a kid the excitement of being taken to the library by my parents and getting to pick out lots of picture books to take home. Much later as a uni student, the library at the University of Sydney, ugly, haunted2 monster that it is, was where I practically lived, studying, finding endless reams of articles, chapters, books and other material for my countless assignments, essays, and, later on, PhD thesis. The excellence of the Sydney Uni Library’s Rare Books departments made my doctoral research possible. Without them my first book, The Battle of the Sexes in Science Fiction, would not have happened. My gratitude to all of them, especially Pauline Dickinson, remains huge.
So, yes, librarians and libraries, I love them.
What about youse lot? Do any of you have some library stories to tell? I’d love to hear them.
Ways in Which I Am Not a Proper Writer
The following are a list of reasons my fellow writers think I am mutant hellspawn who has no business being a writer:
- I don’t care whether you spell it “okay” or “ok”.
- In fact, I’m an indifferent speller and am not particularly bothered by that fact. That’s what spell checkers, editors and proof readers are for.
- I don’t care either way about serial commas. It’s all fine by me.
- I would much rather read a finished book than an ARC.
- I can touch type. None of this two-finger nonsense.
- Stationery shops bore me. I find hardware shops more interesting. Honestly, I’d rather watch paint dry than oooh and ahh over stationery. I don’t like paper. I don’t like pens.
- I have zero interest in fonts. I only learnt the difference between san serif and serif very recently and I kind of don’t care. I think Helvetica is the most boring documentary ever made.
- I hate coffee and thus can write without it quite easily thank you. Ditto for Coke or Pepsi or any of their equivalents. Caffeine does nothing for me and the stuff it’s in tastes bad. Yup, even chocolate.
- One glass of wine and any ability I have to write is gone entirely. For me alcohol and writing do not mix. I am definitely no Dylan Thomas or F. Scott Fitzgerald. But, hey, there are many upsides to not being an alcoholic.
Go ahead, try and take my writer card away from me. You can’t have it!
I happen to know writers who don’t write in their pyjamas. Who don’t blog, who, in fact, hate blogs. There are “writers” who have zero interest in publishing gossip. There are even “writers,” and I hesitate to say this, who don’t use a computer to write.
They’re way worse writers than I am.
Just sayin’ . . .
An Open Letter to All Publishers
Dear Publishers,
There are two things you keep doing that affect my reading pleasure. Well, okay there are lots of things you do, but I don’t have time to go into detail about all your cover sins, and your back jacket copy lies, misinformation, and bad writing, which frequently keep me away from genius books. Thus I will limit myself to two complaints:
Complaint the first and smaller of the two:
Please do not place spoilery acknowledgments at the front of a book. Actually, please don’t place un-spoilery acks at the beginning of a book. Acknowledgments belong at the back of the book. They are back matter. It’s only after we’ve read the book that we understand what the author is thanking people for and what it means.
Complaint the second and hugest:
For the love of all that is wondrous, do not place an advertisement for another book on the page facing the final page of the book.
This is the worst thing in the world.
I just finished Annette Curtis Klause’s Blood and Chocolate.1 It’s a wonderful book that’s intense and involving and made me totally forget I live anywhere but in the world of Blood and Chocolate until I turned to the last page and there facing it was a whopping great big ad for another book by that publisher.
Aaargggh!!!
Way to break the spell, publisher people. Why would you do that? You just destroyed my reading experience. You just ruined thousands of people’s reading experience. A curse upon your house. A really nasty curse. One that means you never publish a profitable book again. You will lose all bidding wars, your publicity campaigns will crumble to dust, your most successful authors will leave you.
What should have been on the facing page was nothing. A blank page. There should never be anything facing the final page of a book. EVER. I do not understand how publishers don’t understand this.
Readers want a moment of quiet in which to savour the end of the book. Do not worry, we will eventually turn the page and find the back matter. We’ll read the acks, peruse the ads, and the opening chapter of the next book by the same author. That’s when we’ll be in the right frame of mind to be receptive to your blandishments to buy more of your books. There’s absolutely no need in the world to SHOUT at us to do so before we’ve finished the book.
Stop it immediately.
Yours sincerely,
A lover of books2
- I know, I know, everyone else read it years ago. Once again I am way behind the curve. [↩]
- Of the ones that don’t suck that is. [↩]
Foreign rights/Liar Sells to Brazil & Turkey
Late breaking news: Liar has sold to Editora Record in Brazil, who are also the home of the Magic or Madness trilogy. And for the first time in my career a book of mine has sold in Turkey! Liar has found a home at Artemis, an imprint of Alfa Yayin Grubu. Yay! Liar will now be published in seven different countries: Australia, Brazil, France, Germany, Taiwan, Turkey and the USA. Not bad for a book that isn’t out until October.
A couple of readers have asked me what this means exactly. How do books get sold to other countries? How does it all work?
Basically the world is divided up into various different territories for publishing rights. Those territories (more or less) correspond to different countries. Though notoriously the UK is under the delusion that many other countries are part of its territory. Newsflash to the UK: Your empire crumbled decades ago. Get over it!
When my agent, Jill Grinberg, sells one of my books the first rights she sells are North American (USA + Canada) and ANZ (Australia + New Zealand). Those two rights are sold directly. Thus my agent gets 15% and I get the rest.1
Translation rights to my work are sold by my agent working with different sub-agents around the world. Which means that they split the agents’ commission, with both my agent and the sub-agent taking 10%, and me getting 80%. Some sub-agents handle more than one territory. I know of one who handles Spanish and Portuguese language sales in multiple countries, but most sub-agents work only in one territory, which is usually their home country, and thus they know it really, really well.
