Blog | Justine Larbalestier

Guest Post: Ah Yuan on the Importance of Diversity

Due to boring circumstances beyond my control, I will not be online much in February. Fortunately I’ve been able to line up a number of stellar guests to fill in for me. Most are writers, but I also thought it would be fun to get some publishing types to explain what it is they do, teach you some more about the industry, and answer your questions, as well as one or two bloggers.

Today we have one of my favourite YA lit bloggers, Ah Yuan, whose blog, GAL Novelty, should be on your blogroll if it isn’t already. I love how no-holds-barred her reviews are. Thoughtful, smart and conversation provoking. If you want to know a bit more about Ah Yuan before you read this moving post check out this interview on Reading in Color.

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Ah Yuan, also known as wingstodust, is your average Asian-Canadian female blogger tolling away as a liberal arts undergrad. When not being bogged down by school or work, she spends her spare time thinking, breathing and talking about fictional stories: anything from novels to manga to to movies to tv shows. The only thing she finds more enjoyable than a good yarn is to be able to talk about stories with others. She can be found on her book blog called GAL Novelty, her general/fandom blog on dreamwidth, and her twitter feed.

The Importance of Diversity

There’s been recent talk about race in fiction, and the predominance of a white-as-default cast in English-language novels. All in all, I’m pretty happy that we’re having this discussion because diversity in the stories I consume is very important to me. There’s the basic reason, because I believe stories that show worlds with diverse characters is just more honest, and then there’s the other reason, long-winded and messy and personal, which I tried to put into words for y’all today.

Growing up in a predominantly English-speaking part of Canada, I tried my best to seek out Asian representation in my novels. I would look for covers with East or South East Asian faces, squint at last names shown on the spine and trying to guess whether or not that this time, I’ll get lucky and find a story with a protagonist that had a physical resemblance to myself. Sometimes these methods would work, but more often than not I would turn up with absolutely nothing. The years went by and I mostly stopped trying to look for these novels. For a moment in my high school life, I ended up trying to replace my desire for East Asian faces in novels with East Asian movies and dramas, anime and manga. And I loved these shows, these comics—always will. But somewhere down the line this stopped being enough for me. I wanted more—but I didn’t know exactly what I wanted, nor how am I to get what I couldn’t name.

You may find it bemusing then, wherein I hereby confess that I fail to buy into an argument I hear about ‘relate-ability’. The white audience won’t buy POC covers! White people are reluctant to read about a Protagonist of Colour because they’re afraid that they won’t be able to ‘relate’! In fact, if I must be perfectly honest, I find it quite laughable.

Because—no one would ever make the vice versa argument. No Person of Colour is ever going to go “Gee, I’m afraid I can’t read this novel because I don’t think I can relate with a white protagonist!” Relating to a white protagonist is expected, not just out for the white audience that the English-language publishers dominantly cater to, but to the rest of us POCs in the audience as well. POC are expected to relate to a white protagonist, but we can’t expect the same the other way around? Really?

At the same time, I do to a certain degree understand the whole ‘relating’ thing. As I’ve mentioned earlier on, I constantly searched and searched for a story that I can ‘relate’ to. Note that even while doing so, I was never averse to reading about characters who didn’t share my physical resemblance (If I was, the amount of novels I would have read would be an abysmally low count). Stories with non-Asian protagonists probably made up more than ¾ of what I read, even with my younger self’s dedication for Asian representation. What’s available on the library shelves influence and/or limited what I could read, after all, and I remember my elementary school shelves being predominantly whitewashed.

Then you may go, why aren’t you satisfied with your East Asian stories then? Look—Asian faces! You got what you wanted! Why are you still not happy?

See, those stories too, they don’t have room for someone like me either. My hyphenated background is as follows: Malaysian-Chinese Canadian. Tell me, can anyone think of a story with such a background for a protagonist? I’ve searched high and low and to this day I still only know one singular title (and I didn’t even enjoy that story. Representation doesn’t always equal reading enjoyment). In China my ancestors were too poor and low-class to make even a footnote in its history. In Malaysia my family is segregated by law for being ethnically Chinese. In Canada I am invisible. There is no voice for me, for my experiences.

The Japanese, Korean and Taiwanese shows I love so much, they still mean something to me. They showed me that you don’t need Awesomely Coloured Eyes and have Blond or Red Hair to be beautiful. They showed me that Asians can have adventures too and be awesome, the hero of the day. But they also showed me that I don’t quite fit with this picture. Being an ethnic Chinese is different from being Japanese or Korean, and in China there is no voice for the Diaspora population. Getting Malaysian media in general is extremely challenging for me and even when I do find ones that feature Chinese-Malaysians, they may come sans subtitles and I would only half-understand the story with my garbled, faint understanding of Cantonese and Mandarin, never mind other Chinese dialects or Malay itself. The day Canada uses a POC protagonists, never mind even just Chinese-Canadian protagonists, in their narratives, is the day hell freezes over and the dead decides to come back to the living. And even with stories that do have the hyphenate identity of being a Chinese-American doesn’t quite hold. A Chinese-American is similar but NOT the same as a Chinese-Canadian, and a Chinese immigrant who came from the Mainland is different from a Chinese immigrant who came from Hong Kong is different from a Chinese immigrant who came from Indonesia, Singapore, Malaysia, Vietnan . . .

I’ve stopped holding my breath for characters that will be representative of my heritage. In my entire lifetime I do not expect to come across any more such protagonists and/or stories than what I can count on one hand.

There is no voice for someone like me, but I thought and thought about it, and a few years back I realized that all I really wanted was a story that said it was okay to have a diverse population. That everyone around you didn’t have to come from the same monolith culture in order to have a story to tell. Stories in English language novels that have a white default, stories in Japanese/Korean/Chinese shows that show a monolith culture, all these stories don’t have room for me in them. But a story that features and even stars a character that isn’t part of the dominant race default, wherein minorities of the country have a voice, that’s a kind of world wherein I have a possibility of existing. I am not saying that I read diverse books in order to find a Malaysian-Chinese Canadian within it, because I’ve long since stopped believing in such a story. What I am saying is that in stories that show a world wherein marginal voices are given centre stage and deemed worthy of a story, I as a jumble of hyphenates, a marginal group in every country my family have ever been part of, can have room to dream. I, in this world, can only carve out a space for myself as myself in a world that acknowledges the existence of people that don’t fit in the dominant fold. A diverse population is the only place wherein I as a marginal voice can exist, and that is why stories that reflect such diversity is important to me.

And I guess, this is the closest I’ll ever get to understanding what it means to ‘relate’ to a world that is reflective of my own.

Posted by Justine at 18:39, 8 February 2010 under Reading, State of the World, Young Adult literature | 11 Comments »

Guest Post: Sarah Rees Brennan on Movies & Sex

Due to boring circumstances beyond my control, I will not be online much for the next week or so. Fortunately I’ve been able to line up a number of stellar guests to fill in for me. Most are writers, but I also thought it would be fun to get some publishing types to explain what it is they do, teach you some more about the industry, and answer your questions, as well as one or two bloggers.

Today we have Sarah Rees Brennan, who is quite mad, which is often quite an advantage for the writing of fine fiction, as you will discover if you read any of SRB’s books. She was last here for an interview where she revealed the insanity of her writing technique.

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Sarah Rees Brennan is from Ireland, but she likes to roam the world causing havoc, and on one such mission encountered Justine Larbalestier in New York City and the rest is history (and spells your doom). She can be found saying stuff like this all the time on her own blog and she is the author of The Demon’s Lexicon trilogy, first instalment out, second instalment out this May, about which more here. Her own demonic possession is an unfounded rumour that has little to no basis in fact.

Sarah says:

So, ladies and gentlemen of the audience sitting in your chairs, happily anticipating another blog post filled with the usual thoughtfulness and wit by your favourite author, Dr. Justine Larbalestier.

I am sorry to disappoint you: said Dr. Larbalestier is currently unavailable.

JUSTINE

SARAH

JUSTINE

SARAH

TEN MINUTES LATER

SARAH: Well, it was a nice idea.

So instead of Justine Larbalestier, you have me, and I am going to be talking about movies and sex! (Cue that scene when people are at a petting zoo, approaching a sweet kitty, and then . . . ‘IT’S A LION HARVEY, JESUS CHRIST, IT’S A LION, GET IN THE CAR.’)

There is a thing you need to understand about me. Sometimes, I like truly terrible things. I have watched all three High School Musical movies.

Nevertheless, I would not have of my own free will chosen to watch a movie starring Matthew McConaughey. (Apologies to all fans of this fine thespian in the audience. You may want to look away now.) But I was on a plane and had finished my book, Ghosts of Girlfriends Past started playing, I made an error in judgement.

Said movie’s plot: Matthew McConaughey is a heartless playboy about to be taught the error of his ways by apparitions from his dating life! Jennifer Garner is the One Who Got Away, who needs to be recaptured once Matthew has learned his touching and totally unexpected lesson about true love being all that really matters!

Matters were proceeding exactly as anticipated right until the point where we have the flashback to Matthew and Jennifer’s past romance, in which they banter, she softens towards him, his heart grows three sizes, and they come together in one glorious night with all the torrid passion of a box of cornflakes left out in the rain. Matthew McConaughey, sneaky playboy that he is, flees his own feelings and tries to sneak out on her as she sleeps. She wakes up.

