NaNo Tip No. 20: Don’t Wait for the Muse to Strike
It’s day twenty and I’ve seen some talk on NaNoNoWriMo blogs of muses showing up or, more often, not. I’m sure for some of you muses are a very useful metaphor for your creative process. However, sitting on your arse waiting for them to show up? Frequently not a good approach to actual writing.
“Oh noes! My muse is not here! I cannot write! Instead I will play Left 4 Dead 2 until muse shows up.”
This method will leave you with kickarse zombie killing skills but will not be much chop when it comes to, you know, writing.
Now, I’m not a very spiritual or mystical person, so feel free to ignore me. But I can tell you that even my most mystical woo-woo writer friends do not sit around waiting for their muse to show up. They write when they’re feeling inspired. They write when they’re not. Depending on deadlines, they write when it’s a gorgeous day and they’d much rather be cycling, they write when they’re supposed to be at a movie with friends, they write when they haven’t had enough sleep, they write when they’re ill. They write because it is their job to do so.
One of the cool things about NaNoWriMo is that it gives you a taste of what it’s like to a professional writer. Of what it’s like to write day after day after day even when you don’t want to. What some of you may discover is that it’s not for you. That you truly cannot write without inspiration. That deadlines don’t galvanise you, they freeze you. In which case the life of a full-time pro writer is not for you.
That does not mean you can’t still write. At all. There are many published writers, who write in their spare time, for whom it is not their main source of income. The majority of published writers are like that. And there are even more unpublished writers for whom the writing is the thing and getting published is not a goal. Many writers of fanfic have zero desire to turn pro.
Which leads me to revise my position: it’s perfectly fine to wait for your muse to show up if writing is not your job. But if you depend upon writing then you have to learn to make it a habit, a way of life, and not depend on totally unreliable muses and inspiration and the like.
Don’t forget to check out Scott’s NaNo writing tips.
Liar Question
I keep being asked the same basic question about Liar so I thought that I would answer it here before pushing it across to the Liar FAQ. My answer is not a spoiler as it touches on stuff that is revealed in the first few pages.
The question is:
- Q: What do I know is true that Micah tells us?
A: It’s not straight forward for me to answer this question. What I thought I knew about Micah changed as I wrote the book. But I can tell you that all Micah’s fundamentals are absolutely true. Her race, her age, her gender, her neighbourhood—she is from the East Village of New York City, her parents. I also know that she had a relationship with Zach, which was reciprocal. Her mourning for him is absolutely real.
I do know more beyond that but it’s spoilery. Hope that satisfies those who’ve been asking.
For those of you who’ve read it and are wondering what other people are thinking about it you should check out the spoiler thread. You should also have a look at the FAQ thread where people have been sharing some interesting thoughts about the book and asking some curly questions.
NaNo Tip No. 18: Breaking with Stereotypes
Yesterday’s post led to Kilks suggesting that I base a NaNo tip on it, which I am now doing.
One of the biggest flaws in beginner writing is a reliance on stereotypes and cliches which produces characters who never come to life because they lack verisimilitude. The female protag faints and is afraid of spiders. The male one is brave and strong. Or vice versa. And that’s all there is to them. They’re thinner than paper.
What do I mean by a stereotype? Let’s look at one that frequently shows up in US teen movies and books: the dumb jock.
Now am I saying that you can’t write about a dumb jock? No, absolutely not. I’m saying that if you’re writing a character who has been written a million times before and been in a million movies you have to work hard to make them transcend being merely “the dumb jock.” You have to turn them into a fully realised character.
My favourite dumb jock is D.J. Schwenk, the protag of Catherine Gilbert Murdock’s Dairy Queen trilogy. D.J. breaks the stereotype in several ways. For starters she’s a girl and she’s playing American football on a boy’s team. But there’s more to it than that. She’s dumb in that she’s not very good at school work. She doesn’t get why people read books for pleasure. And she’s not particularly smart about her own feelings. Or rather she’s slow at figuring them out. She’s slow at things that aren’t physical. But she gets there eventually. All too often we equate fast thinking with smart thinking and D.J. helps get you to rethink that. Maybe she’s considered “dumb” because our definition of smart isn’t very flexible?
When a character is making you rethink what it means to be “dumb” or “smart” you know you’re in the hands of a wonderful writer.
How does Murdock do it?
It’s all in the details. The tell-tale observations that are so particular to her character. The syntax and rhythm of D.J.’s speech (the books are in first person) sounds like no one but D.J. Schwenk. Here’s the opening of the third book in the trilogy, Front and Center:
Here are ten words I never thought I’d be saying . . . Well, okay, sure. I say these words all the time. It’s not like school and good and to are the kind of words you can avoid even if you wanted to. It’s just that I’ve never said them in this particular order. Not that I can remember, anyway. But what do you know, there they were inside my head, like a little thing you’d say to get yourself psyched: It sure feels good to be going back to school.
It feels like D.J. is talking directly to us. We get to see her thought patterns, which are halting, even clumsy, she’s not comfortable with words, which is something we usually associate with being smart.
It’s very intimate to be allowed such close access to someone else’s thoughts. It’s a great way to get your audience on side with your character. We get to know them better than anyone else in the book does. And when we know a character that well it’s impossible for them to remain a stereotype.
So there you have it: if you get inside your character’s head, really get to understand them, then they cease to be a cliche. It doesn’t matter if they started as the perky cheerleader, or the loner goth kid who reads too much, or the bully with problems at home they will become themselves: real and believable.
Good luck with it!
Blank Page Heroine
Recently, the brilliant Sarah Rees Brennan talked about her love of romance and reviewed a few in her inimitable style.1 She mentioned in passing her least favourite kind of heroine:
I truly hate the Blank Page Heroine. She is in a lot of books—I don’t mean to pick on romance, because sadly I have seen her in every genre, including my own—and sometimes she seems to be there as a match for the hero who won’t bother him with things like ‘hobbies’ and ‘opinions.’ Sometimes she is carefully featureless (still missing those pesky hobbies and opinions) so that, apparently, the reader can identify with her and slot their own personalities onto a blank page. As I don’t identify with blank pages, I find the whole business disturbing.
I had always thought of this as The Girlfriend. She is in many many many Hollywood movies and is absolutely interchangeable in them. Because it’s the male characters who are important in movies like . . . Nah. I won’t name them so the comments don’t become an argument about how I am wrong and So & So movie is not like that and blah blah blah. The girl, if she’s there at all, is merely decoration and a reward for the hero. She is entirely without personality. And thus completely without interest for me, which is why I do not like such movies.
I was quite shocked to find the same character in books written by women. I’d become convinced that she was a straight male fantasy. Surely women know that we women have opinions and hobbies and an internal life? Why would they write a female character without dimensions? It’s still a mystery. I adore Sarah Rees Brennan’s name for them: Blank Page Heroine. That’s exactly it. There’s no there there. Just a blankness. A very sad making blankness. Bad enough that we women are all too often told to shut up and not take up space in real life, but for it to happen in our escapist literature too? Aaargh!
And what kind of a lesson does Blank Page Heroine Love teach? If the love between two people involves one of them giving up everything for the other one including their personality, their own likes and desires and needs, then that love is not going to last long or end well. Trust me, I have seen it happen. If you have to suppress who you are in order for your relationship to last2 then that relationship does not deserve to last. It’s not good for you or the person you love.
But thankfully, as SRB points out, there have been many wonderful romances of late.3 Heroines who exist for many reasons other than to find the love of that one true hero.4 My favourite recent romance writer is Sherry Thomas, who not only writes wonderfully believable men and women but some of them are even older than 25! Bless! Go check out SRB’s post for more romance recommendations.
- Well, I could not imitate it. [↩]
- Unless, like Dexter, you happen to be a serial killer. [↩]
- And always. Austen’s heroines aren’t exactly blank pages. [↩]
- Why some of them are even there for the love of another heroine! [↩]
NaNo Tip No. 16: Edit as You Go
I know I wrote a whole tip telling you to ease up on yourself and expect badness in your first draft. I encouraged you to just pound it out and leave the editing till later.
Sadly, that doesn’t work for every writer. Nor does it work for every book. Although I bashed out a crappy zero draft for the majority of my books, I wrote Liar editing as I went. I don’t think it would have worked to have written it any other way.
I wrote Liar scene by scene. Working on each one until it was polished and gleaming and then, and only then, moving on to the next one. The scenes in Liar are pretty short so it was easier to write that way than if they were longer regular chapters. (You can see an extract here. I talk a bit more about the writing of Liar here.)
The other approach to editing as you go is to start each new session by going over the last bit of the book you wrote. This is an especially good technique for those people who struggle to get going with their writing. Instead of beginning each new session with the scary blankness of what is not yet written, you begin with the comfort of words already on the page. Go over the last couple of chapters, fix what needs fixing from typos on up, reacquaint yourself with your characters and story, and write from there. By the time the draft is finished you’ll have gone over the majority of the novel two or three times and your novel will be in much better shape than if you’d just banged the whole thing out with nary a glance backwards.
Not that there’s anything wrong with that approach. Like I said I’ve written many novels that way.
You’re now more than half way through NaNoWriMo. Congratulations! And good luck for the next 14 days!
Signed Books in the USA
Because I just had a long discussion with some friends about what constitutes being crassly commercial I’ve decided now is the time to let you know where you can buy signed books of mine. What? Some people write and ask me that, you know. Also it’s Sunday no one will notice me being crassly commercial.
I have scribbled on copies of my books in the following places in the US of A:
-
Austin
Book People
603 N. Lamar Blvd.
Austin, TX 78703
Chicago Area
B&N Skokie
55 Old Orchard Center
Skokie, IL
Anderson’s Bookshop
5112 Main St
Downers Grove, IL
Lake Forest Book Store
680 N. Western Ave.
Lake Forest, IL
Memphis
Davis-Kidd Booksellers
387 Perkins Ext
Memphis, TN
New York
Voracious Reader
1997 Palmer Ave
Larchmont, NY
Books of Wonder
18 W. 18th St.
New York, NY
Philadelphia
Blue Marble
551 Carpenter Ln
Philadelphia, PA
Children’s Book World
17 Haverford Station Road
Haverford, PA
Portland
A Children’s Place
4807 NE Fremont St
Portland, OR
Barnes & Noble
12000 SE 82nd Avenue
Portland, OR
Seattle area
UWash Bookstore
4326 University Way NE
Seattle, WA
Third Place Books
17171 Bothell Way NE
Lake Forest Park, WA
Barnes & Noble
19401 Alderwood Mall Parkway
Lynnwood, WA
For those of you in Australia, I will be back home and shall try to sign books at various book stores in Sydney in December. I pretty much always manage to make it to Kinokuniya and Galaxy. I’ll keep you posted.