The larger commission is no big deal because without agents working on your behalf you would not sell in other countries. The sub-agents are the people who know which publishing houses are after what kind of book, and who has the best translators. They’re the ones who sort out the labyrinthine tax laws and tax arrangements between your home country and the country you’re selling into. Also, I don’t know about you, but I am not fluent in any of the languages spoken in any of the countries I’ve been sold in other than Australia and the US.2
I became very interested in foreign rights after my first visit to the Bologna Book Fair, where I met some of my foreign publishers, and saw the world-wide business of buying and selling rights to kids and teen books up close. I was totally fascinated to learn that the Netherlands is not big on fantasy, Brazil loves chicklit, and most of Eastern Europe loves science fiction. The US market is notorious for buying almost no translation rights at all. I wonder what the Australian YA market is known for buying?
I hope that helps you understand a bit more what I’m talking about when I jump up and down because Turkey just bought my book. Did I mention that I just sold in Turkey?
Commenting with an Ad for Your Book is Spam
This is for the people who have been spamming my last post with ads for their boy-friendly books.
Don’t.
I am well aware you only landed here because you googled “boy books” and are looking for somewhere to post your spam. I don’t accept paid advertising so I’m certainly not going to let you advertise for free.
The comments on this blog are for discussion. By all means recommend a book that you think is relevant to the discussion. I’m all ears for passionate recommendations of books people love when it’s relevant. But do not comment with an ad for your own book. It’s tacky, it’s boring, it adds nothing to the conversation, and I will delete your ad. If you do it again I will ban you from my blog.
That is all.
Boys Reading (updated)
Update with warning: Do not post spam here about your boy-friendly book. I am deleting all such comments.
One of the most gratifying aspects of meeting people who’ve read How To Ditch Your Fairy since it came out last September (in the USA) is the number of boys who’ve turned out to be fans of the book. I will admit that given the title and the cover I was expecting an almost non-existent boy readership. I’ve been told a million times that boys won’t touch a pink book and that HTDYF is irredeemably pink. So I’ve been dead chuffed by the boy fans.
While on tour for the book last year many parents asked me if they thought my book would work for their son. I was able to confidently tell them about other boys who’ve liked it. But really I can’t speak for all boys. (Or for all girls.) It depends on what kind of stories your son likes.
During a panel I did recently (at either TLA this year or NCTE last year)1 we panellists were begged by a school librarian to write books for boys. Specifically funny ones with boy protags that have no sex in them. (How To Ditch Your Fairy manages two out of three.) Now I had several thoughts in response to this request:
- 1) I’ve never written a book to someone else’s specifications in my life and I’m not about to start now. I don’t even write them to my own specifications. My novels just go where they go.
2) There are heaps of books like that already in existence and I don’t just mean the Wimpy Kid books.
3) Why is there so much panic about boys reading? And such a strong conviction that boys will only read boy books?
I also get the feeling that we worry about “boy books” and “girl books” way too much. I talked with several twelve year old boys, who did not feel that their masculinity had been undermined in any way by reading How To Ditch Your Fairy. And, yes, I talked to several who wouldn’t touch it with a barge pole even after I assured them there were explosions in it.
I think there are way more boys reading then get counted as reading. On tour I met many boys who read and not just novels. I met boys who love manga and anime who told me they didn’t read because they thought only novels counted. Boys who read non-fiction by the truckload told me they didn’t read because they thought only novels counted. Boys who read manuals and catalogues ditto.
Why do so many boys have the idea that none of those count as reading?
Does anyone else wonder if the panic about boys reading novels may be one of the contributing factor to boys not reading novels?
I am a passionate reader of novels but I do not thing they are the be all and all of the reading experience. Why do we keep trying to insist that they are?
I have no answers to any of these questions. Do any of you?
- Sorry I has very poor memory. [↩]
Combating Spam (Updated)
Update: I have Askimet already. It’s the false positives, i.e. comments landing in moderation and spam filters that’s the problem.
Lately there’s been a huge increase in spam here. The result of my current methods of combating it is that heaps of your comments are winding up in the moderation queue. As I have a very heavy work schedule at the moment I’m often not getting to those comments for hours at a time. Not good.
I’m thinking of installing one of those anti-spam word thingies where you have to type in a random word or grouping of letters to prove you’re not a spambot. However, I kind of hate them when they’re on other people’s blogs. They definitely put me off commenting.
How about youse lot?
Would you hate it if I added such a plug-in? Would you be okay with it if the words it generated were amusing and/or related to this blog? Like “quokka” or “mangosteen”?
Anyone got any other brilliant spam combating tactics?
Things That Drive Me Crazy
I’m in a ranty kind of mood. Here’s what made me ropeable today:
- Hearing all about an explosive and insane blog post after it’s already been deleted.
- People who spoil books for me. Especially when I’m only a few chapters from the end. YOU KNOW WHO YOU ARE.
- Ditto for movies. Some of us haven’t seen the latest Star Trek movie yet.
- Friends who tell me they have Top Sekrit news but won’t tell me what that Top Sekrit news is.
- Not having any Top Sekrit news of my own.
- Being told that my genius promotional plan for my next book, Liar, of telling lies all the time until it’s published would just annoy people. Even after I’ve explained that they would be funny and amusing lies.