JENNIFER GARNER

beast

MATTHEW MCCONAUGHEY

JENNIFER GARNER

some women you sneak out on in the middle of the night

some women you stay and snuggle with

At this point, I turned to the lady in the seat beside me.

SARAH

nice lady

MY NEIGHBOUR ABOARD THE PLANE

SARAH

The nice French plane lady patted my hand. Clearly, she thought I was insane. Obviously, she was right, but that is not the point at this time.

I have no excuse for watching Wild Child, which is a terrible teen comedy, except that I truly and deeply in my soul love terrible teen comedies, and I went to see 17 Again in the cinema. (‘Justine, Justine’ you all moan faintly. ‘Why hast thou forsaken us, Justine?’)

Wild Child is about a spoiled American teen who is sent to English boarding school, a place which is awfully stodgy, and where many people wear tweed, and some hunt! Obviously she learns valuable life lessons, and it all culminates in an epic lacrosse battle.

But there is a specific part of the movie I wish to focus on, and it is this: at one point, our heroine’s jolly dormitory mates ask if she has ‘done it’ yet, and she says with a toss of her mane that she has! A ton! And that seemed to be that, she got on with playing merry japes and romancing the prim headmistress’s son, and I thought to myself ‘You know. I think that’s pretty great.’

Oh, that was a rash thought of mine. For at the school dance, our heroine having bonded sufficiently with her dormitory mates, she tells them that no, actually, she never has! Just like them! She’s really been good all along.

Now, the heroine of Wild Child is meant to be sixteen or seventeen. I’m not saying ‘People, we need more teenage bangin’!’ Except maybe I kind of am. (Far away in New York City, my editor just had a tiny, tiny stroke. Sorry about that, Karen!) I trust I do not need to tell you guys that the decision not to bang is a totally okay and often wise decision on the part of people of both genders, at all ages.

But really. Really, in this day and age, do we so entirely equate a woman’s moral character with her sexual behaviour? Of course, we (and by we I mean, you know, Society) do. We have a whole lot of insults for ladies who like to have sex, and we don’t draw the same line in the sand for dudes. Having our books and movies reflect that attitude so very clearly just made me think—wow, how patterns go on and on repeating. We must sit down. And take a look. And say to ourselves, ‘Oh, wow, that is pretty gross.’ (Not that I’m encouraging people to go watch Ghosts of Girlfriends Past. MY LORD NO. I’ve taken that bullet for you all. Only too happy to have been of service. SAVE YOURSELVES. I can still hear the lambs on the plane screaming about feminism.)

Another thing that I’ve been doing lately, in between watching teen comedies, is reading romance novels. Because a) I was trying to overcome prejudice against certain types of books, as said prejudice is dumb and b) turns out a lot of romance novels are pretty great, so I wanted to read more.

Quite recently I read The Devil’s Delilah by Loretta Chase, in which our heroine Delilah makes out with a rake! And she likes it. And I was delighted. Not because I wanted her to end up with the rake: I loved the bookworm hero, and Delilah and the bookworm had already made out, and it had been most excellent. But because that’s something I’d noted in a lot of (not just romance, and not just historical) novels—that heroines were given a pass on desire, as long as they desired the heroes alone. The implication of that? Women, with sexy feelings not associated with True Love! They would be no more than common trollops!

So now I have a great love for books with heroines who make out with people who aren’t heroes, and like it, and go with the hero because said hero is a better match. (As an example, if Jane Austen had written make-out scenes, which she did not, I feel Elizabeth Bennet is obviously attracted to Wickham, and could’ve had a great time snogging him, though of course it would still have been followed with the Austen equivalent of ‘Whoops, you are a tool, MY MISTAKE.’)

And—well, I just think it would be great if we could have heroines, even teenage heroines—sure, some of whom have decided to wait or haven’t decided to wait but just haven’t decided not to, but some of whom didn’t wait, had a disastrous experience and came through it just fine. Some of whom didn’t wait, had a great time, parted ways, repeated same five or a hundred times, and were also just fine. (Obviously, the reverse should happen as well, and actually, I think it’s kind of cool that one of the Most Beloved Fictional Characters of Our Time, Edward Cullen, is a self-confessed and unashamed virgin hero of a century plus. So, you know, take a bow, Twilight! If I had to pick between you and Matthew McConaughey, Mr Cullen, you would most assuredly be my sparkly date to the school dance.)

And next time you see a heroine tell people she’s Pure as the Driven Incidentally, or Not Like the Other Girls (those trashy wenches)—well, frown at the screen or the page, and think ‘Oh wow, that is pretty gross.’

Ahem. Thank you for your kind attention, ladies and gentlemen! (*surveys the audience, some of whom seem to be weeping softly and saying things like ‘Get thee behind me, Satan . . . Oh Justine, Justine . . .’*) Please feel free to tell me to get thee behind you, or tell me about kind of gross or kind of excellent portrayals of sexuality in fiction, in the comments.

Posted by Justine at 6:04, 5 February 2010 under Feminism, Guest post, Ranting, Viewing | 40 Comments »

Zombies versus Unicorns Cover

Today mine & Holly Black’s Zombies v Unicorn anthology was featured on EW’s Shelf Life, the press release went out, and the Simon & Schuster’s official Z v U page is officially official.¹ Go there to vote Team Zombie—my team—because zombies are superior to unicorns in every way.

Over the next few months leading up to the antho’s publication in September I will have much to say about it. But today I wanted to talk about the art because it is so spectactular that I’m still pinching myself. I love it!² The artist, Josh Cochran, has surpassed himself with his Heironymous-Bosch-meets-Where’s-Waldo epic art.³

Feast your eyes:

And do click on the art to see it in its much bigger glory.

What could be cooler than that? Well, how about the fact that it’s going to go on the boards of the book. Yup, for the first time in my publishing career, a book of mine will look just fine without a dustjacket. A book of mine is going to look good NAKED. Happiness!

But do not panic: the glorious art will not be totally concealed by the dustjacket. Oh, no, Simon & Schuster are going with a three-quarter black dust jacket so that you can see the magnificent zombie v unicorn battle peeking out of the dj. It’s going to be absolutely spectactular. I cannot wait to see the final book. In fact, not since my first book was published have I ever been so eager to see the final book.

Note: A few of the people I’ve shown this art to seem to be under the misapprehension that the unicorns are winning. Not so! What they clearly do not realise is that zombies are many, unicorns are few. In fact, every unicorn in the universe is depicted in this art. Whereas the legions and legions of zombies wait at its edges. Unicorns are So. Very. Doomed.

Yes, those of you on Twitter already know about it. That’s because being on Twitter makes you special. Give yourself a special Twitter hug. [↩]
For those who seem to have been confused on that subject in the past you can tell that I love this cover because I wrote “I love it.” Rather than, say, telling you that other people love it. [↩]
Tip of hat to Diana Peterfreund for the Where’s Waldo part of the mashup. [↩]

Posted by Justine at 19:03, 4 February 2010 under Zombies v Unicorns | 15 Comments »

Guest Post: Ask Publicist Lauren

Today we have Lauren Cerand, who is a freelance publicist. I know that many people are confused as to what exactly a publicist does. (I know I frequently am.) It took me ages to realise that there are basically two kinds, freelancers like Lauren, and in-house publicists who work at publishing houses (or record companies or what have you.) Read on and Lauren will tell you more:

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Lauren Cerand is an independent public relations representative whose current projects include Barnes & Noble’s “Upstairs at the Square” series. Lauren has been described as one of the “cultural gatekeepers in the literary world” by Time Out New York and as the “Best of New York” by The Village Voice. She is often asked to share her perspective with audiences, such as at Book Expo America in New York and Penguin Books in London, and will appear next at the Nebraska Summer Writers Conference (June) and Squam Art Workshops Readers Retreat in New Hampshire (September). Lauren writes about art, politics and style at LuxLotus.com. She serves on the board of directors of both Girls Write Now and The Writers Room, and as an advisor to Fictionaut. Lauren is a graduate of Cornell University.

Lauren says:

I am a freelance publicist. My clients pay me by the month, the project and sometimes by the hour to create new media opportunities that engage and expand their natural audience. My main areas of interest are online media and events. I also consult with creative professionals on how best to capitalize on their existing resources to generate some buzz around a forthcoming project. Some ways to generate buzz are: learn how to use social media effectively, contribute to a website you read regularly, and support your scene.

In-house publicists at a publishing house send out books to reviewers and work to “place” reviews and features about an author (Noted: that is the verb we use because, as a publicist, I do not actually generate any content myself. Rather, and this is a major point, I convince others that my projects are worth covering in their publications and on their programs). They have many books per month and a very tight schedule. The best way to coordinate your efforts is to have a very honest conversation six months in advance where you, with grace and acceptance, understand exactly what your publisher is able to create and commit on your behalf. And then you come up with your own strategy. Why? Because your publisher is going to promote your book for about a month, max.