Thus ends this crassly comercial service announcement. Normal service will resume tomorrow.
NaNo Tip No. 14: Procrastination can be Your Friend
Yes, it’s time for some more vaguely contradictory advice. So first a word on that. Here’s why this tip is not contradictory. No one technique or strategy works for every writer. They don’t even work for one writer all the time. There are times when the only way I can get any writing done is to cut off from all external stimuli, most especially the internet. Sometimes I can’t write if there’s music on. But other times I need music and I need the internet.
Sometimes my procrastination feeds my writing.
That’s right, sometimes procrastination is your friend.
Yes, I know I just told you to turn the internet off. Well, now I’m telling you to turn it back on again. Or to go clean the bathroom. Or crochet or knit. Shoot some hoops. Take a shower. Or do some other urgent-ish thing that is calling to you rather than writing. Yes, even if it involves hacking off zombie heads.
My biggest form of procrastination is IMing with friends. I have been known to spend 8 hours straight doing so. (Hello, Alaya!) I find five convos1 at the same time no problem.2 I can’t tell you how many times those conversations have given me ideas, solved plot problems, made me realise something about my writing I never realised before.
To be clear we mostly don’t talk about each other’s writing directly. What we do is talk about many other things including shows, books, movies we love (or hate) and what did (or didn’t) work about them. Ever since Diana Peterfreund first nudged me towards watching Avatar we’ve been talking about it. I think writing a convincing and likable Chosen One is incredibly hard. I tend to dislike fiction that centres around one. Yet Aang in Avatar is just about pitch perfect. Our Avatar conversations have sparked off a million and one ideas that have gone into various projects of mine.
So, yes, it’s procrastinating. But it’s also feeding into my work in awesomely productive ways. I think everything I experience feeds into my writing. Which is why I believe procrastination is necessary.
Sometimes you need to be alone with your work. But no one can create without stimulus from the outside world. The key is balancing the two.
- More than five, though, and I’m lost. What can I tell you? I’m old. [↩]
- While also reading blogs etc. [↩]
Ebooks of My Novels
This year I’ve been getting more and more people asking about ebook editions of my novels. This is my general response to that query.
First of all: you’re asking the wrong person. My publishers are in charge of the electronic rights to my novels. If you’re curious John Scalzi has more to say on this question. If you’re desperate for ebooks of my stuff bug my publishers, not me. That will be much more effective.
But here’s what I know: Penguin has made electronic editions of Magic Lessons and Magic’s Child available. But for some reason not the first book in that trilogy, Magic or Madness. Apparently they’re working on it. That’s all I know.
Bloomsbury, who publish How To Ditch Your Fairy and Liar, are also working on making them available as ebooks. Possibly it will happen by the end of this year. Again that’s all I know.
I suspect one of the big reasons that my books are not available is that very few teens are reading ebooks and they are the biggest part of my audience. (Bless you all!)
There’s also the fact that those who have converted to ebooks are still a very small part of the market. Tiny even. So there’s no great urgency for my publishers to make my books available. It’s a very new thing for them. Many of the big publishers are still figuring out their approach to ebooks, especially YA and children’s publishers. I’m sure in the next few years, as the ebook market expands, all of my books, and everyone else’s, will be available as a matter of course. But we are just at the beginning of the ebook revolution.
And there you have it: bug them, not me.
NaNo Tip No. 12: Turn the Internet off
It’s day 12 and on the NaNoWriMo blogs there’s much talk of word counts missed, scenes not written, and of generally falling behind. Now that is to be expected. As previously mentioned I do not think you should be freaking out about word counts. NaNoWriMo is chance to stretch and grow. However, I can’t help noticing that those same blog bemoaning lack of progress are also full of talk of excellent blogs with great NaNoWriMo advice and sundry other things discovered on these wonderous intramanets. Could it be that the one is getting in the way of the other?
Perhaps now is the time to rip the DSL from the wall, switch your cable off, hide your modem. Maybe you need to make your internet go away entirely until you’ve gotten as much writing done as you’re capable of.
I am a creature of little self control so sometimes I have Scott take the internet from me so I do not start chatting with everyone I know for hours and hours about writing rather than, you know, actually writing. The most and most consistent writing I’ve ever done was when staying in an internet-less house.
I worry that some of you are as bad as me.
How about for the next few days you experiment with not having the internet on while you NaNoWriMo?
Let me know how it goes.
Note: Today’s tip was brought to you by a swearing John Scalzi.
Don’t forget to check out Scott’s tips. Yesterday’s one was about the passage of disbelief.
Last Night’s Event
The event at Books of Wonder with Libba Bray, Kristin Cashore, Suzanne Collins, me and Scott last night was astonishing. Several people said they thought there were around 200 people there. I could not possibly guess from where I was sitting, but it did indeed appear to be many.
Here’s my bad fuzzy photo of the many:
It was pretty overwhelming to be on the bill with such popular writers, especially Suzanne Collins. For those who don’t know, her two most recent novels, Hunger Games and Catching Fire are currently, and have been for some time, numbers one and two on The New York Times bestsellers list, selling bajillions of copies a week. The Books of Wonder appearance was organised around Suzanne because it was her only signing for Catching Fire. I can’t tell you how grateful I am that Peter Glassman (the owner of BoW) thought to ask me to take part. Here’s Suzanne in action (with Libba Bray listening carefully):
I’d never met Suzanne before. She’s lovely, smart and gently funny. She, me and Libba had a fun conversation about the joys (meeting wonderful teens, booksellers, librarians) and travails (food poisoning) of touring. She’s also extraordinarily generous, giving up a big chunk of her presentation to talk in detail about how much she’d loved Liar, Fire,1 Leviathan and Going Bovine. Thank you, Suzanne.
I’d never met Kristin either and she also turned out to be lovely. I don’t know what it is about the YA world but almost all the authors I’ve met have been fabulous.2 It’s such a wonderful community to be part of.
It was only overwhelming at first then it quickly became relaxing. For most of my tour, I’ve done solo events with all the attention on me, but last night I could sit back and watch how other YA authors answer questions about how they come up with names, where they get their ideas, and which characters they like best.
Suzanne and Kristin were both so thoughtful and smart, providing little glimpses into how they work. They both have detailed maps of the imaginary worlds they’ve created. It sounds like Kristin’s world encompasses gazillions of countries and large swathes of time. Very Tolkienesque. Libba Bray remains one of the funniest people on the planet and I don’t just say that because she’s a dear friend of mine. As does Scott.3 Last night’s event made me want to stick to doing events with other people. Not just because it’s more fun for me, but also because it felt like the audience gets more out of it too.
What do you think?
One event I’m dying to do is me and Libba talking about unreliable narrators. For those of you who haven’t read Going Bovine you really should. We wrote Liar and Going Bovine at the same time and commented on each other’s early drafts. I can’t tell you how deeply eerie it was to discover we were both writing unreliable narrators and how many resemblances there were between our books even while they were also extremely different. Going Bovine is hysterically funny; Liar not so much. I think our two books work amazingly well side by side. Turns out I am not the only one to notice this.
Maybe some time next year we’ll be able to talk about our books, their unreliability, and how hard they were to write side by side. Fingers crossed!
- As Kristin said, “Look! Our books rhyme!” [↩]
- Another contributing factor to why I never want to write for the grown ups: I’d have to hang out with the cranky adult literature authors. Ewww. [↩]
- Yes, I know he’s my husband but he truly is hilarious. [↩]
NaNo Tip No. 10: Don’t Skip the Tricky Bits
I hope you all saw Scott’s tip yesterday, the first of a series on meta-documents. Though now that I use Scrivener, I no longer use meta-documents. Or, rather, I do but they’re all incorporated into the one Scrivener document so it doesn’t feel like lots of different documents.
But I digress: on to today’s tip which has nothing to do with meta-documents and also kind of contradicts my previous tip about using square brackets. It emerges from a conversation I had with the marvellous Sarah Rees Brennan. It turns out that she does not skip the boring or tricky bits but instead bribes herself into writing them. Her reward is to write the fun scene on the other side of the tricky bit. So if she doesn’t write the scene she’s been avoiding then she’s not allowed to write the scene she really wants to write.
There are many reasons for doing this but the most frequently cited one is that if you skip all the hard bits—as I advised you to do in the square bracket post—you may never finish the book. As Zeborah puts it:
It means I write all the easy parts of the book first, meaning I have to write all the hard parts later in a single chunk, meaning I probably won’t finish the book. Whereas if I force myself to write entirely in order, I can use a future easy-and-fun scene as a reward for getting through a hard scene.
Another reason not to skip tricky scenes is that sometimes you don’t know whether a scene is going to be hard until you’ve written it. I can’t tell you how many times a scene I was dreading has turned out to be easy and vice versa. A slightly spoilery Liar example after the cut: (more…)
On Tips + OTP
From various sources, I see that a few people are a little freaked when the tips Scott and me have been sharing don’t work for you. Please to relax. No writing tip works for everyone. And even if it does work for you now, it might not always. For instance, I no longer use square brackets though once I found them extremely useful. My last novel had no zero draft. Some novels I write without paying attention to daily word counts, some novels I do. I’ve not used a time line for most of my books. I’ve never dialogue spined an entire novel.
I recently learned that in certain fandoms OTP stands for One True Pairing. That is, the two characters who are meant to be together. This has made me look at everything with entirely different eyes. Do any of you watch Community? Me and Scott have decided that Abed1 and Troy are that show’s OTP. Our favourite part of Community is their bit after the credits at the end of every show. Fills my heart with joy:
I’m off to spot all the other OTPs in the universe.
- Abed as Batman is the best thing in the entire universe. [↩]
NaNo Tip No. 8: Square Brackets
By now I’m sure you’re all racing along in the land of NaNoWriMo: tap tap tappety tap tap. Your little fingers tripping across your keyboard. What a blessed sound that is!
But, wait, you’ve stopped? Why?
Is it because the bit you have to write next is a tad too complicated (how does a nuclear reactor work?) and/or requires research (when a car explodes do the windows go flying out? how far? what does it sound like exactly?) or is too squishy (you got to the love scene, didn’t you?) or you’re not in the mood (writing journeys is boring).
Rather than come to a grinding halt why not square bracket it?
By which I mean do this:
Janice Lardano got out of the car and stared pensively at the nuclear reactor. It made her nervous to go in there but go in there she must.