- There being no hot water when I have just gotten back from the gym and am covered in sweat.
Anything annoying you lately? Feel free to rant about it.
Annoyances shared are annoyances, um, well, shared, I guess . . .
Tall or Short. Doesn’t Matter.
Just read a very cool article by Arianne Cohen about being tall in which she shares the following extremely good advice:
I had never dated anyone shorter than me. I spent my time seeking out the 3% of men taller than me, who by definition made me not tall. I was alerted to the error of my ways while interviewing love and relationship expert Dr Betty Dodson. When I told her I only dated up, she exclaimed, “You’re prejudiced! I mean, come on! Develop a sense of humour! It will help. Look in the mirror and say, ‘God damn, we’re a weird-looking couple.’ And then shut it off.”
This was among the most life-changing advice I’ve ever received. Because she’s not talking about height. She’s talking about the way in which we all unwittingly corner ourselves by whittling down our options. Perhaps you only date or befriend people who are your ethnicity, or are overly educated, or in a certain field. And suddenly, just like that, 90% of your pool disappears.
This is so very true. Do not limit your options. Also there’s no correlation between height and moral probity or hygiene or good looks or smarts or anything else.1 So why worry about it? There’s nothing wrong with being short or tall.
Expanding your horizons is awesome advice. However, I have seen that idea expanded to mean you should have no horizons at all: “Don’t have a partner yet? Lower your standards. Don’t expect them to be clean or polite or interested in anything you’re interested in. Take what you can get!”
That’s the biggest pile of rubbish ever spoken. Never lower your standards!
But do let go of trivial reasons to knock people off your list. I once knew a woman who after a really lovely date with a guy she was attracted to decided not to see him again because he put his seat belt on in the cab on the way home. She considered that wussy. Which a) is stupid because it’s not wussy, and b) the dumbest reason ever for not seeing someone again.
I’ve also known folks not go out with someone cause they worry that other people won’t think they’re cool enough. Oh, hell, I mean me. There have been times in my life2 I didn’t go out with someone cause I was worried they weren’t cool enough. My loss. Fortunately for me I’d relaxed about that worry when I met Scott.3 Moral: If you like someone, are attracted to them, and you’re happy when you’re together then why do you care what other people think of them?4
Goes for friends too.
And thus ends my extremely obvious post advising you all not to do something none of you would ever do.
Have any of you not been friends with or dated someone for a really stupid reason? Confess!
Feel free to be anonymous.
- Okay, extremely tall people tend to be short lived than the rest of us but that’s about it. [↩]
- When I was little. [↩]
- I’m kidding. Scott is coolest man in universe. [↩]
- You know, unless your friends have figured out that the love of your life is a serial killer or something. Then you should listen to them. [↩]
Why Being a Writer is Better Than Being a Pro Sportsperson
At BEA there was much speculation about the end of publishing as we know it. How fewer books will be published and less money spent on them thus it will be harder for writers to make a living. I’m not actually convinced things are as bad as all that. Besides I don’t think it matters that much to most pro writers’ chances of making a living. It’s just as hard to make a living as a writer in good economic times as it is in bad. I know plenty of brilliant writers who make very little from their writing and only a handful who make anything close to a living wage.
But it’s not nearly as tenuous and fraught as being a pro sportsperson.
As some of you may know I’m a fan of the New York Liberty, New York’s Womens National Basketball Association team, and I follow the entire WNBA closely. This year there’s one less team than last so those players were dispersed to the remaining teams. At the same time all the teams have to reduce their roster to 11 players. That means that the transactions page looks like this:
- May 31
The Seattle Storm waived La’Tangela Atkinson and Kasha Terry.
The Atlanta Dream waived Chantelle Anderson.
The Phoenix Mercury waived Murriel Page.
The Chicago Sky waived Jennifer Risper.
May 30
The Minnesota Lynx waived Kamesha Hairston and Aisha Mohammed.
May 29
The Chicago Sky waived Liz Moeggenberg.
The Atlanta Dream waived Marlies Gipson.
The New York Liberty waived Abby Waner.
Those are all players being let go. They’ve had a couple of weeks in the pros and now it’s over.
There is a chance of being picked up by other WNBA teams. But there are fewer places—only 143—and more players than ever competing for them. Many talented amazing players are not going to make it. Some of them will find places on overseas teams, but most won’t.
Those are just the players who got picked up by a WNBA team in the first place. There are many many many college players who weren’t drafted in the first place. Some overseas players are also trying to break into those 143 spots available in the WNBA.
And if they do make it onto a team they can be traded at random to another team in another city. Often the press finds out that they’re now going to be living in San Antonio before they do.
Pro basketball players are lucky if their career lasts into their thirties and almost never into their forties. They rarely make it through without at least one serious injury resulting in surgery. When they’re older they wind up with arthritis.
I’m sure as with writing the rewards of doing what you love most for a living outweigh everything else, but, well it looks crazy hard to me and it makes me very glad I’m a writer not a basketball player.
Book Expo (BEA)
I spent the last two days at BEA. A few people have written me going, “What now? What is this BEA thing?”
BEA is the biggest publishing trade show in the US of A. It’s basically a giant hall full of publishers showing off their Fall (Autumn) books and trying to get booksellers and librarians to order lots and sell them in vast quantities to their customers. BEA allows booksellers to meet publishers and authors all in the one place and find out as much as they can about upcoming books all in the one place.