What do I think? You should give it a year. After all, it’s your career and this book’s success will make or break the next one. How can you extend that brief window, created by external pressures you have no control over? By committing some of your own resources to online ads that reach your audience, nominating your book for awards, booking events, and continuing to generate buzz per above.

A typical day in my life: 9 or 10am, wake up, answer urgent emails (about 50). Talk to clients on the phone. Noon – 2pm, lunch meeting with a journalist or colleague, discuss projects and possibilities. Afternoon: repeat all of the above. Evening: manage or attend event. 24/7: cultivate the relationships that will lead to premium exposure for my clients when the opportunity presents itself.

Questions? I’d be delighted to answer them.

Posted by Justine at 5:49, 4 February 2010 under Guest post, Publishing business | 14 Comments »

Guest Post: Tansy Rayner Roberts on Reading as a Luxury

First up we have a fellow Australian, Tansy Rayner Roberts, who’s not only a fine fiction writer, but her reviews and blogging skills are second to none. After reading this post I was overcome with the urge to curl up with a good book.

Tansy is the author of the Creature Court trilogy (HarperCollins Voyager, beginning June 2010) and Siren Beat (Twelfth Planet Press). She can be found on Twitter as @tansyrr and blogs on her own website as well as the Last Short Story project and Ripping Ozzie Reads. Tansy lives in Tasmania with her partner and two young daughters, and has a doctorate in Classics.

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Reading as a Luxury

I haven’t been reading enough lately. (I read all the time, emails, blogs, gchat, ymail, webzines, short stories for review, facebook, twitter, even my daughter prefers an ipod app to a bedtime story some nights.) I can tell I haven’t been reading enough actual books, though, because the to-read shelf is starting to call out to me in a mournful voice.

Poor dear, how it suffers.

A chapter here and there is not satisfying me or the shelf. I need to swamp myself in a papery thing, possibly several papery things back to back, to immerse myself in medicinal literature by the kilo. (I need. To put. The damn. Laptop down. Though not before current writing deadlines are met, obviously]

Talking to Girlie Jones (aka Twelfth Planet Press publisher Alisa Krasnostein) recently about A Book of Endings, I realised that while I had read all the new stories Deb Biancotti wrote for the collection, I had done so in pdf form (I read over 650 short stories for review in e-format last year) and I’d never actually sat down to read the collection properly, beginning to end, the reprint stories mixed in with the new. (The book, in fact, is still wrapped in bubble wrap from when GJ posted it to me) I knew the new stories all blended nicely together, but I wasn’t even sure I had read them in the right order. I wanted the real, genuine experience of sitting down and reading them all properly. I knew how much work Deb and her editors had put into it, and I wanted the full effect.

Only my head went directly from ‘I must read that book’ to this place: ooh, some time Very Soon I will lie on the couch with a box of chocolates, possibly wearing a floaty 1940’s sort of sun dress, and I will consume the delicious and ever so pretty book slowly and voraciously, as nature intended prose to be consumed.

I do love my imagination, it is cruel but creative.

(To unpack the above: my five year old would eat the chocolates or beg more than half of them off me so I’d never buy them in the first place to eat in front of her, and besides the whole chocolate-eating-while-reading thing doesn’t work for me, I can manage a maximum of four before the sugar hits and I start craving something savoury like a vegemite sandwich or gravy, and that’s just not as poetic. Also, I don’t own that dress, or anything like it, well maybe one but it’s pushing it stylewise and there are moth holes in it. Also, every single time in the last three months I have lain on the couch to read a book, I have ended up napping rather than reading, because sleep is another one of those old necessities that now counts as a luxury, did I mention I had a six month old baby?)

Reading is many things to me. It’s a professional necessity, it’s a tool, it’s being part of a community. It’s a sanity-inducing moment of relief from my life of juggling demanding children and an at-times-more-demanding laptop. It’s an escape from technology, and being plugged in. It’s recreation. It’s a distraction. It’s a project, or a task to be completed.

Somewhere along the way, though, it has become a luxury. Something I promise myself, if I just – finish – those – fifteen – tasks – first. On the rare occasions during the week that I do get to read something other than Gossip Girl novels (which are lightweight enough in all senses of the word to be consumed while breastfeeding my baby and thus hardly count as reading at all) I have somehow lost the ability to say ‘yes this is something I need to do’ and so I barely get in a guilty twenty minutes or so to read a chapter before going to do something else.

Books I really really want to read, books I was so excited about that I pre-ordered them to get them early, are lying around unread, or partially read, stacking up against the walls and the chairs. Luxury, my brain tells me. Not now, my brain tells me.

I’m beginning to suspect that my brain and I are not on the same page.

Reading Going Bovine in January, a chapter or two from the end and deathly afraid for the protagonist (as well as my own nerve) I found myself caught between needing to finish a book right now and, you know, getting my five year old off to bed on time, reading her a story, tagging my honey (or vice versa) to do the same.

The book won. For the first time in a very long time. And it felt awesome.

I admit the practicality of the e-book future that is hurtling towards us, and I even welcome it in theory, but I also rail against it. My hardwired memory of books is not just about the words and ideas, it’s about the whole product. The grey cloth cover of Susanna Clarke’s The Ladies of Grace Adieu, so beautiful that I could not leave it in the bookshop, not for one second longer. My beaten up old orange penguin copy of A Room with a View, and my brand new leather bound edition of the same. Purchasing battered, matching antique green hardbacks of Wuthering Heights and Jane Eyre as a nine-year-old child, long before I knew that I would love one and hate the other. Every cover on every David Eddings novel I ever bought with my own money as a teenager (possibly I was supposed to buy clothes). Leaving Terry Pratchett hardcover sleeves randomly around the house like fallen apple peelings. The flop. The spines. The end papers. The mysterious blank pages at the end of all my Famous Five novels as a child, which I treated as spare paper, drawing tiny graphic novels to myself. Mysterious inscriptions in second hand books. (To Buster, from Rupert. Is it really from Rupert? Rupert Bear? Why was Rupert Bear giving a book to Buster? Was Rupert temping for Santa that year?)

My reading time is already at such a premium. I compromise my preferred book principles in dozens of tiny guilt-ridden ways, purchasing mostly online (though no longer Amazon) because it’s hard to leave the house, picking up books from Places Which Are Not Cool Indie Bookshops because they’re there, or they’re cheap or, you know, they’re books. However awesome it might be to have an electronic device with several hundred marvellous books packed and ready for next time I go on holiday or have time to read for a whole year with no interruptions (hahahaha that would be twenty-never) it’s just another to read shelf, really. A bigger one, that might make it easier to hide extravagant literary purchases from my honey. And no good could come of that.

(“Honestly, that 100 volume set of 1920’s murder mysteries was on special!”)

Posted by Justine at 18:31, 3 February 2010 under Guest post, Reading | 17 Comments »

What Scalzi Said

Most of you will know that Amazon has stopped selling books by Macmillan authors. (If you don’t know about it read Scott’s take.) John Scalzi has just called for people to support the affected authors:¹

So rather than focus on what should happen to Amazon or Macmillan, here’s an idea, and here’s my point: let’s us focus on the writers, who are getting kinda screwed here. None of this is their fault, it has nothing to do with them, and they don’t deserve to lose sales and their livelihood while this thing goes down. If you want to make a statement here, don’t make it against a corporation, who isn’t listening anyway. Make it for someone, and someone who will appreciate the support.

Support the authors affected. Buy their books.

What Scalzi said.

To find out which authors are affected go to the Macmillan site. They have several imprints publishing YA and childrens books, such as FSG, Feiwell & Friends, and Henry Holt.

It’s always a good time to buy a book, but maybe now’s an even better time than usual.² I know I’m going to.

If you’re wondering, no, neither Scott nor I are directly affected. The bulk of our books are not with Macmillan publishers. [↩]
If you’re broke see if you can get your library to order in some new books or bully your rich friends into spending some of their riches on books. [↩]

Posted by Justine at 19:35, 2 February 2010 under Publishing business, Writing life | 3 Comments »

In Which Kingsley Amis & I Disagree

First a confession: I love Sir Kingsley Amis. That’s why the heading of this post says “Kingsley & I” rather than “Kingsley & me” (which is my preference cause I reckon it sounds better) but not old Kingsley, he was a sucker for good grammar.¹ I does not wish to offend him.²

I love Kingsley Amis for so many reasons. Because he’s dead funny, because he wrote in pretty much every genre, and because his main writing concerns were story and characterisation. Thus one of my favourite anecdotes about him goes like this:

Kingsley Amis is listening to a radio interview with his son Martin Amis, in which Amis Junior says of his latest novel that it really must be read twice in order to be fully appreciated. At which point Amis Senior says, “Well, then he’s buggered it up, hasn’t he?”

Too right. In case you’re worried about animosity between father and son, by all accounts they got on well, and there was much affection between them. They just had very different outlooks on writing. It happens.

I first came across Sir Kingsley when I was researching my PhD thesis on science fiction. His New Maps of Hell from 1960 was by far the wittiest, smartest, and most enjoyable book on science fiction I came across.³ That it was written by an established non-genre writer was astounding. It’s hard in these oh-so-much-more-tolerant days to convey just how much contempt was felt by the literati for us lowly genre writers. Why, back then even crime fiction (which Amis also loved) carried a stigma. But Kingsley Amis cared not a jot and wrote whatever he pleased: mysteries, science fiction, books about James Bond. I would love him for this alone.