[scene in nuclear reactor]
As Janice left the nuclear reactor she saw a strange man sprinting away from the parking lot.
[car explodes]
As Janice picked the bits of car from her hair she became aware of a beautiful man looking at her. His teeth gleamed.
[love scene]
Janice finished buttoning her blouse, picked up her purse, and looked back at the gleaming beauty. It would be hard to leave him, but she must. The continued survival of the world was at stake!
[journey in which Janice meets wise woman and saves world]
Janice smiled, reaching out to hold his gleaming hand. Sometimes life really was perfect.
Added bonus: when you get stuck you can go back and fill them in. I also use them for research [how much does mercury weigh?] or for really generic stuff [something else needed here] [they talk and discover they like each other] [denouement] or for instructions or notes to self [make this bit better] [she's supposed to be angry here she just sounds annoyed].1
There you have it: the glory of square brackets. [Ending could be punchier.]
- Though now I use Scrivener I use square brackets a lot less. [↩]
Girlfight
Certain things1 lately2 have been making me just a tiny bit tetchy and upset so I thought I would work out my feelings by watching Michelle Rodriguez as Diana Guzman in Girlfight.
I love this movie. Saw it first when it came out in 2000. Loved it even more on this second viewing. There aren’t many movies about female rage. There aren’t many movies about powerful, strong women outside of science fiction, where they’re all too often sexualised and trivialised.3 Guzman is a girl who wants to learn how to box and she’s really good at it.
So Girlfight is a sports movie. Outside of dance movies there’s nothing I love more than sports movies.4 I love that they all have the same basic elements:
- Protag with burning desire to be a dancer/athlete who convinces unwilling guru to take them on as a student.
- Family and/or financial obstacles.
- Lots of training.
- Romantic entanglement(s).
- Climatic contest/finals.
Girlfight has all of these, but never feels cliched. What keeps it fresh is how real the movie is: the script is excellent, particularly the dialogue, the casting spot on, and the location shooting and sets are so real you can smell the dank sweat and grime of the gym.
And Michelle Rodriguez seethes. But is also vulnerable and raw and, yes, real.5 She reminds me of Micah Wilkins, the protag of Liar. Not physically, but emotionally, and in the way she moves and navigates through life: her pain and her anger are very like Micah’s. I wonder if subconsciously I was thinking about Girlfight when I wrote Liar? Diana Guzman even has a younger brother (though he’s lovely) and lives in a tiny flat in New York City (though it’s Brooklyn not Manhattan).
The fights are totally convincing.6 It totally looks like punches are being given and received. Even her black eyes convinced me.7
The romance works. It doesn’t feel tacked on. I love seeing a male and female boxer negotiating what it means for them to fight each other in the ring. A female fighter is not perceived in the same way that a male one is. Most people see a fight between the two as no win for the guy. If he loses he’s a wuss, if he wins, well, der, of course, he’s the guy. Or he’s a thug.
I love that there are gentle, loving men in this movie who are able to show it. I love Hector, Diana’s trainer. I love her brother Tiny. And her romantic interest, Adrian.
And, yes, this movie passes the Bechdel test. Diana’s best friend doesn’t have a big role but she’s there and they talk about things other than boys. Could that be because it was written and directed and produced by women? Karyn Kusama’s brilliant writing and directing of this movie almost makes me want to see Jennifer’s Body which she also directed.
Did I mention that Girlfight is totally YA? Diana’s in her final year of high school.
The final fight is AWESOME. But the resolution is even better.
I guess what I’m saying is if you haven’t seen Girlfight then you really need to. Like NOW.
It makes me want to write a proper sports novel. I do have a kernel of an idea for a WNBA one . . .
- Like the people who responded to Rihanna’s moving interview about domestic violence by talking about her forehead being too big. WTF? 1) Her forehead is gorgeous 2) Way to attempt to change the subject. Talking about domestic violence makes you uncomfortable, doesn’t it? Poor baby. [↩]
- I’m not going to link to any of the horrific events that have taken place over the last few days. Too upsetting. [↩]
- You know what I mean. All those movies where the main response is: “Girls kicking butt is hawt!” [↩]
- I am more and more convinced that any movie without a training montage is not worth seeing. [↩]
- Sorry to overuse the word. [↩]
- I adore Love and Basketball but the games are not convincing. I never believe that the two leads have real hops. Especially not the guy. [↩]
- Though they could have had more swelling. Just sayin’. [↩]
NaNo Tip no. 6: Emergency Unstucking Techniques
One of the most frequent complaints I’m hearing from those down the NaNoWriMo word mines is that they keep getting stuck.
As it happens I have already written a post on how to get unstuck. It is rather lengthy, however, so here’s a quick and dirty version of what you should do when you get stuck:
- Dance. That’s right, get up from the computer, turn whatever music you like up loud, and shake it! Dance! Dance! Dance! Do it till you’re sweating. Then dance some more.
- Run around the block. For some of us dancing is just not our thing. But we can run. Or shoots some hoops. Or some other physical activity away from the computer.
- Read newspapers. This is where Karen Healey gets many of her ideas. Whenever she gets stuck she goes to her fave newspapers and starts reading. Obscure and weird articles are best.
- Send someone in with a gun. Raymond Chandler’s favourite I’m-stuck solution. He was also fond of knocking his characters unconscious. Many writers like to blow stuff up. Cassandra Clare likes to have characters who fancy each other discover that THEY’RE ACTUALLY BROTHER AND SISTER. The point being: throw complications at your characters. Make ‘em suffer! See how they react.
To sum up: to get unstuck you need to either take a break and do something that uses your whole body, or you need to throw something new at your characters. Or both.
I’m sure my gentle readers will have been more suggestions to unstuckify you.
Good luck!
Tour Almost Over + Gorgeous Art
Today (yesterday) I had my last school events of the Liar tour at Joliet West High School and Glenbard South High School in the outer suburbs of Chicago, Illinois. The students at both schools were amazing and asked many smart, engaged, funny questions. It was a total pleasure to meet you all. Thank you.
In other news Cristina Hernadez posted her midterm project for her painting class on her blog and I was so impressed I asked if I could share it with you here. Remember, Cristina? She’s the one who photoshopped a very disturbing version of Maureen Johnson’s Suite Scarlett.
Here’s her midterm painting:
Wow, huh? Cristina also had to write an essay about the painting and I couldn’t help laughing when she wrote this:
Honestly, the hardest part of the project was the ESSAY. I mean, I think I finally understand** why authors moan so much about the “where do you get your ideas” “how did you came up with X idea” kind of question. Because it IS hard to answer!
That’s exactly it. So much easier to write a novel then to explain where it came from. I’ve spent the last few weeks explaining where Liar came from. And honestly? It was mostly bunkum. I don’t really know where it came from. It just is. I can talk to you all day long about the process of writing with lots of singing the praises of Scrivener but ideas? Ideas are magic. No one knows where they come from.
Don’t forget to check out Scott’s NaNo tip!
NaNo Tip no. 4: Word Count is Not Everything
I know that NaNoWriMo is set up with a specific word count in mind. And word counts are, indeed, a useful way to keep track of you progress. However, do not get obsessed with them. The world will not end if you don’t meet your daily word count. Nor will it end if you don’t have 50,000 words at the end of November.
I’m seeing too many people stressing out about word counts and beating up on themselves when they fall short of them. Cut yourself some slack!
Here’s why:
NaNoWriMo is meant to be a fun, companionable way to try your hand at novel writing. That means that over the month you’re going to start to learn what kind of writer you are.1 One of the things you might learn is that you are not a fast writer. There is no shame in that. Lots of very fine writers are slow. Nalo Hopkinson rarely writes more than 500 words a day. Doesn’t get in the way of her producing many wonderful books.
You may also discover that you’re a very fast writer. No shame in that either. I swear I’ve seen Maureen Johnson bang out 20,000 words in a single sitting. That would kill me. She continues to live and breathe and write more wickedly funny words.
Give yourself permission to enjoy NaNoWriMo. So if at the end of the day you’ve only written 150 words, celebrate those words. Do a 150-word dance! Same if it was a one-word day or a six-thousand word day.
Some of you won’t get anywhere near 50,000 words in the month. Perhaps you’ll spend a lot of time thinking about your novel. That’s writing too. There are many writers who need to nut the whole novel out first in their heads before they can start writing. Could be you’re one of those.
Like I said, use the month of November to explore. Whatever you wind up with—on paper or in your head—you’ll know more about yourself as a writer.
Have fun!
- I’m still not entirely sure what kind of writer I am. Sometimes two thousand words a day is easy, sometimes it kills me. [↩]
Chicago Events
Don’t forget to look out for Scott’s NaNo tip today.
And here’s where I’ll be in Chicago today and tomorrow:
Tues, 3 November, 7:00PM
B&N Skokie
55 Old Orchard Center
Skokie, IL
Wednesday, 4 November, 7:00PM
Anderson’s Bookshop
5112 Main St
Downers Grove, IL
Same deal: if all who turn up have read Liar then I will tell you what really happens at the end.
Hope to see some of you there!
NaNo Tip No. 2: The Zen of First (Zero) Drafts
This is the most important tip of all: It’s only a first draft, it doesn’t have to be perfect.
You know what that means? You can relax. A first draft can be bad. In fact, it will be bad. Don’t worry about it. Plow on. Don’t even think of it as a first draft. That’s too much pressure, not to mention insulting to first drafts, think of it as your zero draft.
That’s what I do.
I get a lot of people asking for tips for dealing with writer’s block. I don’t get writer’s block. But only because I’ve learned not to be bothered by writing utter, utter rubbish.1 I expect my zero draft to be the worst writing in the history of writing thus when it turns out shockingly badly, I am unconcerned. “Why, yes, it is rubbish. No matter, that’s what I was going for.”
I write myself out of trouble,2 but that also mean I write myself into trouble: my zero drafts are full of insanely repetitive passages, and thus full of redundancies. Here is a short example:
Even though he’d now taken it away I could still feel the warmth of where his thumb had briefly brushed against my shoulder.
In the final version it became this:
I felt warmth where his thumb had been.
I have no idea how many drafts the novel went through before that slim sentence emerged from the bloated one. Lots.
I also usually wind up writing something like this at least once in the course of a zero draft:
She wasn’t sure what she was doing there. What was the point? Maybe he wouldn’t meet her after all. She should have stayed in class. She should never have answered the phone. Or talked to him. Or agreed to meet him. Or been born. Why was she here? Why wasn’t she doing something more productive? Somewhere else?