The first time I went to BEA I was completely overwhelmed. I hadn’t realised how many publishers there were in the US. Each had giant piles of ARCs to give away as well as fancy lanyards and bags and whistles and bubble gum and all sorts of other promotional stuff. This year there were way less of everything. Fewer publishers on the floor, fewer ARCs, fewer knick-knacks, fewer people. Not once did I feel claustrophobic. Many of the publishers had no piles of ARCs at all and were only giving them away at signings. I must admit it felt weird to see all the booths that were just shiny wall displays and no books. They looked naked.
There was much talk of the GFC (Global Financial Crisis) and how it was affecting publishing. Many predict a future of fewer publishers and fewer books, which sounds grim, but a surprising number of people thought that was a good thing. They argue that there’s been a glut of books for too long. Way too many publishers put out books that they don’t support, that disappear without a trace, make no money for anyone, and wind up being pulped. Surely, fewer books properly supported is a much better business model. The counter argument is that many publishers will opt to publish only what they consider to be commercial, which is a huge shame because many of the biggest selling books have been totally unexpected hits that were not deemed commercial.
This was my third BEA but the first time I’ve been there officially with a badge that has my name on it. W00t! I even had a signing down in the official autographing area1 I was worried that there would be no one in my line. There is no sadder sight than an author surrounded by free copies of their books that no one wants.
In case you think I’m being silly worrying about no one wanting ARCs of Liar: trust me, it happens. There are HEAPS of books being given away at BEA—all at the same time—you have to pick and choose what books you want. A tiny line can and does happen to authors much better known than I am. A few years ago a friend was witness to a very well-known author having with an empty line for free paperback copies of their excellent prize-winning and best-selling book. These weird things happen. One day an author has a line around the block, next day there’s no one. Depends on timing and location and how well the signing was publicised and etc.
So my fears of no one wanting my book were entirely rational. Though fortunately on this occasion not realised. A healthy number of people showed up for Liar. Many of them I didn’t even know! Quite a few had read my other books.2 They all promised not to spoil Liar. Bless them all.
So a huge phew on this occasion: signing a success!
In my corner of the publishing world, Young Adult, the hottest galley to get hold of by far was Suzanne Collins’ Catching Fire, which is the sequel to Hunger Games. I hear her signing was nuts. Scott’s Leviathan was also in big demand. His line was so long that when his hour was up they had to shift him to the overflow area where he kept signing for another half hour. I think Leviathan is Scott’s best book so far. Can’t wait to hear what other people think.
How was you BEA?
- Many call it the cattle corral—on account of how it massively resembles cattle pens. [↩]
- Yes, I am still amazed by people who’ve read my books. Nope, don’t know when I’ll get over that. [↩]
Segregated Proms Dance Mix
By TheChrisKnight: a musical take on segregated proms in the south:
My BEA Schedule
For those what will be attending Book Expo America, where publishing in the US of A is showcased, and there are dancing ladybugs and bears, as well as many free Advanced Readers Copies (ARCs) of upcoming books, here’s where I will be:
Friday, 8:00AM
Me and Scott will be at the YA breakfast. (I’ll be the wide awake one.)
Friday, 6:00PM
Me and Scott will be at the ABC Not-a-Dinner and Silent Auction. This time we better not be gazumped by some last minute annoying bidding person. YOU KNOW WHO YOU ARE.
Saturday, 3:00PM
I’ll be signing free ARCs of Liar in the Autograph Area Signing Table No. 9.
Saturday later
Various cocktail parties. I’ll be the one wearing feathers and gold lame and not drinking any alcohol because YA authors don’t drink. They don’t fuss or cuss or smoke or drink or lie or cheat or step on people’s feet or dance the hoochie-koo either. Just in case you were wondering.
What do you mean those are some of the lyrics from the song “Saved”? I have no idea what you’re talking about.
*cough* *cough*
Here’s Elvis singing “Saved”. It starts at around 5:30.
This version is from the 1968 comeback special1 which, everyone remembers on account of Elvis in sexy black leather,2 but my favourite bits are the campy big production numbers such as the gospel medley. (Apologies for the less than optimal quality. *shakes fist at youtube*)
Forgot to say that YA authors don’t dance the boogie all night long either. How could I forget that one? They’re heinous those all-night boogie dancers.
In Which I Run Around Like a Headless Chook
Today is a day of much stuff of admin-y tediousness. But it must be done. Le sigh.
So while I’m running around like a headless chook1 I would like to ask some more questions of you, my beloved brains trust:
- How do you feel about unreliable narrators? I have now heard from three different people that they’re not going to read my novel, Liar, because they hate unreliable narrators. But I have not been about to get out of them what it is they hate about them. Do any of you feel that way? Why?
- What’s the most unpleasant food experience you’ve ever had? Mine was scooping up what I thought was sugar but turned out to be salt.
- What’s your favourite word? Mine is currently flibbertigibbet. Scott’s is feculent. And Ben, who’s staying with us, likes spigot.
Have a fabulous day. Think compassionately of me running from boring task to boring task. Later!
- If you don’t know what a “chook” is then google it. [↩]
What Do My Readers Lie About?
Yesterday’s post got a pretty overwhelming not really from most of my readers. Most of you do not lie about those five things. (I was made very happy by all the teenage non-drinkers. Yay, youse!)