Like me, he had an opinion on pretty much everything.⁴ (Though, um, his would only rarely, if ever, line up with mine.) In fact, I think he would have made a fabulous blogger. His non-fiction writing, espcially in newspapers, is chatty, unpretentious and instantly disarming:

Only one reader by her own account a hotelier and Tory [conservative] activist who’s also been a probation officer, took serious issue with me. “Your writing,” she stated, “is getting more and more biased and entrenched in reactionary fuddy-duddyism.” An excellent summing-up, I thought, of my contribution to the eighties’ cultural scene.

The quote comes from his writing on booze. Sir Kingsley was a boozer. He wrote three books on the subject, which are now handily collected in the one volume, Everyday Drinking, The Distilled Kingsley Amis. It’s wonderful and I say this as someone who pretty much disagrees with every word.

Sir Kingsley Amis’ drinks of choice were spirits and beer. He also had an inordinate fondness for cocktails and the book includes many recipes, including one for a Lucky Jim.⁵ I am a wine drinker,⁶ with little taste for cocktails, spirits or beer. Kingsley loved gin. I loathe it. Kingsley considered the Piña Colada a “disgusting concoction” and an “atrocity.” I love a properly made piña with fresh pineapple juice, fresh coconut milk and cream, and a dash of dark rum. Though really I just love coconut and pineapple—I’d happily skip the rum. He also considered combining beer and limes to be an “exit application from the human race” whereas I consider lime to be the only thing that makes most beer even vaguely palatable.

I also adore the French white wines he hates the most:

But the dry ones are mostly too dry to suit me, whether with food or solo. That’s if dry is the right word. I mean more than the absence of sweetness—I mean the quality that makes the saliva spurt into my mouth as soon as the wine arrives there. Perhaps I mean what wine experts call crispness or fintiness or even acidity, which for some mysterious reason they think is a good thing in wine. But whatever you call it, I don’t want it. Chablis, the average white Mâcon, Muscadet, Sancerre, Pouilly-Fumé—not today, thank you.

That’s fine, Kingsley. I’ll drink them!⁷ Well, not the average ones. Only the best, please!

He has scathing things to say about the Irish. Doesn’t think they could possibly have invented the process of making whiskey.⁸ Boo, Kingsley! Some of my best friends are Irish. Snobby, pommy bastard, you!⁹

So what was I doing reading a book I kept yelling “boo” at? Have I mentioned how funny Kingsley is? Here he is discussing the essentials for a good home bar kit:

1. A refrigerator. All to yourself, I mean. There is really no way around this. Wives and such are constantly filling any refigerator they have a claim on, even its ice-compartment, with irrelevant rubblish like food.
8. A really very sharp knife. (If you want to finish the evening with your usual number of fingers, do any cutting-up, peel-slicing and the like before you have more than a couple of drinks, perferably before your first.)

Oh, Kingsley! How did you cope with those pesky wives and such?¹⁰ And food, irrelevant? My heart is so sad for you. I will go eat a nectarine. *gobbles* Ah, better.

Then once he’s given you his list of ten essentials he tells you what he ommitted:

Half the point of the above list is what it leaves out. The most important and controversial of your non-needs is a cocktail shaker. With all respect to James Bond, a martini should be stirred, not shaken. The case is a little different with drinks that include the heavier fruit-juices and liqueurs, but I have always found that an extra minute’s stirring does the trick well enough. The only mixture that does genuinely need shaking is one containing eggs, and if that is your sort of thing, then clear off and buy youself a shaker any time you fancy. The trouble with the things is that they are messy pourers and, much more important, they are far too small, holding half a dozen drinks at the outside. A shaker about the size of a hatbox might be worth pondering, but I have never seen or heard of such.

I am now trying to imagine operating a hatbox-sized cocktail shaker. Maybe if Yao Ming was the bartender? Which, oddly enough, is something I would like to see.

I also greatly enjoyed his instructions for making sugar syrup (simple syrup):

A bottle of sugar syrup, a preperation continually called for in mixed-drink books. To have a supply of it will save you a lot of time. . . Concoct it yourself by the following simple method:

Down a stiff drink and keep another by you to see you through the ordeal. . . [instructions] Your bottleful will last for months, and you will have been constantly patting yourself on the back for your wisdom and far-sightedness.

Reading Kingsley on booze is like reading novels from the 1930s-1950s. The adults are drinking all the time. With breakfast, lunch, before dinner, during dinner, after dinner, before bed (night cap!). Was anyone ever sober? It is a miracle that anything at all was achieved in those decades in the US, UK or Australia.¹¹

Sir Kingsley sadly discusses the growing ubiquitousness of wine. But I can’t help thinking that the largely lower alcoholic content of wine (lower than spirits and cocktails anyways) combined with the prevelance of it being drunk with food, is a good thing. Wine cultures tend not to have as much alcoholism as, say, vodka cultures. Compare and contrast France with Russia.

Kingsley explains his own lack of wine appreciation¹² thus:

Now we reach the point at which my credentials become slightly less than impeccable. With all those drinks I have got through, what I have not done is drink first-rate table wines at their place of origin, work my way through classic vintages and develop an educated palate. To do that, what you really need, shorn of the talk, is a rich father, and I missed it.

I missed that one, too, Sir Kingsley. But I’ve muddled along okay without. I may not know much about the very best Bourdeaux but I does know which wines I like, you know, like a good Pouilly-Fume. Or “pooey fumes” as me and my classy friends call it.

Anyways, bless you, Sir Kingsley Amis, for poking fun at yourself, at wine and booze, and almost everything else. For your classy deployment of sarcasm, irony, and out-and-out wit. Tonight I will raise a glass of the wine you hated most in your honour.¹³

He would be appalled by my grammar, spelling, and punctuation skills. Or lack thereof. Sorry, Kingsley. [↩]
Though I do feel free to use his first name. I guess I’ve been reading him for so long I feel that we are now mates. A very safe feeling what with him being dead and all. [↩]
I disagreed with much of it, but that’s neither here nor there. [↩]
Toilet paper goes over the roll, people, not under! [↩]
Many people believe that Amis’ Lucky Jim was one of the funniest British novels of the 20th century. I’d definitely put it up there with Cold Comfort Farm. [↩]
I mean if I were a drinker that’s what I would drink. Though obviously as as writer of YA I don’t drink. So clearly everything in this post is on the hypothetical side. [↩]
Er, in my mind, I will. Not in real life. YA writer. [↩]
With or without an “e.” [↩]
Though we do agree on the subject of cola drinks and Woody Allen. We doesn’t like them. [↩]
According to his bios, he did so by having lots and lots of affairs. Oh, is that who the “and such” were? Bad, Sir Kingsley! [↩]
I know not of the drinking habits of other nations, but I fear the worst. [↩]
Though judging from what he writes about wine he was a phony and knew vastly more than, say, I do on the subject. [↩]
I won’t actually drink it, mind. YA writer, me. Pure as driven snow. [↩]

Posted by Justine at 22:08, 31 January 2010 under Liquids, Praising, Reading | 9 Comments »

Of Note

Well, it’s of note to me, maybe not to many other peoples.

Writing is FUN. It is multo happy making.

That is all.

Go about your business!

Posted by Justine at 23:53, 30 January 2010 under Writing life, Writing process | 6 Comments »

I Know You Mean Well

Every time I post about sexism, along come some men to make the conversation be about them. They usually start with a question about what they as a man can do, or how it applies to them. Before too long the entire comment thread becomes about them. Or even if the other commenters don’t take the bait, the blokes keep coming back with more related questions, all of which has the effect of not adressing the subject at hand, but trying to bring it back to its “proper” place: talking about men.

Often, these blokes are nice people and are asking genuine questions. Sometimes the post has caused an actual epiphany for them and the shutters of privilege are lifting and they really want to talk about that. I understand! Truly I do. I’m white. I’ve been having epiphany after epiphany about my own white privilege and what a blinkered view of the world it has given me. The shutters have been lifting. It’s a wonderful thing. But the time to talk about your privilege-epiphanies is not in a comment thread about sexism or racism. Because to do so has the effect of shutting down actual discussion of oppression. I.e., your privilege winds up derailing the conversation and making it all about the you when the point of it is that it’s not about you. Go share your epiphany and your struggles towards becoming a better person on your own blog. Better still, stick around and listen.

I’m sure I sound cranky. Oh, those humourless feminist harridans yelling at you again! As it happens, I’m not cranky, I’m just a wee bit bored. Such comments are as regular as clockwork. Every time one shows up I have to decide whether to delete it (so the conversation stays on track) or whether I’m in the mood to give an introduction to Feminism 101, or whether to simply ignore it, or to jump in with a gentle reminder to stay on subject. In my last post on mansplaining, I had to delete a record number of comments.¹ I hate doing that. But they would have utterly derailed the conversation.

I understand the intense desire to talk about you. We all want to talk about us.² The vast majority of people I’ve met, including me, will respond to any conversational topic with an anecdote about themselves. It’s how most of us process information. “How does this particular thing apply to me?”