In the final version it looks like this:
Yup, that’s right, deleted, gone, wiped out, obliterated, not in the book. And if I were writing the preceding sentence in a novel I’d probably pare it down and all. Unless I was going for the laughs. Sometimes repetition can be funny. But only if used sparingly.. . .
So, there you have it my tip is to have fun with your first draft and don’t worry about writing rubbish. Expect it! You can fix it later.
Disclaimer: If this advice doesn’t work for you and you keep getting stuck it could be that you’re an outliner. Down tools and start outlining. But don’t ask me for advice on how to do that cause I have no idea. However, I suspect that once you’ve outlined and start writing your first draft then the above advice may well apply.
Good luck!
- Also I don’t get paid if I don’t write. [↩]
- As opposed to stopping working and thinking my way out or outlining the next few chapters. [↩]
Writing Novels Easy, Making Films Hard
Today’s NaNoWriMo tip comes from Scott. Go check it out.
Last night we watched Bong Joon-ho’s The Host again, which is probably my favourite giant monster movie ever. If you haven’t seen it do so immediately! It more than stood up to a second viewing. We then watched the Making of The Host documentary, which was way better than those things normally are. For starters, they barely talked to the actors at all—always a very good sign. Pretty much every aspect of film making was covered: from the initial idea to the storyboards to sound design. Q: How did they create the monster’s voice? A: Painstakingly.
A lot of time was spent on the logistics of filming on location in sewers. Every cast and crew member had to have preventative shots. On account of they’d be working in raw sewage infested with parasites and rats and hideous diseases. Yum! The smell was overwhelming. Many of the cast & crew were barely able to keep from vomiting. They had to deal with the non-mixability of electricity and water. Yet there they were filming in a great deal of (raw sewage) dampness. Summer shooting meant they had to be alert to flash flooding. In winter the ice had to be scraped up before every day’s filming. What larks, eh?
The doco left me extremely grateful that I write novels. I can create giant monsters living in sewers without having to spend weeks and weeks in an actual sewer. I can write about winter from the comfort of summer. I can create pretty much whatever I want without having to change out of my pyjamas or worry about how much it will cost or whether it should be a physical or post-production effect or if it’s possible to get that many extras. Luxury.
And that’s why I write novels and don’t work in the film industry.
Tips for NaNoWriMo
Tomorrow is the first day of National Novel Writing Month. Although I’ve never taken part in it and probably never will,1 I think it’s an awesome way for beginning writers to learn the art of the first draft. I know many pro writers who also use the month to help them slay their deadlines. Nothing like knowing you have comrades-in-arms in your writing struggles.
Scott and me decided that we’ll spend the month offering tips. Scott’s tips will be over on his blog and will appear on the odd numbered days of November, mine will be here on the even days. Though as I’m still deep in Liar promotion, I can’t guarantee my tips will be 100% true. Who knows? Maybe Micah will take over for a few of them?
If you have anything specific you’d like a tip on, let me know in the comments.
Happy Halloween! Don’t scare your younger siblings too much or steal all their sugariffic treats.
- November is almost always a travelling month for me. [↩]
The Book You Thought You Were Going to Write
When I first got the idea for Liar I thought it would be a comedy. I thought it would be a goofy, screwball comedy with a protag who was lying about herself out of boredom and insecurity and that as the layers of her lies were peeled away chapter by chapter—”Actually, I’m fourteen, not seventeen, but that’s only three years diff. Not that big of a lie, right?”—through a series of misunderstandings and misadventures she would learn to like herself and lose the need to lie so much. It would be heartwarming, they’d all hug it out, and everyone would learn and grow. You know only funny. Really funny.
The finished Liar turned out somewhat differently. Less with the funny.
This happens to me a lot. I suspect it’s because I don’t plan or outline my novels. Writing the first (or zero) draft is where I do the planning and figuring out and where I discover what kind of book I’m writing. Though maybe that’s what those planners are doing as they outline?1
Just before I start writing a new book I have the shiny wobbly spherical-ish ur idea of it floating at the front of my brain. I can see the colours and I know what it smells like. It is gorgeous and wonderful. But something happens the moment I start writing it: the-texure-colours-shape-and-smell-novel I thought I was writing begins to fall apart. Every new word on the screen speeds up the process. Within a few thousand words all that’s left is this very faint residue. By the time I finish the first draft I can barely remember the floating sphere of wonder. The book has become its own self.
When I first started trying to write novels that process really bothered me. It drove me nuts that I couldn’t capture what I’d been imagining on the page. I thought it meant I was a terrible writer. But now I know it’s just part of the process and I enjoy it. I’ve decied that exactly capturing those early imaginings would be boring. There’d be no discovery, which is part of why I can’t outline. I really enjoy finding out what kind of novel I’m writing as I write it. I like that my novels surprise me.
But of course as I’ve said here many times before: every novelist writes differently. I’m sure many of them will not recognise what I’m talking about and write exactly the books they imagined. I wonder what that’s like?
- Who knows? Their ways are a mystery to me. [↩]
Hopes & Goals
I’ve been having a long-running conversation with a bunch of writer friends about our hopes for our careers. One of them has written a truly marvellous book, which comes out next year, and she’s been telling herself not to hope for too much. She’s trying very hard not to think about that book at all and to concentrate on the next one.
Which is of course what all writers should do: focus on the book you’re writing, keep on plugging, don’t get too distracted by what may happen next year with the book you’ve already finished.
Except that hope is precious. Hoping that your book will do well, that it will find readers, is not a terrible thing. I’m sure all writers hope such things for all their books.1
It’s only a problem when your hopes get in the way of your writing. When you’re so wrapped in how your book is going to do that you neglect to write the next one. Debut writers are particularly prone to this problem. Newsflash: one book does not a writing career make. If your first book isn’t the next Twilight, maybe the one after it will be, or the one after that. You’ve got time.2
But if you’re already writing the next book then hope away! Rehearse your interview with Oprah.3 Practice your Nobel Prize acceptance speech. I hoped that my very first book would be optioned by Hollywood.4 I have hoped that for each book I’ve written. And that once optioned the book would be made into a spectacularly brilliant movie that in no way buggered up the book I’d written.5 Yes, I have daydreamed about those movies and about what I’d wear to the premier. To date none of my books have been optioned. Doesn’t stop my hoping.
What? I like daydreaming. Sometimes that’s where my next novels come from.
Now, all of this may sound like I’m contradicting myself. For did I not say that I like to keep my goals realistic? Aiming to write in different genres rather than to be a bestseller. Yes, I did and I think you should to. It’s wise to have attainable goals that way you can, you know, attain them. But you can have goals and hopes.
In fact, I rather think that the two sustain each other.
- Well, unless their evil ex has wangled a percentage of the royalties. [↩]
- I guess the more relevant newsflash is that there may never be a next Twilight but the point of this post is not to take away hope. [↩]
- Is it sad that I’ve never done that? Though in my mind I’ve been interviewed by Romana Koval. [↩]
- It was my PhD thesis. [↩]
- Oh, and that the casting was entirely without white washing. [↩]
Adults Reading YA
Today Louisville’s Courier-Journal has a most excellent article about adults reading YA by Erin Keane. I don’t just say that because I was interviewed for it, but because the article is smart and non-sensationalist, and includes some actual facts:
Young adult fiction’s appeal has grown way beyond the school library. What was once considered entertainment for kids has become big business for adults, who are increasingly turning to the children’s section for their own reading pleasure, according to publishing experts.
Nielsen’s BookScan predicted U.S. book sales will remain flat this year, but amid this industry slump, sales of young-adult titles are expected to continue to rise. It’s not only teenagers who are browsing the shelves
There’s no hint of panic about this anywhere in the article. In fact, you get the impression that adults reading the amazingly wonderful YA books out there is a good thing.
Pinch me now.
Jigsaws & Novels
In the last few weeks I’ve spent an inordinate amount of time talking about the writing of Liar and making much use of jigsaws as a metaphor to describe said writing. Turns out that Margaret Drabble has also been thinking long and hard about jigsaw puzzles—longer and harder than me, truth be told—1 and has written a whole book on the subject: The Pattern In The Carpet, which I am now longing to read.
You all need to listen to this interview with Margaret Drabble about her personal history with jigsaws. Romana Koval is one of my favourite interviewers and the whole thing is utterly delight from start to finish. Though Drabble does maintain that there are no similarities between jigsaws and novels. Thus she rather handily demolishes the whole premise of my presentation about the writing of Liar. Thank you very much Dame Margaret.
She’s wrong about that, okay?
And if you’re in Philadelphia I will explain to you in detail why she is wrong on Thursday night:
Thursday, 29 October, 7:00 pm
Blue Marble
551 Carpenter Ln
Philadelphia, PA
Now go listen to the Dame being witty and (mostly) wise.
In other news the Austin Teen Book Festival was truly wondrous and I’ll explain to you in detail why at some point in the future when my brain is fully functional.
For those asking about all those posts I promised to write way back when:
- a) I have written the post responding to Sarah Rees Brennan’s wonderful post on people’s tendency to judge female characters more harshly,
b) the rest of those posts are still brewing but they will appear here before too long,
c) the Srivener and Liar post is getting closer to postability. Talking about writing Liar with Scrivener in the past few weeks has changed the shape of the post somewhat,
d) It’s astonishing how hard it is to blog on tour what with the variable connectivity and the extreme fatigue,
e) I’ll still take requests but may not fulfill them until tour is over.
Lovely to meet so many of you over the past few weeks. I look forward to meeting Philly and Chicago peeps and answering all your questions. Maybe I’ll finally get an audience who have all read Liar and thus be able to tell you the true ending. Fingers crossed!
.
- Though can truth be told when I’m discussing Liar? [↩]
Goodbye Portland, Hello Austin!
I now say a fond farewell to the peoples of the Pacific North West. Goodbye Seattle and Portland! What gorgeous cities you are. My timing was perfect: all the leaves were gold, red, maroon, pink, orange and brown. Spectacularly gorgeous. Also mostly the weather was crisp and clear. Only two raining days. Well done, Pacific North West.
My favourite part was getting to meet so many of the people who comment on this blog such as Pixelfish, Saints and Spinners, AndrewN, and the people I met last night whose names I’ve forgotten because my brain is fried. So sorry! And meeting Lizzy-wa and Captain Cockatiel again after two years.