Judging from your comments and my own experience here’s my suggestion of a top five:
- That you didn’t do the thing your parents/teacher/boss busted you for
- That your friends’ clothes/appearance looks fine
- Your health in order to get out of school/work
- Height
- Weight
I have lied about all of these. But not about no. 1 in a very long time. Or about no. 3 and no. 4 in ages. Haven’t lied about no. 3 since I had a regular job. Sadly my no. 2 areas of lies is still going strong. But I don’t think of no. 2 as a lie so much as a difference in aesthetics that there’s no point in going into. I will never like t-shirts tucked into jeans or formal shorts or the colour yellow or espadrilles or gladiator sandals.
Is that any closer to a list of things most everyone has lied about? How many have you lied about these? What popular area of lying am I still missing out on?
A Little Bit More on Lies
An anonymous reader sent me this link to the top five things people lie about:
- 1. Age
2. Alcohol Consumption
3. Sexual History
4. Changed Appearance
5. Job
I am very pleased to see that I haven’t lied about any of them.
Well, except no. 1 when I was little in order to get into bars.1 Oh, and no. 5 a few times when I didn’t feel like answering the usual questions you get after you say you’re a writer. “Have you published anything?” “Would I have heard of you?” “Can you set me up with your agent?” I said I was a dental assistant. Oddly, that didn’t inspire any questions at all.
How about youse lot? Any of you lied about the top 5? What are your most common lies?
Feel free to be anonymous.
- Don’t try that at home, kids what are under 18 (in Australia) or 21 (in the USA). [↩]
Samson & Delilah
Last week my parents saw Samson & Delilah a debut film directed by Warwick Thornton. They say it’s the best Australian film they’ve seen in years. Here’s my mum, Jan’s, first reaction:
It was a brilliant movie. An indigenous-centric, totally engaging, no holds barred, slice of life from central Australia. An often subtle, informative, but never pedantic insight into community existence. Powerful and sad with splashes of humour, capturing it all with a moving allegorical ending.
Turns out the good folks at Cannes agree with Jan. Samson & Delilah just won the Camera d’Or for the best first feature film across all sections of the festival. How wonderful is that? Congratulations, Warwick Thornton.
Now I have to hope it’s still in the theatres when I get home in August. Maybe the Camera d’Or win means it’ll get distributed here?
Have any of my Aussie readers seen it? What did you think?
That’s Just How Things are . . .
I just read a locked post about a meeting with executives in a particularly appalling industry in which completely appalling racist and sexist statements were said over and over while the non-executives explained that these statements were appalling and the executives could not comprehend that there was anything appalling about what they were saying. “It’s just the ways things are,” they said.
Which is true as far as it goes. There is an appalling amount of racism and sexism in the world. That’s no excuse for perpetuating it.
Then I read this article in The New York Times about segregated proms in Georgia:1
Students of both races say that interracial friendships are common at Montgomery County High School. Black and white students also date one another, though often out of sight of judgmental parents. “Most of the students do want to have a prom together,” says Terra Fountain, a white 18-year-old who graduated from Montgomery County High School last year and is now living with her black boyfriend. “But it’s the white parents who say no . . . They’re like, if you’re going with the black people, I’m not going to pay for it.”
. . .
[T]hey questioned their white friends’ professed helplessness in the face of their parents’ prejudice (“You’re 18 years old! You’re old enough to smoke, drive, do whatever else you want to. Why aren’t you able to step up and say, ‘I want to have my senior prom with the people I’m graduating with?’ ”).
The black prom is open to whoever wants to attend. The white one is not. So much for post-racist USA, eh?
The white students haven’t worked hard to change things because that means bucking their parents, which is a lot of bother. Who’d buy them their fancy prom clothes? Plus, segregated proms are just the way things are in their part of Georgia. Why rock the boat?
I get laziness. I’m typing this in my pjs. There are times in my life when I could have spoken up and didn’t, when I didn’t fight hard enough. Being white and coasting on your privilege is easy. Taking risks is hard.
But you know what’s harder?
Living with racism every day of your life.
I’ll wager that, like me, most of those white students aren’t forced to deal with racism on a daily basis. They can slide on by without thinking about it for days, weeks, in some cases, years.
There are so many reasons to rock the segregation boat. In this case, those white students would wind up with a prom that’s more fun, with way more of their friends, and more importantly, they’d be part of something they would be proud of for the rest of their lives.
- I noticed something about that article. Two white students were quoted with their full names. Two black students are mentioned by full name, one by her first name, and two of them is quoted, but there’s a series of quotes at the end of the article that are attributed to unnamed black students. I was wondering if that was because the students declined to be named. But there are photos of them here. Was it because the reporter failed to jot down their names? A decision of one of the editors of the piece? Whatever the reason it struck me as an odd note in an otherwise excellent article. [↩]
Much Yay
Last week was a very big week for me. I found out that How to Ditch Your Fairy sold in Japan and Liar in France and Germany. (I also had my first lindy hop lesson. Next one is on Tuesday.)
How to Ditch Your Fairy sold to Tokyo Sogensha in Japan, who also publish Diana Wynne Jones. I know it’s tenuous proximity but it makes me happy, okay?
I can’t give more details on the French sale but I can say that my German publisher continues to be Bertelsmann Jugendbuch Verlag, who published the Magic or Madness trilogy in quick succession last year. It’s doing amazingly well over there, which I put down to the glory that is the covers:
Bertelsmann will also be publishing How to Ditch Your Fairy later this year. I met some of the crew over in Bologna last year and they were wonderful. Feels fabulous to have a solid home in Germany, which is one of the biggest book publishing markets in the world. Germans love to read. Bless them.