Problem is that the world we live in centres on people like you; white men run it. So much so that when someone like Chris Matthews (a white male USian pundit) approves of something someone not like him—Barack Obama—says, Matthews literally forgets that Obama is black. Thereby making it impossible that anyone will ever forget that Chris Matthews is white. As if that were even a possibility . . .

If you’re a man and the conversation is about sexism and women are sharing stories of their oppresssion, think very carefully before you comment. Ask yourself, is my question on topic? Will an answer to my question be about women or about me? Am I about to point out that perhaps this behaviour, that all the other women in the thread have described as sexist, is just rude and that anyone can do it? Ask yourself what your motives are? What’s at stake for you in proving it’s not sexist? Are you trying to feel better about being a man? Prove that you’re the exception? That there are nice men who aren’t like that?³

If you’re not adding to the conversation, don’t comment. If your comment is all about you, don’t comment. And if you’re bent on proving something is not sexist, then really really really really don’t comment.

Let us take the example of mansplaining. I realise that my sidenote in that post was a red herring. I described some of my own past rudenesses. Explaining someone’s name to them.⁴ And someone else’s religion to them.⁵ That was very rude of me. But in both cases I was not speaking from a place of privilege. The Linda who I helpfully told her name means “beautiful” in Spanish was white middle class and female just like me. Ditto the Jewish friend.⁶

So, yes, I was being annoying and rude, but I was not disregarding what they said because of their gender, I was not using my position of power to deprive them of having a voice, and I was not speaking on high from my privilged position.

Note: While men do this all the time they rarely do it on purpose or even consciously. That’s part of the problem. If most men realised they were using their privilege in these ways it would be a lot easier to get them to change their behaviours. But, sadly, it’s not just a matter of bad behaviours. That’s the problem with systemic inequality, people don’t see it.

I have been in the position of wanting to explain to a black friend that the behaviour they saw as racist wasn’t. Why, I happened to know that that restaurant gives everyone crap service. They’re slow and rude and nasty to everyone. But how did I know that the bad service they’d experienced wasn’t different in kind from the bad service I’d experienced? That on top of that restaurant’s slowness and rudeness and nastiness was a layer of racism. Even if it was just bad service, the fact that it could just as easily have been racism speaks volumes to the kind of world we live in. When I eat out in my own country it never crosses my mind that the bad service could be because of racism. Why would it?

Understanding the effects of racism and sexism when you’re white and a man has to pretty much be theoretical. Even if you’re poor, gay and disabled you can only understand through the lens of a different kind of oppression, which is every bit as appalling, but remains different in kind. Which is to say that just because I have experienced sexism does not mean I understand what it is to experience racism.

So, yes, I do get why men want to take part in these conversations. I understand why you find them uncomfortable, why you want to be told that you’re the exception to all those bad nasty men. I mean, who wants to think of themselves as an oppressor? Who wants to realise that they’ve benefited from systemic oppression? We want to think that we are who we are and have what we have because of our own unique me-ness. Not because we had the luck to be born in one of the wealthy countries, with white parents, and XY chromosones.

I want you to take part in the conversations here on this blog. Truly, I love all my commenters. But I’ve had it with derailing. At this point I don’t care how nice you are, or how good your intentions, I will delete derailing comments and send the offender a link to this post.

Thus endeth the sermon.

Most of them mansplaining to me that “mansplaining” isn’t mainsplaining at all. It’s just rudeness. Silly little girly me for not realising that! [↩]
Well, until we’ve done twenty interviews in a row then all we want to talk about is anything but us. “Can I be Alaya Johnson now? I’m sick of being me. What about Maureen Johnson? No? Oh, please, please don’t make me talk about where I get my ideas again! Aaaarggh!” [↩]
Guess what? We know that. Many of us are married to, best friends with, related to, live with, work with, hang out with perfectly lovely men. [↩]
Ironic, since I have lost count of how many times people have explained what Larbalestier means to me. Annoying? Oh, yes. Very. [↩]
Aargh. So embarrassed. Never happen again. [↩]
Yes, we’re still friends! [↩]

Posted by Justine at 19:06, 29 January 2010 under Feminism, State of the World | 41 Comments »

Mansplaining

I am very proud to be friends with Karen Healey, who popularised the term “mansplaining,” which is now out and living a merry life of its own on the intramanets. Bless you, Karen!

Mansplaining according to Karen is

[w]hen a dude tells you, a woman, how to do something you already know how to do, or how you are wrong about something you are actually right about, or miscellaneous and inaccurate “facts” about something you know a hell of a lot more about than he does.

Bonus points if he is explaining how you are wrong about something being sexist!

Many have objected to this formulation as sexist claiming that women do it too. Nuh uh. SKM from Shakesville explains:

[M]en’s opinions and ideas are privileged over women’s, and men often receive positive feedback for holding forth, while women tend to be punished for doing the same. Anyone who has been chastised by a supervisor for being “too aggressive” while male coworkers were praised as “go-getters” for similar behavior knows what I’m talking about.

I saw this happen at a library conference at the bar, with only six men present (authors, not librarians), three of whom managed to ignore everything said by the women present. Including stuff that was then repeated by one of the men present and then applauded. I had to get up and leave I was so annoyed. So did several of the other women. But did we say anything at the time? No, because we’ve been so carefully trained not to call men on their sexism. It would have been rude and killjoy and just the kind of thing those no-fun feminists do. So, none of us did. Oh, and one of those men later noted to me that he couldn’t believe how much one of the women authors present (who had barely managed to get a word in) had talked. No, his head did not explode.

This is just to say . . .

That spending any amount of time judging the ethical, moral or ideological purity of your allies in struggles to cause change derails those very efforts. Let’s focus on the struggle itself, shall we? And not get bogged down kneecapping people on the same side. It never ends well.

This applies to pretty much everything from baking a cake, to running a bookclub, a government or fomenting revolution.

Posted by Justine at 21:45, 27 January 2010 under State of the World | 13 Comments »

Talking Writing with Sarah Reees Brennan

Irish writer, Sarah Rees Brennan, and I spend a lot of time IMing each other. We talk about many, many different things—including the superiority of Ireland and Australia to all other nations¹—but mostly about writing. Recently when I was unwell SRB cheered me up by telling me the story of two of her not-yet-written novels. It was better than chicken soup! As any of you who have read her novel, Demon’s Lexicon, or her blog know, SRB is a wonderful storyteller.

It was not the first time SRB had told me the complete detailed plot of an as-yet-unwritten novel but this time I started wondering about how she does that. When I write a novel I know very little before I start writing. I figure it out as I go. My method is the winging it method. SRB’s is outlining. (Thogh really it’s so much more than that.) Which are the two basic approaches to novel writing. I decided it might be fun to ask her about her methods. And it was.

JL: I am so amazed at how you can reel off a whole written novel like that.

SRB: Oh I like to tell stories.

JL: Though it bewilders me.

SRB: I think in past times I would have been a bard.

Sad about my singing voice tho.’

JL: I think you would have been too. (I have not heard your singing voice.)

I used to tell a tonne of stories as a kid. But I got out of the habit.

SRB: I think our natural storytelling gene kicks in early and then you know, as you say, we get into habits.

I used to think i could never write straight onto a computer.

JL: Ha. I’ve been doing that since I was fourteen. I don’t really know how to write with a pen anymore. I think with my fingers. All the words are in my ten typing fingers. (Yes, I even use my thumbs!)

SRB: Occasionally I still write on paper.

JL: I am shocked. But I have a bad relationship with paper. We hate each other. I’ve been known to get papercuts on my nose.

SRB: I guess this is because you were wee when you started to write only on the computer? Whereas I was . . . the lofty age of seventeen?

JL: It’s not so much the age of starting as the amount time spent writing that way.

I’ve been writing on computers for more than 20 years. You haven’t even been writing that way for ten.

SRB: That’s true. ‘Habit becomes second nature and a stronger nature than the first’ — Anthony Trollope speaking of alcoholism.

ALso now I have writer friends, the ability to tell the whole story is super helpful. I told Holly [Black] the story I told you in Mexico and she was like ‘VILLAINS, we must take your villains apart.’

JL: She started making suggestions about an unwritten novel? And you were okay with that?I

I’d worry it would interfere with you figuring it out yourself. I don’t think people are allowed to stick oars in until the thing is written.

SRB: See, it helps me

As I also gleefully reject anything someone says that goes against stuff I have decided.

I say no to many suggestions. Though sometimes I am very wrong about that.

JL: Hmmmm. Whereas because I work stuff out on the page and have such nebulous ideas about the story before I start talking about it with someone else will just destroy it.

Which is why I mostly don’t.

Or if I do I say, “Don’t make any suggestions! Just nod and smile!”

SRB: See, if I don’t know where I am going to end up I float on a sea of horror. HORROR.

Mostly what I have is a firm start and end, and islands in between and I make bridges between the islands by telling people or making a chapter plan!

JL: Whereas if I knew my story as well as you know yours before you start I would never write them. I can’t see the point. It’s done already. Hardly anything left to work out. Why bother?

SRB: Well, I want to see how it plays out, and what will change.