The most amazing thing happened last night at the Clackamas Town Ctr Mall Barnes & Noble. One girl in the audience, Michelle, was asking me lots and lots of questions. She’d read the first 20 pages of Liar and was really into it. She stayed behind to ask more questions. It emerged that she could not afford a copy of her own. I suggested borrowing it from the library and others there were able to name good ones nearby, which is when Adrienne, another lovely person who came to the event, stepped in and bought Michelle a copy.
Can you believe it? Michelle was stunned. So was I, frankly. I declare Adrienne the World’s Best Book Fairy. Thank you, Adrienne!
Shortly I head to the airport to get on the plane to Austin where tomorrow I will be part of the very first Austin Teen Book Festival:
Saturday, 24 October, 10:00 am -5:00 pm
Austin Teen Book Festival
Westlake High School
4100 Westbank Drive
Austin, TX
I’m dead honoured to have been asked to be part of it. Go check out the stellar lineup. Why, yes, that is Libba Bray, the world’s funniest human being doing the keynote address. I can’t wait.
Later!
P.S. The rumour that I do impersonations of my husband during my events is completely not true.
Using My Power (Such That It Is) For Good
So far on my tour I have persuaded people who attended my events to read Flygirl by Sherri L. Smith,1 to try their hand at writing novels, that kangaroos deliver the mail in Australia, that if only they were good I would reveal the true ending of Liar and that procrastination is good for you.
I have eaten ribs, sushi, power bars, beef jerky, salads, steak, eggs, not enough fruit.
I have signed books, business cards, scrap books, casts, receipts, Leviathan and a plastic doll.
I have answered no email,2 read no blogs, or newspapers. I have zero idea what is going on in the real world. If there’s anything important I’ve missed maybe you could let me know in the comments?
In short, I am having a fabulous time.
Today I’ll be here:
Wednesday, 21 October, 7:00 pm
Barnes & Noble
19401 Alderwood Mall Parkway
Lynnwood, WA
Tomorrow I’ll be here:
Thursday, 22 October, 4:00 pm
A Children’s Place
4807 NE Fremont St
Portland, ORThursday, 22 October, 7:00 pm
Barnes & Noble
12000 SE 82nd Avenue
Portland, OR 97266
Go read, Flygirl! Or A Wish After Midnight!
That is all.
Written from the Road
You know what I wonder about authors on tour?1
I wonder if they ever get sick of talking about themselves.
I mean, I know that authors are frequently the world’s most self-obsessed human beings, but even so gabbing about yourself all day long gets really really old. I think that’s why I like the Q & A sections of my events best. Because I get to hear what other people are thinking.
I had a wonderful event at a middle school in Seattle today. Small and intimate with about 15 girls and I was able to ask them questions and hear about their writing processes. It was my favourite part of the whole day.2
So because I am sick of myself I’d like youse lot to tell me something cool about yourselves.
Thank you!
Sleep now for tomorrow I must be up at the crack of dawn.
- You don’t wonder? Well, I’m going to tell you anyways. So there. [↩]
- And today’s was a day when I got to meet Q, who is my favourite women’s basketball blogger. So it was a very good day. [↩]
Seattle, Portland, Austin
Today I fly to Seattle, which could not possibly be as cold and wet as it is here in New York City. Surely not?
Here are my public events in Seattle:
Monday, 19 October, 4:00 pm
Mukilteo Public Library
4675 Harbour Pointe Blvd.
Mukilteo, WAMonday, 19 October, 7:00 pm
UWash Bookstore
4326 University Way N.E.
Seattle, WATuesday, 20 October, 7:00 pm
Third Place Books
17171 Bothell Way NE
Lake Forest Park, WAWednesday, 21 October, 7:00 pm
Barnes & Noble
19401 Alderwood Mall Parkway
Lynnwood, WA
That’s right, you Seattleites get four opportunities to listen to me blather on about Liar and answer any and all of your questions. I suspect Seattle is where I will finally tell the truth of what happens at the end of Liar. I know I’ve said I’d do it before but every single time someone in the audience begged me not to spoil the book for them.
Then I’m off to Portland where you can find me here:
Thursday, 22 October, 4:00 pm
A Children’s Place
4807 NE Fremont St
Portland, Oregonor here:
Thursday, 22 October, 7:00 pm
Barnes & Noble
12000 SE 82nd Avenue
Portland, OR 97266
And then next Saturday if you happen to be in or around Austin you get to see not just me but also folks like Libba Bray, Varian Johnson and Margo Rabb:
Saturday, 24 October, 10:00 am -5:00 pm
Austin Teen Book Festival
Westlake High School
4100 Westbank Drive
Austin, TX
It will be an action-packed, amazing day. I cannot wait. I’m also thinking of starting a blood feud with another YA author. Maureen Johnson tells me they are lots of fun. Problem is that all the authors at the Teen Book Festival are so lovely. It’s very hard to feud with nice.
Hope to see/meet at least some of you!
Writing Goals Redux (updated)
A while ago I posted about my writing goals. I updated it a year ago with the publication of How To Ditch Your Fairy. But now I have published Liar which is in a whole new genre and allows me to cross even more off my lists.
My goals are not stuff like Become NYT Bestselling Author or Win Nobel Prize. Winning prizes and making bestseller lists is not something I can control, but I can control what I write. So that’s what my goals are about. Simple, really.
First the genres:
Romance- Historical
Crime (what some call mysteries)Thriller)FantasySFComedy- Horror
Mainstream or litfic (you know, Literature: professor has affair with much younger student in the midst of mid-life crisis)- Western
Problem novelYA
The publication of Liar allows me to knock three genres off that list. Though cheatingly I only just added one of them—problem novel. What? It’s my list! I can add to it if I want whenever I want. I could have added unreliable narrator and pretended it was a genre, too, you know. But I didn’t.
All I have left is western, historical and litfic. I’m writing an historical right now. The western is still aways off but will definitely happen. I also have a couple of ghost stories in mind so horror will also get knocked off. I don’t think I’ll ever manage litfic. Unless you think I can claim Liar as litfic? If more than one of you says I can then I’m crossing it off.
Update: More than one of you said I could cross of litfic. Thus it is now crossed off. I love collusion.
I’m also aiming to publish books that use the following povs:
First personSecond person-
Third person limited - Omniscient
Why, yes, Liar does allow me to cross off another one: second person. Go, me! And the 1930s novel makes much use of omniscient. I will conquer the entire list! W00t!
And the last list:
StandaloneTrilogy- Series
Which sadly remains unaltered because Liar is a standalone. But I suspect the 1930s novel is a series. Though it might just be another trilogy, which would be really annoying.
My happiness at crossing stuff of my list is great. What have youse lot been crossing off your writing goal lists?
Guestblog on Teenreads
Today I blogged over here. Those of you who’ve been wondering about the process of writing Liar might find it interesting.
Today I prepare for my appearance in Larchmont tonight and the many appearances I’m doing next week in Seattle and Portland. Then I’ll be at the Teen Lit Festival in Austin next Saturday. That’s quite a temperature range. Packing’s going to be fun!
For those of you who only read the posts and not the comments, you really need to check out the comments on the White Writer Advantages thread and the Hating Female Characters one. People are being astonishingly smart.
On Hating Female Characters
For a while now I’ve been thinking about how many readers seem to hate female characters more than they hate male. Or rather that the same behaviour from a male character is okay but someone inexcusable in a female. Sarah Rees Brennan has written about this phenomenon most eloquently:
Let us think of the Question of Harry Potter. I do not mean to bag on the character of Harry Potter: I am very fond of him.
But I think people would be less fond of him if he was Harriet Potter. If he was a girl, and she’d had a sad childhood but risen above it, and she’d found fast friends, and been naturally talented at her school’s only important sport, and saved the day at least seven times. If she’d had most of the boys in the series fancy her, and mention made of boys following her around admiring her. If the only talent she didn’t have was dismissed by her guy friend who did have it. If she was often told by people of her numerous awesome qualities, and was in fact Chosen by Fate to be awesome.
Well, then she’d be just like Harry Potter, but a girl. But I don’t think people would like her as much.
To which I say, indeed. I am noticing this somewhat acutely right now because quite a few people are hating on Micah Wilkins the protagonist of Liar. Now, I will admit as how Micah has rather more flaws than HP. Even aside from being, you know, a liar. But I happen to love Micah, as I do all the characters in my books.1 I’m well aware that I’m not an impartial observer, but I have a sneaking suspicion that were Micah a boy even with all the same flaws s/he would not be attracting such hate. I suspect that there would be a fair few crushes on Micah-the-boy. That he would be considered hot.
As evidence I offer the fact that I’ve already been told by a few people that they have a crush on Zach, who a) is dead and b) is, um, perhaps not the most reliable boyfriend in literary history given that he had an official girlfriend and an unofficial girlfriend. I.e. there’s a strong argument that’s he’s a cheating dog. Yet there are crushes.
Now, what I want to know is how to go about being part of the process of changing this kind of thinking. I was talking about this with a friend and she said I should write books that unpack it. To which I umed and ahhed before realising hours later that I already do. I have worked very hard in all my novels to unpack assumptions about what girls and boys can and can’t do. I have written female jocks, boy fashion obsessives, laconic girls, garrulous boys. I have tried to work against stereotypes at all times.
So does pretty much every working writer that I love. Yet still readers call Isabelle (of Cassandra Clare’s Mortal Instruments trilogy) a “slut” and have crushes on Jace who’s much more slutty than Isabelle. What can we do to shift such sexist assumptions when they’re so deeply ingrained in so many of us? Because even when we write books that challenge such stereotypes, readers put them back into the text by reading Isabelle as a slut and Jace as Hotty McHott Hero. I have done this myself both as a reader and a writer. Our prejudices are so unconscious that they leak out without our knowing it.
Hmmm, I find that I have no cheering conclusion. Feel free to provide one in the comments.
- Yes, even Jason Blake and Esmeralda Cansino in the trilogy and Dander Anders in How to Ditch Your Fairy. [↩]
What I’m Doing This Friday
I’ll be here:
Friday, 16 October, 7:00 pm:
Voracious Reader
1997 Palmer Ave
Larchmont, NY
It’s a very short train ride from Grand Central so if you’re in NYC and wish to hear me be witty and wise you can do so! It’s even closer if you’re in Westchester County and thereabouts, (which you would probably know if you were in Westchester County or thereabouts).
I’ll be talking about Liar, writing and life, and answering all your questions. In fact, I have decided that this will be the event where I tell the true ending of Liar. So if you don’t attend you will never know! Though I did say I would reveal all in Memphis and Nashville yet I didn’t. But I’m quite sure this time will be different.