Sometimes I can’t believe this is real. It took twenty years to find anyone who wanted to publish for my fiction. I never dreamed it would appear in any language other than English. Yet here I am with a whole shelf full of various different editions of my books. Please let this last another twenty years.1 Fingers crossed!
In other yay news, Scott has previewed the final cover of Leviathan. It’s spectacular. And I say that as someone who loved the first version.
- Yeah, I’m aware of how great the odds are against that. [↩]
My Week as a Primary School Kid
On Tuesday we went to the Extreme Mammals exhibition. It was good. There were very big mammals and very small ones. I liked the ones with the really big eyes best. Weird. It was a good day except for when we walked through Central Park afterwards and my juice box exploded.
On Thursday we went to the school days pre-season New York Liberty game. That’s basketball in case you don’t know. It was good too. There were six thousand of us primary school and middle school and high school kids and some grown ups and we yelled A LOT. My favourite part was everyone dancing to Beyonce and when the cheerleaders fell down from being balanced in the air and when the Liberty won. We yelled EVEN MORE then. It was so loud my ears exploded.
Then we went to our dance lesson. The teacher was nice. She says I stick my elbows out and take too big steps but my knee bends and hand holds are good. There were lots of mirrors and we were sposed to look at ourselves in them. I was too embarrassed. We had to say slow-slow-quick-quick a lot. Scott had to learn to spin me. The music was bouncy. It was hot. We sweated. Afterwards my foot hurt exploded.
The End
Today is L-H day
I have booked five lindy hop lessons with one of the studios Frankie Manning once taught at. Today at 4pm I have my first lesson.
I am afraid. Very afraid.
If you don’t hear from me by tomorrow, you’ll know what happened. Remember me fondly!
And now I am off to hear many eleven year olds screaming super loudly. The first pre-season New York Liberty game. It will be chaos. I love chaos!
The Goodness of Bad Reviews
Daphne over at the Longstocking blog was talking about the Worst Review Ever blog and mentioned her shock at the meanness of some of the reviews:
I’m actually a reviewer for Publishers Weekly and while I’ve read some things that were kind of poorly constructed, I’ve never had even an urge to be even half this harsh, not even secretly if I strongly disliked the book. Too much work goes into a book for anything to warrant this kind of nastiness and seriously nothing is so bad it deserves to be called “a candy-coated turd.”
I have condemned books in stronger language than that. When I hate a book, I really hate a book. I totally get writing such vicious reviews. In fact, that’s one of the main reasons I don’t write reviews and only discuss books on this blog if I love them: the knowledge that were I to write an honest review of a book I hate I would most definitely hurt other writers’ feelings, alienate their fans, and lose friends. Also the YA world is small and writing a bad review of another YA writer’s book leaves you open to charges of sour grapes. Life’s too short.
I say that as someone who has received very mean reviews. I know exactly how much it hurts. Reviews have made me cry and scream and kick my (thankfully imaginary) dog (poor Elvis, he knows I love him). But I believe people are moved to write such nasty reviews because of the intensity of their relationship with books. That’s awesome!
I feel that too. When I read a book I was expecting to love and it sucks I feel betrayed. When I read a book in a beloved series and the characters are suddenly transformed beyond recognition and there seems to have been no editing at all and the writing has gone to hell, I am OUTRAGED. I want to kick the editor and the author. On the scale of things, I think writing a mean review about the book is way better than assault.
Passionate reviews, good or bad, are fabulous. It’s great that people care enough to rant or rave about a book. I don’t think it’s unprofessional to vent your spleen at a book. Some eviscerations of books are wonderfully well written and a total pleasure to read. And some passionate raves about books are appallingly badly constructed. One of the reviews of my books that embarrasses me the most was a rave. An extraordinarily badly written rave in a professional location1 which so mischaracterised my book that it was unrecognisable. The reviewer clearly loved the book. They also clearly didn’t understand it. No review has annoyed me as much as that one.
On the other hand, my favourite review ever remains the one written by a punter on the B&N site which said Magic or Madness was like a bad Australian episode of Charmed. Makes me laugh every time I think of it.
An unprofessional review is one that attacks the author directly. But the problem is that most writers conflate themselves with their books so that many consider an attack on their work to be an attack on them. It’s really hard for us writers to be clear that the reviewer is calling our book “a candy-coated turd” not us. But learn it we must! Part of this job is having your work assessed by people who are not going to be kind. No one owes you a good review.
A site like the Worst Review Ever is an excellent place for authors with bruised egos to vent, but I really hope it doesn’t have a dampening effect on online YA reviewers. If you hate a book, say so. Figure out exactly what it was that bugged you about it and let rip. You’re doing all of us readers a service. Even if we totally disagree with you. One of the most useful parts about Twilight’s success has been the vigorous debate all over the intramawebs about the book’s worth and effect on its readers. I’ve learned a lot from it. I’d really hate for reviewers worried about an author’s feelings to dilute their passion. Bugger the author’s feelings. You’re not writing reviews for them, you’re writing your reviews for us readers.
Readers, you (we) have the right to hate!
And also the right to change our minds at a later date when we read the book and discover it didn’t suck after all. Or vice versa.
Authors, you know what’s worse than a bad review? No reviews at all.
- I’m not saying whether it was online or off. [↩]
Invisible Audiences? Invisible to Whom?