Plus I want to write the scenes I already love so I can see them. I admit they are rarely as beautiful as I picture them being, which is sad.

JL: I think writing a novel is like having an adventure. Without a map. I love finding out what the novel is about as I write it. It’s one of the main reasons I write novels. If I knew what it was about before I started it wouldn’t be an adventure.

SRB: Well that is a good metaphor and one which I can relate to.

Whereas I like buying a travel guide and planning out some stuff and thinking to myself WOW that picture of a temple is beautiful when I get there I’ll have so much fun. I’ll do this and this and this. (Which is hilarious, as actually in real life travels, I am the least organised person ever, and get carted about by my friends from place to place going ‘Oooh’ in a vague way, usually in inappropriate clothing.)

JL: (I can imagine.)

But you don’t just have an outline. When you tell me the plots of your unwritten novels you describe whole scenes and dialogue. So it’s more than just knowing where you’ll go and when. It’s knowing exactly who you’ll meet and what you’ll do.

SRB: Well, I admit some of my dialogue is written on the fly and some of it i keep, and some i do not depending on whether it sticks in my head.

JL: Which is the other part of your method I find utterly alien: your memory!

That all of this stuff is in your head, not on paper. (Well, at least not until I make you tell me the plot via IM.)

SRB: I do have an exceptional memory for useless stuff which is what the stories are in my head.

JL: Novels are not useless!

SRB: But in my head, they are. I still do not believe I get to do STORIES for my living. Mostly they have been just something I harass my friends with. Endless yapping about stories in my head! About as useless as my remembering stuff like it is legal to shoot someone with a bow in Scotland for trespass.

JL: But you can’t shoot them with a bow for other reasons?

SRB: Not legally, alas.Then they arrest you for ‘murder.’

JL: Seems grossly unfair. What if the person you shot had interfered with your hamster?

But I digress.

Do you remember when you first start telling stories?

SRB: (We have no legal recourse to protect our hamsters. We have to move outside the law like Robin Hood.)

Well, in fact, in keeping with the theme of your novel, LIAR, I began my career as a storyteller by telling tremendous lies.

Crazy, elaborate lies.

I mean, I recall drawing a house, and having a small story about the house beneath it at the age of five and then informing my sailor grandpapa, a much muscled and tattooed man, of my many years of toil over this fine scholarly work. I remember the lying as my start, more than the house story

And you too did this lying thing did you not?

JL: The elaborate stories? Yes, indeed.

I would make up stories to entertain my younger sister, Niki. But there were also the outrageous lies I told to pretty much everyone, of which I was often the heroine. But I never wrote those down. I only wrote down the stories that I would make up for Niki.

The proper stories.

SRB: See, I find you writing down stuff for your sister very beautiful and fitting. It reminds me of the Brontes and Diana Wynne Jones who all did these things.

HOWEVER, my siblings are ingrates and did not let me participate in this flow of souls. They would never have in a fit read anything I wrote down for them. Happy though I would have been to do so!

My sister Genevieve however did like me to come ‘talk her to sleep,’ which may mean, I was so insanely boring she used me as a tonic. But I was ready to do it at all times and indeed to be fair to Genevieve she also read a couple of my books once I typed them and printed them out and bound them for her. And, indeed, is my only sibling to have read my published book.

JL: (It should be noted at this point that both SRB and me are the oldest sibling.) Oh, my sister never read any of it. I had to read it to her.

When she was little, I mean. Niki has read all my published books. And the unpublished ones, too, for that matter. She is most good sister.

SRB: (Why does anyone ever have brothers? Even among the Brontes, Bramwell was the bad seed.)

JL: (It is a mystery. Though I should not really express opinion as I do not have brothers.)

SRB: Putting stuff on paper does legitimise stuff in a way now

JL: I think Niki was pretty young when I stopped making up stories for her.

SRB: We understand as Homer would not have that REAL BOOKS are on paper.

JL: Yes! That’s probably why I shifted into purely writerly form for my stories.

SRB: And why we rush to do that when we have the storytelling urge.

Plus, once I write something I can forget about it.

JL: That might be why I am so bad at remembering stuff.

SRB: Think of those olden days bards who had to remember hundreds of stories.

JL: Literacy destroys memory. (I would like to claim that this is an original thought but I think Walter J. Ong would be cross with me.)

SRB: I COULD have done it, I think. Remembered all those stories. But good god the alternative is nice.

So now if a fan says ‘I loved that bit where’ sometimes my brain offers me up nothing! I venture a ‘good?’

JL: I could not have been a bard! Even as a small child my memory was dreadful.

Yes, people ask me detailed questions about my books all the time. I have not the faintest clue. I wrote them so long ago now. (Though for me even a week ago is outside the scope of my memory.)

SRB: I imagine that will happen to me. Should I ever be lucky enough to have five books published.

I like that we end up in the same places (the temples!) but one of us wants a map and plan and the other voyages to adventure!

JL: I have seven books! Two don’t count though as they’re non-fic. However, I don’t remember anything about them either when asked.

SRB: (I feel people asking questions about non-fiction would be cruel and unusual.)

JL: (I get asked about the non-fic all the time. I remember nothing! It was more than a decade ago that I worked on those! I was a different person then. That was in another country and the wench is dead!)

So how did you start writing down your stories? And how did that not stop you from continuing to tell your stories?

SRB: Well, I was always aware that this was what you did. Wrote stories down. And also, I could spend happy days alone in my purple room writing. Whereas to tell stories to a person for days I would have had to drug them and tie them up, and as a deprived child, I had little access to chloroform.

JL: (Though you had a purple writing room. *Is jealous*)

Probably illegal. Like using a bow on hamster interferers.

SRB: There just isn’t a bardic culture anymore. Or a court where people all read Chaucer together, which in some ways makes me sad!

JL: We’re not as good at listening as we used to be.

SRB: Short attention spans, given the variety of amusements available.

JL: But I also think people aren’t as good at telling stories either.

There aren’t many people I would suffer to tell me their entire novel.

SRB: I blush, m’lady.

We do not have the memory-recall of the bards of yore. And, you know, the beautiful bits of writing—description and the like—we have to think about those. I couldn’t tell someone those bits.

JL: I am still wondering about your telling of novels. My zero drafts are very tender delicate creatures. I show very few people.

And basically only in a cheering squad capacity. They can cheer my first baby steps, not criticise the wobbliness and pigeon toes. (There’s nothing wrong with pigeon toes!)

My novels can’t bear the weight of criticism until I’ve figured out what they are. And that doesn’t happen until there’s a whole draft.

SRB: I tend to find criticism always helpful.

JL: Oh, criticism is essential.

SRB: Unless I disagree with it of course . . .

JL: But someone criticising a zero draft is kind of like someone criticising a souffle on the basis of a few of the ingredients laid out on a table, but not yet made into a, you know, souffle.

I can’t stand people weighing in before I know what it is I’m doing. Before I can see the souffle. Because then they’ll try and make it into a cheesecake or, I don’t know, an aardvark or something.

SRB: While I am kind of like, as I can already visualise the souffle I like your idea of adding cinnamon.

JL: I am, of course, now envisioning a cheese souffle so am horrified by the idea of adding cinnamon to it.

SRB: Well, I have never made a souffle so cinnamon may be inappropriate to all souffles

JL: (Would be fine for a chocolate one.)

How soon do you start telling someone a novel idea?

SRB: Hmmm. There is usually a space. I mean, I will tell people I have an IDEA and then I will ruminate for some time. Sometimes unconsciously.

JL: There’s a long time while the novel gestates when it can only be me who knows about it. Maybe the difference is your gestation happens in your head and mine on screen?

SRB: Maybe! That would make sense. I do start telling people bits of novels before I have it all worked out: beginnings, backstory.

I told a lot of my friends the backstory for Demon’s Lexicon before I had a book.

JL: Cause telling it out loud was part of your process of figuring it out?

SRB: Yeeeees. It is one way of fine-tuning, building the bridges between the islands. Very tiresome for my friends however . . .

JL: Not for some of them. I know plenty of writers who like to stick their oars into other people’s books. I love it!

SRB: I remember being very surprised when Holly was like TELL ME ABOUT YOUR BOOK!

I was a baby publishing intern at the time. She was a Big Deal Writer Lady.

I was very pleased though: usually I had to coerce people. TALK LOUDLY OVER THE SOUND OF THEIR PROTESTS.

JL: Lucky you have such a penetrating voice.

SRB: Possibly this is how I developed it . . .

JL: Holly really loves telling novels. She and Cassie Clare too.

SRB: This is how we all work.

JL: I had never come across that method before I met you three. I admit I was appalled at first.

SRB: So us in a pool in Mexico plotting novels in detail really works Plus we can fill in each other’s steps. If I have a gap and cannot proceed along the way. Holly or Cassie can fill it in for me and from there my ideas can snowball

JL: The first time I saw (heard) Holly & Cassie doing that I was shocked and appalled. But now I enjoy watching them at it. I had to let go of my fear of spoilers. And I learned not to breathe a word of what I was working on them lest they start interfering with it.

I’m already permanently spoiled for Scott’s books. Now yours and Holly’s and Cassie’s are also on that list.