In other news if you are anywhere near Memphis I left behind giant piles of signed books here:
Davis-Kidd Booksellers
387 Perkins Ext
Memphis, TN
So if you want my name scribbled on your copy of Liar. This is the place to go. I swear I signed about a million of them. I also signed several How To Ditch Your Fairy and Magic or Madness trilogy paperbacks.
In other news, I’ll be in Seattle and Porland next week. Details are here.
I cannot wait to meet you all!
Don’t Panic About Blurbs
When I was a brand new about-to-have-my-first-book-published baby author I freaked out entirely about blurbs. I was sure I needed them. Or rather my brand new baby book needed them. I panicked and decided I needed to ask every single published writer friend I knew. But then when it came to actually asking them I froze. It was so icky and embarrassing.
“Hello, oh lovely writer friend of mine, so, um, I know we’ve known each other for years and, um, gotten drunk together, even though getting drunk is wrong and neither of us plans to ever do it again, and, um, where was I? Did you hear about them Sparks? Suck, don’t they? Er, why did I phone you? No reason. I was just thinking about you . . . ”
So after several conversations like that I finally screwed up the courage to ask Karen Joy Fowler, who I knew had actually read and liked Magic or Madness and she blurbed it. At the time her wonderful novel, Jane Austen Book Club, was everywhere. Also Karen is not only a dear friend but one of my favourite writers so I was over the moon. The book was published with her blurb on the back.
To this day I’ve never heard anyone tell me they picked up my book because of Karen’s blurb. The paperback went out with a quote from Holly Black on the front. And ditto. No one has ever told me they picked up one of my books because of a blurb.
Here are the reasons people have given for picking up one of my books:
- Their sibling or best friend told them they had to read it.
- Their librarian or teacher recommended it.
- They liked the cover.
- They read about it on Boing Boing or Whatever.
- It was the only book around.
- It was on their course list so they had to read it.
The only time blurbs have been mentioned to me was when a sweet girl wrote to thank me for blurbing Cassandra Clare’s City of Bones. She told me it’s now her favourite book on the planet and she only picked it up because of my blurb.1
There are some blurbs that make a difference. If Stephenie Meyer or Stephen King or J. K. Rowling loves your book and wants to tell the world about it that is a Very Good Thing. But I’m unconvinced that there are many other writers who have that kind of clout. Not in book blurb form though there are plenty who have the ability to move a book when they mention it on their blog.
If you’re a brand new writer and you’re freaking out about blurbs, and you don’t know any published writers, or you do and are too embarrassed to ask, I think you can relax. Scott’s biggest selling book, Uglies, went out into the world unadorned with blurbs and several gazillion copies sold later it continues to sell.
Plenty of books sell great without blurbs.
If you have the time, energy, or inclination, go after blurbs from famous authors but it truly won’t make much difference if you don’t get them. Don’t sweat it. I really wish someone had sat me down way back then and told me to calm down. Would have been a big weight off. I honestly thought blurbs were one of the most important aspects of getting people to pick up a book. Even though I had pretty much never bought a book because of a blurb myself.
My latest book, Liar is my first book without any blurbs on it. And I gotta tell you it was a huge relief not having to ask people to blurb it. Even after five books I still find doing so excruciating. I really hope I never have to do so again.
Blurbs schlurbs! Worry about your next book. It’s far more important to your writing career than any blurb is.
Hmmm, best I can back to doing that myself . . .
- Which was replaced on the paperback by a blurb from Stephenie Meyer. As if her blurb will sell as many copies as one from me! What? Oh, she’s the one who wrote Twilight? Never mind. [↩]
What’s Wrong with Hollywood? (updated)
I’ve been thinking a lot about the Roman Polanski case. I’ve read everything I can about it over the last few weeks including the original trial transcripts, which left me feeling sick to the stomach. But many people have already said what I feel about the case, including the most excellent Lauren McLaughlin and Jay Smooth.
What I’m really wondering is how all those Hollywood luminaries could have signed that petition. Do they really want the world at large to think they have no problem with the rape of a thirteen year old girl?
Did they sign because all their mates did and not know what they were signing? Perhaps, they thought, it’s another save the whales or end global warming petition. This is my most charitable option. Better they be stupid or careless than consider rape to be nothing.
Do they believe that because they know and like Polanski that he must be capable of no wrong? What a valueless friendship that is. I value my friends precisely because they call me on my wrong doing and mistakes. Stand by your friends absolutely, but own it when they do wrong and pressure them to make amends.
Do they believe that artists can do no wrong? That the talented can steal and rape and murder with impunity? I hate to break it to them but genius is not a moral quality. No amount of great art excuses rape.
Far too often powerful, privileged people forget that rules apply to them too. They do this because far too often people like them, like Polanski, get away with rape. They begin to think that this is their right. It’s our job to remind them that no one has that right. No matter how famous or how rich or how high up they are in government.
So, Tilda Swinton and the rest of you? Not getting more of my money any time soon.
Update: In the comments below Sarah points out that many of the people who signed that petition are not, in fact, part of Hollywood. Many are part of the European film industry. Woody Allen and others don’t make Hollywood films. Salman Rushdie and Paul Auster are writers.
There are many, many people who work in Hollywood who are appalled by the petition. The people who signed the petition are not representative.
Scott Westerfeld Talking About, Um, Me
This is a little bit weird. I had no idea it existed and stumbled upon it while, yes, I confess, googling myself.1 So here is my husband talking with the Romantic Times about my latest book and what it’s like writing in the same room:
Here’s my response:
Firstly, those who’ve heard me talk about writing may remember that I, too, use that high diving metaphor. Yup, stole that one from Scott. Hey, he steals heaps of my stories and metaphors too. We’re an equal opportunity story-stealing household.
It’s also true that we are each other’s first readers, or in this case, listeners, and that we make many suggestions for changes to each other’s work. Many of which wind up happening. I’ve been asked if that means we collaborate on everything we write. No, only in a really broad sense could you say that. And it would be so broad it would make the word “collaborate” meaningless.
One thing I find really interesting is that despite how closely we work together, and how involved we are in each other’s work, our writing voices are very different. I could not write like Scott no matter how hard I tried. And he could not write like me. I don’t have the simile bug for one.2 But I do think we understand each other’s work better than anyone else and thus are really good at suggesting ways to make it better. Admittedly my jobs a little easier than Scott’s. All I have to do to improve his current series is point out that it’s time to blow something else up.
All right, that’s enough self-indulgence from me this morning, let’s take this outwards: How many of you work very closely with another writer? Do you read you work aloud to someone else? Is there anyone who reads and critiques every word you write from the very first draft?
Do anyone of you never show your work to anyone?
Tell me about your critiquing process!
- What? I wanted to check out some more Liar reviews. That’s not a crime, is it? [↩]
- I defy you to find a page of Scott’s work without a simile on it. I have whole novels with nary a simile. [↩]
Nashville Today
This is where I’ll be today in Nashville, Tennessee:
Saturday, 10 October, 2:00-3:00 pm
Southern Festival of Books
Talk in Room 16
Legislative Plaza
Nashville, TN
Followed by signing
3:00-4:00 pm
War Memorial Plaza
Between 6th & 7th Avenues.
Nashville, TN
For those who’ve been asking, I’m happy to sign whatever books you want me to sign. I don’t even have to have written them. If you can’t make the official signing I’m happy to sign whenever you see me. Though, obviously, not in the middle of my talk. Because that would be weird.
The talk will be about Liar. I will, of course, tell everyone what the real ending is. So if you don’t make it you’ll never know . . .
I’ve really enjoyed my whirlwind trip to Memphis & Nashville. As usual I wish I’d had a chance to see more. Lots more! Though I count myself blessed to have gone to Graceland. That’s the first time I’ve done any sightseeing on tour. And what sights I did see! Why, yes, there will be a whole Graceland post.
Hope to see some of you later today!
Memphis Rocks
Yesterday was lovely. First up there was the flight from NYC. Well, okay, that was not lovely. Flying in the US rarely is. Ridiculously long security lines, having my luggage searched yet again and all my carefully packed to prevent wrinkling event clothes trashed, etc. However, I sat next to a book cover designer and we had a long goss about the industry and the flight arrived on time. So, really, it went better than usual.
Fist event of the tour was an interview with the fabulous Justine magazine. Yes, there’s a magazine named after me.1 We talked books, writing, and Elvis. Hey, I’m in Memphis, you know. It is the land of Elvis.
Next was the event at Davis-Kidd Booksellers.2 It was a small crowd but they were full of good questions and incredibly knowledgeable and enthusiastic about YA. I had a blast rattling off my various theories about Flowers in the Attic, Wuthering Heights, Elvis’s mother’s middle name, Australia’s gravitational pull and why all YA writers know each. Yes, me and Stephenie Meyer and Philip Pullman and Cassandra Clare are all best friends!
After the event we went to Rendezvous BBQ, which many people say is the best barbeque joint in Memphis, some say in all of the United States. I am not really in a good position to judge because I have not had a lot of bbq in my life but it was definitely the best bbq this Australian girl has ever had. I would live there if I could. Oh, and those of you who follow Maureen Johnson’s twitter feed she was totally lying about only eating a bit of bbq sauce on a spoon. Rendezvous has a veggie plate: meatless beans and rice, coleslaw, cheese and pickles. It looked really good. And MJ ate her fill.
And now we’re heading off to Graceland where we have VIP tour tickets waiting for us courtesy of Jana of Justine Magazine. Am I excited? Put it this way: only MJ is keeping me from hyperventilating.
In short: I LOVE MEMPHIS.
- They thought about calling it Larbalestier but were worried people wouldn’t be able to spell it. [↩]
- Once were Joseph-Beth. [↩]
Written While Packing
I’ve received a lot of mail this week. Most of it asking the same question: “Could you tell me what really happens at the end of Liar?”
I have already answered that questions on the Liar FAQ. But I’ll answer it again: No, I won’t tell you what really happens. You have to figure it out for yourself. You can do so in some excellent company over here.
There are other questions about Liar I totally will answer. But only if you ask them over here.
I’m also being asked about the Liar tour:
Details can be found here.
Scott and me are only doing one event together and it’s in New York City at the beginning of November and also includes the likes of Libba Bray and Suzanne Collins.
There’s a rumour that Maureen Johnson may be live tweeting my event in Memphis tomorrow. If you have a twitter account maybe you should start following her. If you’re not already, which I assume you are.
Almost done with my packing. Should I take the cowboy boots? Or are they a bit much for Tennessee?