One of the discoveries I made while doing research for my PhD thesis, which ultimately became The Battle of the Sexes in Science Fiction, was that women had always read and written science fiction. I found letters to science fiction magazines from women as early as the late 1920s, a short story contest winner in 1927.1 This was contrary to so many people’s views that there were no women engaged with science fiction until the 1950s. (Though some said not till the 1960s.) There were also a few women who attended science fiction conventions from the very beginning.
As I read through fanzines and science fiction magazines from the 1920s onwards, I found many article dismissing these women, which is largely what Battle of the Sexes is about:
The letters were from bored housewives with nothing else to do, the stories by women were crap and only published cause it was like a dog walking on its hind legs, and the women at conventions were only there because their boyfriend/husband dragged them along. And look how few in numbers! See? There are no women in science fiction!2
What those arguments have always failed to recognise is that the majority of readers/viewers of anything are not active in their engagement with a genre/show. Vastly more people were reading science fiction magazines than ever wrote a letter to the editor of an sf magazine or fanzine or went to a con. There are always huge numbers of people who are avid readers/viewers who are never counted by the people who are active in their engagement so those active fans start to assume that they are the centre of their genre and no one else exists.
Throughout my time as a doctoral student (which was pre-internet) I would meet people I never would have pegged as science fiction fans, who upon hearing of my research would start reminiscing about the sf magazines they read as a kid, of the Heinlein/Le Guin/McCaffrey books they adored, and their love affair with Star Trek/Doctor Who/Blake’s Seven. Most of these people had never heard of fandom, had no idea there were conventions etc. They just loved science fiction on their lonesome. I met others who had heard of it but there was no way they would have attended a con because back then it was all white boys and they knew they wouldn’t fit in.
Science fiction cons have been white and male for most of their existence. I remember the first con I went to more than a decade ago. I was terrified. It was mostly male. And, yes, I was sexually harassed. (A very common experience for women at cons.) But I also met many wonderful people who have remained friends to this day and before too long I discovered WisCon, the feminist convention, which was a much more hospitable place for me.3
There has long been speculation about why there are so few non-white fans of the genre. I have always been convinced, based on my research, that it’s hard to know how big that readership is. If as a woman in the 1990s I felt uncomfortable walking into a convention that was about 30% female how much more uncomfortable would someone not white feeling walking into a space that was 99% white?
Over at Deadbrowalking: the People of Color Deathwatch there’s a wild unicorn check in where people of colour who read/watch genre and love it are putting up their hands. So far there have been more than 900 comments. And many of the people talk about their parents’ love of science fiction and their grandparents too. Those 900 plus declarations are just the tip of the iceberg. There are many more fans out there who don’t own computers, or if they do, have no idea that Deadbrowalking exists.
As I read through the pages and pages of comments over there I couldn’t help thinking about all the “Science Fiction is Dying” panels at cons I’ve seen over the years. I’ve always been bewildered by that claim and the prevalence of those panels. But it wasn’t until I read all the wild unicorn comments that I realised what those panels are really about. They’re talking about their brand of science fiction: the stuff that began in the late 1920s and and has been largely white, male, and all too frequently misogynist and racist. They’re not talking about the other streams that were growing up in Japan and China and Europe and, yes, the USA and elsewhere. They’re not talking about feminist science fiction or manga or anime or YA. None of that counts to them.
They’re saying that the white, male-dominated science fiction of boys with their hard science toys is dying.
And, you know what? I won’t weep if they’re right.
- Which is essentially when USian science fiction began. [↩]
- Not an actual quote. Just my paraphrase. [↩]
- Though I know of a few cases of women being harassed there too. [↩]
Five Thousand Dollars Raised for NYPL: Yes, I’ll Be Learning to Lindy Hop
So, you lot won, I’ll be learning to lindy hop. Margaret Miller and Lauren McLaughlin have volunteered to go with me for at least part of the process. As has my husband. I’m sure it won’t be the worst thing I’ve ever experienced.
Thanks a bunch, evil minions of John Scalzi, Maureen Johnson and John Green—John Green, being the evil-John-Green-minion-in-chief. But most of all thanks to my husband who stepped in at the last minute to make sure the $5,000 total was met. (All thanks sarcastic in case you were wondering.)
The New York Public Library really does thank you all. Truly, I’m so thrilled that we’ve raised five thousand dollars to help them out. If you’d like you can start making those pledges real now. Or you can wait until I start delivering proof that I’m learning the lindy hop.
I will blog the whole process from my first lesson on. I’ll be doing this properly. There will be more than one lesson. Final proof will take the form of three YA author witnesses approved by John Green. They will watch me dancing the Lindy Hop and testify to their witness on their blogs. There will be no video.
All this talk of the lindy hop is especially fitting as one of the originators of the dance, Frankie Manning, died on the 27th of April. He was not only a pioneer and tireless evangelical for the dance but a true New York City boy through and through. He’s a huge loss, not just to the world of dancing, but to the city. Footage of him dancing was a big influence on my deciding to include lindy hopping in my 1930s NYC novel. It’s very fitting that I’ll be learning this dance in the city where it originated for a book set during the early days of the dance.
Here’s hoping lindy hopping doesn’t render my plantar fasciitis permanent! Or give me any additional injuries. But if it does I’ll know who to blame: MY OWN HUSBAND!