SRB: Sometimes my process is too chaotic for them. I scream out something that seems insane to them. Then ten minutes later we reach a brainstorming point where my insane scream makes sense.

JL: I think what appalled me is that from my viewpoint you’re all sharing something that has always been intensely private for me. I do all of that stuff on my own.

SRB: I guess since it ends up public it seems right to start it with friends.

JL: Well, that’s the part you can’t control—when it’s published. So I like as much control as possible before then.

SRB: on the other hand, while I do not mind people showing me their babies. I would be very discomposed if they had sex in front of me.

JL: Ha! Interesting way of putting it.

YET YOU HAVE SEX IN FRONT OF CASSIE & HOLLY ALL THE TIME!

SRB: I FEEL VERY CLOSE TO THEM? I GUESS!

JL: EWWWW!!!!!

SRB: Wow, now my own rash metaphor has transformed me, Holly and Cassandra into immoral orgiastic maeneads.

JL: You said it, not me.

SRB: Whereas you are the decent lady. (Sorry, Holly and Cassie!)

JL: Well except that you tell me your novel plots all the time. Sometimes I even beg you to. (I get Diana [Peterfreund] to tell me hers, too.)

SRB: So you are a decent lady with a peephole. Or I am the maenad who sometimes has orgies on your lawn?

JL: I look but don’t touch. (I fear we have taken this too far.)

Do you like talking on the phone? (Not in a sexy way!)

SRB: Hmmm, not that much.

JL: I would rather IM than talk on the phone.

SRB: I mean, I am perfectly happy to do it

JL: Holly & Cassie are phone people and they don’t like IMing.

SRB: I have never IM’d with Holly, it is true

JL: IM is my fave form of communication. Other than face to face.

I had a theory linking preferring to talk on the phone to telling stories rather than writing them first. But you have blown it by preferring IM.

*shakes fist at SRB*

SRB: Well, there is the fact I always live pretty far away from people. I like most forms of communication to a degree.

(Curse my own metaphor, now I am the sluttiest of all!)

JL: Not that there’s anything wrong with being a slut.

SRB: Naturally not! But I could wish others would join me in my scandalous preferences.

JL: Don’t look at me! I is good, sweet, innocent writer.

Just kidding. [↩]

Posted by Justine at 17:42, 26 January 2010 under Writing life, Writing process, Young Adult literature | 20 Comments »

Most Influential YA of the Decade

Omnivoracious, Amazon’s book blog, has an excellent post on the most influential YA of the decade. It is a very good list, indeed. I agree to a certain extent with almost all the entries, but—you knew there was a but, didn’t you?—I don’t think Paolini belongs on the list, and I feel strongly that Holly Black and Ellen Hopkins do.

Now before I get going, let me set out what I understand this list to be. It is not about the quality of the books involved, but about their influence on the publishing field of Young Adult fiction. I believe that there is no question that Stephenie Meyer was the most influential writer of the decade. She created gazillions of readers and there is vastly more paranormal romance and urban fantasy published in YA than ever before directly because of Meyer’s success. As someone who primarily writes YA fantasy in contemporary settings, Meyer has single-handledly increased my chances of continuing to be published. I am extremely grateful. I have even learned to take with grace people telling me I am ripping Meyer off. It helps that I know they’re wrong.

Paolini, on the other hand? Sure, he sells strongly, but what is his lasting influence on the field? Where is the explosion in YA high fantasy? Nor has there been a huge wave of successful teen YA writers in Paolini’s wake. I call one-off and no big influence.

On the other hand, the success of Holly Black’s Faerie Tale books, especially the first one, Tithe (2002), paved the way for many, many writers such as Stephenie Meyer, Cassandra Clare, Sarah Rees Brennan, Melissa Marr, Malinda Lo, me, and too many others to name. I was shocked that Holly’s name was not on the list.

Then there’s Ellen Hopkins who showed that novels in verse are more than viable in YA, they can be bestsellers. That’s certainly not true in adult fiction and Hopkin’s phenomenal success is a huge part of it. Another shocking omission.

I am also saddened by how white the list is. Is it an accurate reflection of the whiteness of the field? I would like to think Christopher Paul Curtis, Angela Johnson, Walter Dean Myers and Jacqueline Woodson have had a big influence across YA (and middle grade). Christopher Paul Curtis had a huge part in shaping my idea of what I can write. (I didn’t read the other three until more recently.) Certainly all four of these very different writers have had far more influence on YA than I have. Yet I am mentioned on the supplementary list and Christopher Paul Curtis, Angela Johnson and Jacqueline Woodson are not. Very weird. For the record: I have no place anywhere on that list.¹

I also wonder about so-called street lit, a decent chunk of which is definitely YA, which grew up way outside mainstream publishing. How do you measure that influence? I’ve come across many teens who found their way to reading via books they bought on the subway.

I also ponder David Levithan’s influence in terms of the last decade of GLBT YA books. It is a quieter influence, yes, but it’s definitely there.

What say all of you?

STERN WARNING: Please remember that we’re not talking about quality! I will delete the comments of anyone who starts bashing any of the writers discussed. We’re not discussing which books we love, we’re discussing which books and writers have made the YA genre what it is today. Nor do I want to hear about whether that influence is good or bad. You have been warned.

Maybe next decade. Fingers crossed. [↩]

Posted by Justine at 21:46, 25 January 2010 under Young Adult literature | 34 Comments »

Unsung YA

There’s a wonderful project out in the blogosphere to sing the praises of YA that has flown below the radar and not gotten the attention of, say, Stephenie Meyer’s Twilight Books, Suzanne Collins’ Hunger Games trilogy, or my own Scott’s Uglies books. I think it’s a wonderful idea. All hail Kelly for coming up with it.

I was unfamiliar with about half of the books recommended on these unsung lists, which to me means the lists are doing their job.¹ Many of the book descriptions sound irresistable. So my list of books to read just expanded. Again. To which I can only say, excellent!

Some of the comments about these lists, however, got me thinking on the differences between how authors and readers think about success. Some folks wondered if such & such a book counted as unsung because it had won an award or because the author’s other books are so popular. We authors tend to measure our books’ popularity in terms of sales. We know what our sales are because once every six months (typically) we get royalty statements. Thus we know all too well how little impact most awards have on sales. This makes us painfully aware of which of our books has sold the least. So, yes, we think books can be unsung even if they’ve won awards, been critically acclaimed, and all our other books are the bestsellingest books in the universe.²

Those outside the industry don’t have access to sales figures, so they’re mostly judging popularity by how often they hear about a book, by how big the piles of it are in a bookshop, and in this case by how many people have it on LibraryThing. Before I became part of this crazy industry, I paid zero attention to bestseller lists. The only way I knew if a book was bestselling was if that fact was trumpeted on the front of the book. I guess I would have assumed that Stephen King and Colleen McCullough were bestsellers, but I didn’t really know for sure.

It’s amazing how different my relationship to books is now that I’m an author. These days I keep an eye on the big bestseller lists, which is why I was suprised to see Lisa McMann’s Wake listed as unsung. It’s a NYT bestseller. But I suspect the only people who consciously track whether a book is a bestseller or not are the authors and the people in publishing.

The other thing I noticed were comments about how hyped a book was. One book I’ve seen talked about as overhyped I happen to know has been selling poorly. The correlation between being talked about online and sales is not one to one. Not even close. Some bestsellers seem to barely get a mention online, some poor sellers are talked about all over the internets. I’ve seen Liar described as a bestseller because of all the online talk. It’s not. Trust me, if Liar were a bestseller or even close to being one, I would know.

We authors have a very different relationship to our books than readers do. Which is why some of us have had odd reactions to being called unsung or sung. For example, when I saw that How To Ditch Your Fairy was on an unsung YA list my first reaction went pretty much like this: “Unsung! HTDYF’s my bestselling book so far!³ It sold more in six months than Magic or Madness sold in hardcover in almost five years!” I know that compared to actual bestselling books HTDYF’s sales are as a grain of sand, but for me they’re large and happy making.

My second reaction was to be dead pleased that the blogger in question had such lovely things to say about HTDYF, which, while it has sold better than my other books has had the least positive critical attention.⁴ Poor lamb. *pets How to Ditch Your Fairy* Though, truly she’d rather have the sales than good reviews.⁵ You can’t eat good reviews.⁶

What are sales after all but a reflection of how many readers a book has? The more sales, the more readers. Every author wants to be read as widely as possible. And every reader wants the same for their favourite books so they have more people to talk about them with. (I speak as both author and reader.) Isn’t the whole point of the unsung books meme to get more people reading and talking about these books?

But even my least-read books have their fans. I treasure the letters written to me about those books every bit as much as I do the letters about HTDYF. I treasure the letters from readers for whom my books have had a real impact even more. The ones who tell me that my book showed them they weren’t alone, that there’s hope, that my book got them through a family crisis, the loss of someone they loved. Because that is what so many books have done for me over the years. That is the real point of being a published author, even if my books have that impact on just a handful of people. It’s so worth it.