LIAR Tour Starts Tomorrow
Tomorrow I will be in Memphis, Tennessee. I’m ridiculously excited about this. Not least because I’ve never been there before. I’ve always wanted to see Graceland. My kind publishers have allowed space in my program so that I may do so. Woo hoo!
Here is tomorrow’s event:
Thursday, 8 October, 6:00 pm:
Davis-Kidd Booksellers
387 Perkins Ext
Memphis, TN
Then on Saturday I’m in Nashville at the Southern Festival of Books. Nashville’s another city I’ve never been to before. Actually, I’ve never been anywhere in Tennessee before. I have high hopes for the barbeque. Here’s my Saturday schedule:
Saturday, 10 October, 2:00-3:00 pm
Southern Festival of Books
Talk in Room 16
Legislative Plaza
Nashville, TN
Followed by signing
3:00-4:00 pm
War Memorial Plaza
Between 6th & 7th Avenues.
Nashville, TN
If you’re can’t make the signing I’m happy to sign for you at any time. All you have to do is ask.
I can’t wait to meet the Tennessee contingent of blog readers.
Okay, I guess I should start thinking about packing now . . . What’s the weather like there?
Leviathan
Today, as I’m sure you know, is the official release day of Scott Westerfeld’s latest novel, Leviathan. I am completely biased about this book. As I am about Scott. He’s my husband, my best friend, my first reader, my ally, my So Many Things. We read and critique every word each other writes. His books are my books and vice versa. So, um, you can totally grain-of-salt what I’m about to say.
I think this trilogy is the best YA Scott has written.1 I’ve loved it ever since he first started talking about it five or more years ago. An alternative universe of Darwinists and Clankers. Message lizards! Whale airships! An aristocrat passing as a commoner, a girl passing as a boy. These are so many of my favourite things.
But best of all is Derryn Sharp the aforementioned girl passing as a boy so she can serve on an air ship. She’s smart, funny, warm, brave, wonderful and curses marvellously and inventively! Barking spiders, I adore her. Here is a speech she imagines while floating high above London having her air sense tested:
“Hey, all you sods, I can fly and you can’t! A natural airman, in case you haven’t noticed. And in conclusion, I’d like to add that I’m a girl and you can all get stuffed!”
I love her. I guarantee you will too.
And if a new book from Scott, which is way better than Uglies,2 isn’t enough for you. This one is illustrated with the most jaw dropingly fabulous art ever. Mr Keith Thompson is a genius.
There you have it: Leviathan is not only a wonderful story but a gorgeous object d’art. Just wait till you see the endpapers!
- I may be slightly jumping the gun because I’ve only read the first two books, Leviathan and Behemoth (which will be out this time next year). [↩]
- Actually I think all Scott’s YA is better than the Uglies series. It’s my leave favourite of his. I still love it though. Just not as much. [↩]
Unmemorable Book Titles
I am probably the last person in the world who should write this post given my horrendous track record for book titles. None of my published novels has the title I came up with. Not one. But the fact that I’m the world’s least successful titler of books does not stop me from having many opinions on the subject.
For instance, t’other day I was chatting with my friend Jennifer Laughran and she was raving about a wonderful middle grade she’d recently read. Sounded great. A bit later I decided to get a copy but for the life of me I could not remember the title. I asked Jennifer. I forgot it again. And repeat.
Turns out the only reason Jennifer can remember it is because she forced herself to. The title in question—and I had to go look it up again—When You Reach Me.
We had a long discussion about how some titles are just black holes. No matter what you do they won’t stick. For me Sherman Alexie’s wonderful book will always be Part-Time Indian and M. T. Anderson’s duology is Octavian Nothing. I love those books but no matter how hard I try I cannot get the full titles to stick in my brain.
Is it a long title thing? But I have no difficulties with E. Lockhart’s brilliant The Disreputable History of Frankie Landau-Banks or Samuel R. Delany’s genius Stars in My Pocket Like Grains of Sand.
Maybe it’s the vagueness of the title? When You Reach Me could be any genre really. Romance, Crime, Thriller, Horror, Memoir etc. It took me ages to be able to remember the equally vague How We Live Now 1 and then Life as We Knew It came along and now the two titles are forever mashed in my brain even though the two books are very different from each other.
While not exactly the same I notice that lots of people call Scott’s Uglies and Midnighters series The Uglies and The Midnighters, which strikes me as odd given that it’s an extra word to remember. People frequently remember Magic or Madness as Magic and Madness which wipes out the premise of the book, though it reassures me that I’m not alone in forgetting and misremembering titles.2
I notice that people are having zero problems remembering the title Liar. Imagine if they’d kept the title I wanted: Why Do I Lie?
What titles do you find it impossible to remember?
Anyone got any theories about why some titles just won’t stick?
- Just to prove my point it’s actually How I Live Now. [↩]
- Long-time readers of this blog will know that I kept giving Mick Takeuchi’s Her Majesty’s Dog the same title as Naomi Novik’s Her Majesty’s Dragon. Ooops. [↩]
Is it 4PM yet?
I have a mountain of work to get through before I head out on tour. But all I can think about is the third game of the WNBA finals, which takes place in Indianapolis today at 4PM (US Eastern time). So far this has been the best WNBA finals series I’ve ever seen and I’ve been following the WNBA since 2000.
The two best teams in the league, Indiana and Phoenix are battling it out. Indiana is renowned for their defense and Phoenix for their offense. Though both teams have been proving in this series that they’re not exactly slouches at the other end.
They’ve won one game each both played in Phoenix. The first game was the highest scoring game in WNBA history 120 to 116 (Phoenix won). The second was every bit as exciting (Indiana got the win). The third game will have a crowd of at least 18,000. Last I heard they were just shy of a sellout.
I don’t have a favourite in this series. I like Indiana a lot. I’m a huge fan of Tamika Catchings and Tully Bevilaqua (an Aussie, don’t you know) and Ebony Hoffman has totally won me over, not just because of her awesome play, but also because of how smart and funny she is in post game interviews. And Briann January is a hell of a rookie.
But Phoenix also has an Aussie, Penny Taylor, who’s just astonishing. I think her absence in the second half of the second game is a big part of why Phoenix lost. Cappie Pondexter and Diana Taurasi are two of the best players in women’s basketball. Taurasi is the current Most Valuable Player of the WNBA. Then there’s Tangela Smith and Dewanna Bonner. I love Phoenix’s style of play. Run and gun, take no time outs, except for injury.
So, no, I don’t know who I’m going for. They’re both great teams. It would be gorgeous for Indiana to win it’s first championship, but I’ll be happy no matter what happens.
Is it 4PM yet?
Liar Spoiler Thread (updated)
If you’re busting to talk about Liar with other people who’ve read it this is the place for you. Here you can say whatever you want about the book without fear. Go forth, speak, theorise, argue, enjoy!
For those of you haven’t read it you really really really do not want to look at the comments below. Go here to see my arguments as to why you do not want to be spoiled. You should also avoid reviews.1
Liar is a book that even people who normally ADORE spoilers have said they were very glad they weren’t spoiled before they read it. Like Tim Pratt for instance who said:
I’m one of those people who isn’t bothered by spoilers and sometimes seeks them out . . . but, yeah, Liar is much better unspoiled, I must admit. A real whiplash-inducing reading experience.
Listen to him and me. Read the book first and then come back here.
Are we clear?
Okay then: let the spoiler thread commence!
Update: I won’t be taking part in the discussion. You gets to play amongst yourselves without the bossy author intervening. If you have any questions for me take them across to the Liar FAQ.
- You should especially avoid the Horn Book review of Liar because it’s so outrageously spoilery I cried when I read it. Though if you’ve read Liar you should definitely check it out because it’s a very interesting take on the novel. [↩]
Too Many Books About NYC?
Ever since I first became a part of the YA world, I’ve been noticing complaints that way too many YA books published in the US of A are set in New York City. Why can’t other cities get a look in? they ask. Off the top of my head I can easily name many, many US YA books that are not set in NYC. But I think most people would concede that there are more YA books set in NYC than any other city or place in the USA.
There are lots of reasons. There’s the famous New York City bubble. People who live in NYC find it hard to believe there is anything of interest outside her five boroughs. (And most of them are unconvinced there’s anything cool anywhere expect the borough they happen to live in.) I don’t share that opinion, but hey, I’m from Sydney that’s where all the cool stuff actually is.
I have never heard anyone bitch that all Oz YA is set in Sydney. That’s beacause a) it isn’t and b) the publishing industry is mostly in Melbourne. But neither is most OZ YA set in Melbourne. Actually, an astonishing number of Oz YA novels are set in country towns. This is especially astonishing given that Australia is the most highly urbanised country in the world.
I think the preponderance of NYC YA makes sense given the huge population of the city and that it’s the centre of publishing and thus has a long long history of writers living here. Er, like me.1 I’m one of those writers who needs to have been to the places I write about. My five novels are set in Sydney, NYC, San Miguel de Allende, Bangkok, Dallas as well as a city, New Avalon, I invented and thus know really well.2
Are any of you annoyed by all the USian YA set in NYC? Do you not read it cause you’re so sick of it? Or is it more that when you’re picking a new book you’ll pass if it’s yet another one set in NYC?
If you’re not from the US, are you annoyed by the setting of any of the YA in your country? Is too much French YA set in Paris? Too many Bangkok YA novels in Thailand?
- For half the year. [↩]
- For me the hardest to write were Dallas and Bangkok cause I’ve only been a couple of times and don’t know either city especially very well. Fortunately it was just a few short scene set in either city. If I were to write whole novel set in either I suspect I’d have to live there while writing. [↩]
The Advantages of Being a White Writer
Disclaimer: I am writing about YA publishing in the USA. Although I’m Australian I know much more about the publishing industry in the US than I do about Australia. Or anywhere else for that matter.
I know that the title of this post is going to lead to some comments insisting that it’s not true that white writers have any advantages and that many white people are just as oppressed as people of colour. I don’t want to have that conversation. So I’m going to oppress the white people who make those comments by deleting them. I don’t do it with any malice. I do it because I want to have a conversation about white privilege in publishing. We can have the discussion about class privilege and regional privilege and other kinds of privilege some other time. Those other privileges are very real. But I don’t want this discussion to turn into some kind of oppression Olympics.
Damned if You Do, Damned if You Don’t, Redux
There were some wonderful responses to my post attempting to debunk the “damned if you do/damned if you don’t” canard. But I got the impression that some people understood me as saying that it’s fine for white people to write about non-white people and that any criticism for doing so is no big deal. Writers get criticised for all sorts of different things. Whatcha gunna do?