Language Wars
One of the best books I ever read about language is Deborah Cameron’s Verbal Hygiene, which was published way back in 1995. It’s a wonderful look at the way people try to regulate language to make it functionally, aesthetically and morally “better” and how insanely outraged and angry they get about it.
There are people who are completely wedded to the Latin-ification of English grammar that began in the 1700s, thus they are wedded to “he” as the universal pronoun, believe that infinitives must not be split, and are deeply in love with the subjunctive mood, which is on its way out in English.1
There are those who are appalled by changes in the spelling and meaning of words. They’re outraged that “alright” is becoming as common a spelling as “all right.”2 They mourn the loss of the distinct meaning of the word “disinterest” etc etc.
There are those still wedded to what their English/MFA teacher taught them in primary school/university. Never use passive voice! Never end or begin a sentence with a conjunction! Avoid adverbs! Use adjectives sparingly!
A large chunk of my university training was in linguistics. I was trained in descriptivist traditions. That is, I was learning how to describe language use not how to police it. We never discussed wrong usage ever. That concept just didn’t exist. I studied how various different groups used language. We looked at language acquisition in small children as well as those learning English for the first time as adults. We looked at the way language changes. How what was once non-standard becomes standard and vice versa. Things like that.
I learned to listen to what people really said and to think about how and why. This is reflected in the novels I write. I use “alright” in dialogue because that’s what I hear many people saying, not “all right.” Particularly younger speakers, which is who most of my characters are. Many of my characters split infinitives, don’t use subjunctive, don’t say “whom” and thus commit what some consider crimes against language. Yes, I have gotten letters to that effect.
It is fascinating how intensely invested people are in language use. Especially writers. Whenever I discuss this with writer friends we don’t get very far because many of them are wedded to one or more of the uses I observe disappearing. Don’t defend the “alright” spelling in front of John Scalzi, for instance. I get that passion. I’m sad about “disinterest” losing its specific meaning too. But not that sad. There are other ways to say the same thing, which don’t confuse as many people. Sadly, they’re usually longer and less elegant.
I’m as invested as they are in my understanding of how language works and how it is deployed, which is why I get into so many heated discussions with my writer friends and protracted battles with editors, coypeditors and proofreaders, who are almost all prescriptivist. Like Geoffrey Pullum, I think The Elements of Style by Strunk & White is an amusing but insane set of self-contradicting rules: if you try to match rule with examples your head will explode. But I know people who find Strunk & White useful and have learned to write clearly from it.
English is a contradictory sprawling mess. Any attempt to map it out with a set of rules is doomed to self-contradiction and insanity. Lynne Truss’ Eats, Shoots & Leaves: The Zero Tolerance Approach to Punctuation is as bad as Strunk & White. But has also been useful to many floundering in the mess that is English. Even attempts to merely describe the language are doomed. It’s too big, too unwieldy and growing too fast.
That’s part of why the English language makes me so happy.3 I can’t spell it very well, according to many I abuse its grammar rules, but English lets me break it open, pull out new words, mash up old ones. I get to play with how it looks and sounds and feels.
Like those who stand tall to defend English from the likes of me, I love it.
Just, you know, my love is more fun. 
4
- Though I will confess that I am using subjunctive a lot in my 1930s novel, whose omni narrator is on the pompous side. [↩]
- (For the record, I think “alright” and “all right” are often used as two different words and deploy them thus in my books, giving my copyeditors major headaches. [↩]
- Not that I have many points of comparison given that I’ve never been completely fluent in any other language. I had a decent grasp of Kriol when I was very little but that’s long gone. I learned some Bahasa Indonesia in high school and first year uni. Also mostly gone. And then learned Spanish while living there for five months many years ago. My Spanish is also disappearing from lack of use. [↩]
- That smiley isn’t going to save me from the haters, is it? [↩]
Sekrit Business
Today I am engaged in very sekrit business, which I cannot tell you about so don’t ask. That’s what “sekrit” means, people. Something so very very secret and important that if you even ask what it is there will be dire consequences.
I’m leaving Cobweb here to keep an eye on you all and make sure you behave. She’s a squirrel glider who currently resides at Taronga Zoo with her sister, Moth.
They’re both vicious killers with a taste for human flesh, but Cobweb is by far the more vicious of the two. Trust me, you do not want to get on Cobweb’s bad side.
You have been warned!
Behold the face of a killer:
Fact-checking, Spelling and Blogs
My blog has no copy editor, no proof reader, and no fact checker. It’s just me. Occasionally I’ll get Scott or one of my friends to proof a post, but not often. They’re busy. Even more rarely my readers will point out errors. Yesterday someone wrote and told me I’d misspelt Count Basie’s name on my bio page. *Blushes*. I was extremely grateful. That mistake had already been there close to a year! Who knows how many more such errors there are all over this blog?
I’m not a great speller and I find proper nouns especially difficult. The copy editors on my last two books, How To Ditch Your Fairy and Liar, found I’d spelled various of the characters names in two or more different ways. I hadn’t noticed. Apparently that’s because spelling is linked to visual memory and mine is crap.1
There are very few blogs out there that are copy edited or proofed or fact checked. Something I frequently forget even though I have a blog myself.
This is just to remind myself to try and be a little bit less credulous.
That is all. Resume your Friday night festivities or Saturday morning frolicks.2
- Note that I have no idea where I got that factoid from and no idea if it’s true. Told you I had no fact checker. [↩]
- Half my audience is back home in Oz and the rest here in the US of A or Europe. [↩]
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