I did not mean that at all. I’m very sorry that my sloppy writing led to such a misunderstanding. I think the criticism a white writer receives for writing characters who are a different race or ethnicity, especially by people of that race or ethnicity, is a very big deal. We white writers have to listen extremely carefully. Neesha Meminger wrote a whole post about why in which she talks about how hard it is for many non-white writers to get published:
I know how tiring it is to hear over and over from editors or agents (who are, in almost all cases, white) that they “just didn’t connect with,” or “just didn’t fall in love with” the characters of a mostly-multicultural book. And, while I know these can be standard industry responses to manuscripts, the fact of the matter is that white authors are getting published. White authors writing about PoC are getting published—sometimes to great acclaim—while authors of colour are still not (in any significant numbers).
Mayra Lazara Dole makes a similar point:
Many POC feel you are stealing their souls. We’ve never, ever had your same opportunities. As an africanam friend would say, “the times of white people painting their faces black in hollywood are over.” Why don’t you sit back and allow us to get our work published while you keep writing what you know until we catch up? Shouldn’t it be about equal opportunity? If so, please consider giving us a chance to make our mark (about 90 percent of all books are written by white authors).
Now before you get your back up and start spouting about how you have a right to write whatever you want. Neesha agrees:
So, to my white brothers and sisters: certainly, write your story. Populate it with a true reflection of the world you live in. Bring to life strong and powerful characters of all colours. Do so with the ferocity of an ally and the tenderness of family. But please don’t be so cavalier as to shrug and say, “I did my best, and frock you if you don’t like it—plenty of your people thought I did a great job.” Take the criticism in as well. After the urge to defend yourself has passed, pick through the feedback and see if there’s some learning there. Because the reality is that masses upon masses of “our people” have absorbed toxic levels of self-hatred from the images and messages (and *inaccurate representations*) that surround us. Many of us have learned to believe that we are less than, not worthy, undeserving—and are simply grateful to be allowed to exist among you without fear.
So does Mayra Lazara Dole:
On the other hand, having been born in a communist country with censorship, please, write what you want, but just know that even though you have every right to write whatever you wish, you’ll hurt some of us. Many POC’s won’t be as forgiving, but some will. To some POC’s it will feel as if you are stealing from them . . . Don’t you want POC to write our own books?
So do I. Hey, all my books so far have had non-white protags (follow the link for my reasons why). Neither Neesha nor Mayra want to censor white writers, they want us to be very careful of what we do, and they want us to own it.
That’s what I’ve tried to do, but I haven’t always succeeded. Writing, thinking beyond my privilege, these are things I struggle with every single day of my life. I was not standing here from on high saying, “Here’s how to do it.”1 I was saying, “Here’s what I’m wrestling with.”
What are the advantages that white writers writing about people of colour have that PoC writers don’t have?
First of all (assuming that you can actually write) your odds of getting published are better than theirs.2 No, I don’t have statistics to back me up, but I have a lot of anecdotal evidence. Of friends and acquaintances who were rejected by editors and agents who already had their one African or Asian author. If you’re the only brown writer on a list than you have to be a lot better than all the other brown writers competing for that one slot. The hurdles that many non-white writers have to jump to get published in the USA are higher than they are for white writers.3
Here’s another big advantage: If you, as a white writer, produce an excellent book about people who aren’t like you odds are high that your ability to do so will be seen as a sign of your virtuosity and writerly chops, which it is. However, non-white writers rarely get the same response, even though it’s just as hard for them. I say that not just because I think all good writing is hard to achieve, but because every time you write a nuanced character who isn’t white you’re writing against a long, long tradition of stereotyped characters in Western literature. That’s hard to do no matter what your skin colour. And if you’re a writer working within in a different writing tradition and trying to make it succeed within the English-language novel tradition you’re doing something even harder.
I want to make it clear that I’m not saying that we white writers should feel guilty about any of this. Guilt is a pointless emotion. White writers who’ve written about people of colour and won acclaim and awards don’t have to hand their prizes back. That would change nothing.
What I am saying is that we need to be aware of our privilege and listen to criticism and act upon it. We need to do what we can to change things. The more novels with a diversity of characters that are published and succeed in the marketplace the more space there will be. The more people who can find themselves in books, the more readers we’ll all have, and the more opportunities there’ll be for writers from every background. Of course, it’s not just the writers who need to be more diverse, but everyone in publishing, from the interns to agents to the folks in sales, marketing, publicity, and editorial, to the distributors and booksellers.
There are many wonderful books by writers of colour. Read them, talk about them, buy them for your friends. Point them out to your editors and agents. Be part of changing the culture and making space for lots of different voices. The problem is not so much what white people write; it’s that so few other voices are heard. If the publishing industry were representative of the population at large we wouldn’t need to have this conversation.
- And I’m very sorry if it came across that way. [↩]
- Yes, it’s hard for all people to get published. I know. It took me twenty years to do so. But add to that the prevailing notion in the publishing industry that books about people of colour don’t sell and it becomes even harder. [↩]
- The hurdles they have to jump to have the time and resources to write in the first place are typically also higher, but that’s a whole other story. Don’t get me started on the differences I’ve seen on tour in the USA between predominately black schools versus predominately white ones. [↩]
A Wish After Midnight
First I must make a confession: I was very nervous about reading Zetta Elliott’s A Wish After Midnight despite all the good reviews it’s had. I was nervous because it’s self-published and I’ve had some bad experiences with self-published books. Midnight does show a few (minor) signs of not coming from an established publisher such as the margins and line spacing too tight. However, within a couple of pages I stopped being bothered by them, and a few pages after that I stopped seeing them at all because I was lost in the story.
I feel like A Wish After Midnight was designed with me in mind. Because it does so many things I love as well as working as an homage to one of my favourite writers, Octavia Butler. It’s a time travel story set in New York City between now(ish) and the Civil War. Both time periods are vividly realised. You can smell and taste and feel the very different NYC (mostly Brooklyn) landscapes between then and now. I adore historical novels that are clearly well-researched and yet all that research is not obvious. It permeates every scene, every sentence of the book, but it never feels like the author was showing off. Story came first. I love social realism that is also genre. Wish covers multiple genres seamlessly.
Then there’s the protagonist. I absolutely adored Gemma Colon. She’s smart, strong, resourceful, but also very young. She’s an outsider at school and doesn’t get on with her two oldest siblings. Her mother is fighting hard to keep the family afloat but that involves working around the clock. Funny how economic stability and emotional stability sometimes work out to be incompatible. If you’re a single parent working two jobs you don’t get to spend enough time with your children. Gemma is in a lot of pain but she channels it all into working as hard as she can at school and at home. She maintains a huge capacity for joy and hope. Can you tell I adored her?
A Wish After Midnight is influenced by one of my favourite books of all time, Octavia Butler’s Kindred. You could almost say that it’s a YA reworking of Butler’s brilliant book. Butler has had an enormous influence on my writing. So when I say that Wish evokes Kindred without ever being overwhelmed by it, that’s a huge compliment. In fact, I was left wanting to re-read Kindred and Wish back to back.
My biggest question about Wish is why it had to be self-published. This is great story telling, it’s totally commercial—i.e. I could not put it down—it’s also an ethically compelling book about race, class and gender. It’s not like other books in the marketplace. I don’t understand why a big house has not picked it up.
As you can tell my streak of reading extremely good books continues. I’d love to hear what you all thought of A Wish After Midnight espeically those of you have also read Kindred.
Liar and Paperback How To Ditch Your Fairy Release Day!
Yup, it’s finally here. Liar is now officially out in the world in Australia, Canada, New Zealand and the USA! Is it just me or did that take FOREVER?
Also available for the first time today (officially) the audio books of Liar and How To Ditch Your Fairy. As well as the gorgeous US paperback of How To Ditch Your Fairy which as I may have mentioned multiple times is my favourite cover of all time. (Look to your left at the squashed fairy.)
If you can’t afford to buy new books right now, but are desperate to read Liar, I recommend getting your local library to buy a copy (if they haven’t already) or having a friend who owns a copy. That always worked for me.
Happy reading!
Problem Novels
Pixelfish wants to know what a problem novel is. My own definition until fairly recently was: “a contemporary realist YA novel that I don’t like because it’s preachy and condescending and defines teenagers in terms of their ‘problems’ (which half the time I would not define that way) and most teenage readers hate.” (Here is a more useful definition.)
The problem with my definition, other than it’s way too personal, is that it’s not true. During the past few years of talking to teenage readers and school librarians I’ve learned how incredibly helpful many find problem novels. Readers told me over and over again that they were able to find someone like themselves in the main character dealing with abuse, with an alcoholic mother, a drug addicted father, or what have you. Librarians talked of being able to put the right book in the hands of a struggling teen, which not only got them reading, but every bit as important, gave them a way to talk about what was happening to them and thus get help.
When the reader finds the right problem novel for them it does a world of good. I am now for these novels even though I still find some of them overly preachy and boring. But, hey, what genre is a hundred per cent fantastic? None of them.
Also something has happened to the problem novel since I was a teenager. They’ve gotten so much better. Books like M. Sindy Felin’s Touching Snow, Coe Booth’s Tyrell, Varian Johnson’s My Life as a Rhombus touch on abuse, teen pregnancy, drug addiction, and an assortment of other “problems” and they are brilliant, moving, funny, touching, wonderful books that I highly recommend.
I still have a knee jerk reaction against them. What can I say? I have a deep fear of preaching. But I have come around so much that I would actually argue that my latest novel, Liar, is a problem novel.
What do youse lot think of them? I’m particularly interested in stories of how problem novels have helped you or your students.
Me & Stephenie Meyer Together! (on the same table)
My wonderful publisher and editor at Allen & Unwin, Jodie Webster, sent me this pic from her local bookshop in Melbourne, Fairfield Bookshop, (which you’ll be shocked to hear is in Fairfield). I suspect it will be the only time that the pile of my books is bigger than Stephenie Meyer’s! But, hey, I’ll take it while it lasts. Maybe the proximity will rub off on my sales. I can hope, right?
In other news we almost had a NZ winner of the Liar sightings contest. She even had to make them open up a box to get her Liar sighting. Fortunately for my readers in NZ, it was my sister, who’s working in Wellington for Weta.1 Niki already gets enough free copies of my books so the contest is still open for New Zealanders. All you have do is take a photo of Liar in the wild. Either email it to me or link to it in a comment. Good luck!
- Yes, she’s the glamorous one in the family. [↩]
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