Quite a few of the ones I’d heard of I hadn’t read so the lists will probably kick me into actually reading them. [↩]
Not that I know for sure on that last one seeing as how I’ve never had a bestseller. One day . . . [↩]
This does not include Liar. The earliest I’ll know how it’s doing will be my second royalty statement of this year. Due in October. [↩]
Which has kind of led me to wonder if there’s an inverse correlation between the two. [↩]
Yes, I think of my books as female. [↩]
Not that books eat anything other than souls. [↩]

Posted by Justine at 0:42, 25 January 2010 under Publishing business, Reading | 12 Comments »

Off to Brisbane

Off to the Aurealis Awards in Brisbane. I am not taking my computer with me. Have fun, oh internets, while I’m gone.

I leave you with this gorgeous music:

“Djarimirri” by Geoffrey Gurrumul Yunupingu.

If you don’t own his album you might want to fix that.

Oops! Forgot to mention that I’ll be part of a signing tomorrow:

Saturday, 23 Jan 2010,
Signing at Pulp Fiction Books
10.30-11.30AM: Trudi Canavan and Kaaron Warren
11.30-12.30AM: Justine Larbalestier, Scott Westerfeld, Sean Williams
12.30-1.30PM: Karen Miller and Glenda Larke
2.30-3.30PM: Pamela Freeman and K J Taylor
Shop 28-29 Anzac Square Building Arcade
265-269 Edward Street
Brisbane, QLD, Australia

Maybe I’ll see some of you there.

Posted by Justine at 19:02, 21 January 2010 under Sydney/Australia, Travelling | 3 Comments »

More on Our Roof Garden (of the Future)

Plans are under way for our fabluous roof garden. Thank you so much for all your comments and suggestions they have been wonderfully useful.

I thought it would be fun to share with you its current state:

Yup, that’s all we got a stray plant growing between the cracks on the balcony railing. The twenty cent piece and quarter are there for scale. It is teeny tiny.

Here is the bare, bare balcony, which we aim to transform:

I shall keep you posted with more pictures as the garden grows. It will be a slow process because we’re having large wooden troughs made to house the profusion of plants I’m determined to have. But it will be wondrous! Oh, yes, it will.

Posted by Justine at 22:36, 20 January 2010 under Sydney/Australia | 4 Comments »

Race & Representation

Because there has been another whitewashed cover, I am being asked for my response.¹ I have one thing to say:²

This is not about the accuracy of covers on books.

It’s not about blonde when the character is brunette, it’s not about the wrong length hair, or the wrong colour dress, it’s not even about thin for fat. Yes, that is another damaging representation, but that is another conversation, which only serves to derail this conversation.

The one about race and representation.

Sticking a white girl on the cover of a book about a brown girl is not merely inaccurate, it is part of a long history of marginalisaton and misrepresentation. Publishers don’t randomly pick white models. It happens within a context of racism.

Back in the late 1960s, Nichelle Nichols was asked by Martin Luther King to stay on Star Trek, even though she was sick of the boring, constrained part of Uhura. She was one of the few black faces on network TV. She was inspiring thousands of young black girls all over the USA, possibly the world. Nichols playing Uhura was changing lives and so he asked her to stay and she did.

Ari of Reading in Color reminds us about those young black kids and why this is so incredibly important in her moving open letter to Bloomsbury:

I’m sure you can’t imagine what it’s like to wander through the teen section of a bookstore and only see one or two books with people of color on them. Do you know how much that hurts? Are we so worthless that the few books that do feature people of color don’t have covers with people of color? It’s upsetting, it makes me angry and it makes me sad. Can you imagine growing up as a little girl and wanting to be white because not only do you not see people who look like you on TV, you don’t see them in your favorite books either. You get discouraged and you want to be beautiful and be like the characters in the books you read and you start to believe that you can’t be that certain character because you don’t look like them. I love the books I grew up with, but none of them featured people of color. I found those later, when I was older and I started looking for them. Do you know how sad I feel when my middle school age sister tells me she would rather read a book about a white teen than a person of color because “we aren’t as pretty or interesting.” She doesn’t know the few books that do exist out there about people of color because publishing houses like yourself, don’t put people of color on the covers.

That is what this is about: pervasive racism in every aspect of our world so that young kids grow up thinking they are inferior because they see so few reflections of themselves.

This is not merely about book covers.

Journalists would do better to interview the people most aversly affected by whitewashed covers—readers like Ari of Reading in Color. [↩]
Well, two. Stop blaming the author, Jaclyn Dolamore. This is her debut. Take it from me, she’d rather people were talking about her book than her cover. Also I am very suspicious of this approach. It feels like derailing. “Let’s not talk about race, let’s talk about bad authors!” Hey, let’s not. [↩]

Posted by Justine at 21:36, 19 January 2010 under State of the World | 40 Comments »

A Very Small Post of Gloat (updated)

Gloating is wrong, I know, but I can’t help myself. I have the new Megan Whalen Turner book to read and you don’t! Mwahahahahaha.

I shall read it immediately. But I won’t tell you a thing because the book isn’t out until the end of March and I know you all hate spoilers as much as I do. So, yes, I will kill anyone who spoils it in the comments.

And now I’m off to read!

Update: Finished. It was good.

Posted by Justine at 1:09, 18 January 2010 under Reading, Young Adult literature | 16 Comments »

On Romance & Rereading Margaret Mahy’s The Changeover

My romance reading project continues and I realise that I haven’t explained what the project is. Very remiss of me! A few of the many books I’m writing at the moment are romances. I’m using that term very broadly to mean not just the publishing genre, but pretty much any book in which the romance between two or more characters is a big part of the overall story. To put it in fandom terms, I guess I’m talking about the kinds of stories that lend themselves to shipping.

For a long while now I’ve been aware that writing romance is not my strong point. While I love many of them as a reader, somehow I’m not quite able to write that magic myself. So I decided to school myself in the ways of good romance writing. Which involves me reading and thinking about my favourite romances, like those by Jane Austen. And now I am on to the marvellous Margaret Mahy, who, along with Diana Wynne Jones, is my favourite YA writer. They’re two of my faves across any genre. Unusual, awkward but beautiful romances are Mahy’s specialty. I heart them.

Now I can assume that most people have read all of Jane Austen’s novels or at least seen the movies and so know the plots.¹ But I can’t make such an assumption with Margaret Mahy’s oeuvre. Although she is one of the most influential YA writers of all time, there are still an astonishing number of mad keen YA readers and writers who don’t know her work. Seriously, people, you need to fix that. If you have not read Margaret Mahy or Diana Wynne Jones than there’s a ginormous hole in your understanding of the genre.

Okay, I’m off the soap box now. But if you have not read The Changeover (1984) you need to go away now. I am about to spoil you something rotten.

Every time I re-read one of Mahy’s books I’m struck all over again by what a gorgeous writer she is and I decide that whichever book I’m re-reading is my fave. But The Changeover really is my favourite. The family life is so vivid and real. The Chant family reminds me of many families I’ve known even a little bit of my own. All of Mahy’s characters are vivid and real. The relationship between Laura Chant and her single working mum, Kate, is perfectly drawn as is the relationship between Laura and her wee brother, Jacko, whose magically induced illness is at the heart of the book. And it’s funny. Mahy’s wit is sly and clever and warm. Oh, and scary and chilling. The moment when the evil Carmody Braque stamps poor Jacko is creepy as hell.

But I’m here to talk about Laura Chant and Sorenson (Sorry) Carlisle. I mentioned in my comments on Persuasion that one of the things I love so much about Anne & Wentworth is that they are equals. What about Laura & Sorry. For starters Sorry is 18 and Laura 14. He’s a knowledgeable witch from a family of them. Laura’s only just discovering her powers. Her decision to become a witch is one of the changeovers referred to by the title. So he’s older, more knowledgeable, and possibly wiser. (Though only in some areas). He’s also broken and Laura is not. One of the more moving changeovers is Sorry’s gradual transformation into someone who can feel again.

I also love that The Changeover is all getting-to-know-you romantic tension. You see them falling for each other, but Laura and Sorry do not get together at the end of the book. At the end Sorry goes off to work with wildlife and Laura continues on at school. Which, well, good. She’s fourteen! She can settle down later, say in ten or twenty years time. Most of us do not meet our one true love when we are fourteen.²

Together forever or not, Laura & Sorry are one of my favourite YA couples. Up there with Sophie & Howl.

So what do I take away from this re-read? Nothing particularly new. Just more confirmation that for this reader a romance only truly works if the characters are warmly and convincingly written. I need to know and care about them to care about them in order to care about their love life. I also need to see and believe that they would fall for each other and that it’s more than physical desire. (Northanger Abbey did not work for me on that front.)

What’s your take on Laura & Sorry?

Though, people, seeing any of the movies—even the good ones without Gwyneth Paltrow in them—is NOT the same as reading the books. [↩]
Actually, most of us never meet them. I know that sounds cynical but it’s true. [↩]

Posted by Justine at 22:57, 15 January 2010 under Praising, Reading, Young Adult literature | 17 Comments »

In Which I Get Ambitious for Our Balcony Garden (updated)

Our new digs has a large L-shaped balcony, which at the moment is completely naked. It cries out for plant life and I aim to supply it with all it desires. I’ve decided I want to go with Australian natives. Because, well, I love so many of them. However, my knowledge is a bit on the small side. I know what I like but I don’t have much idea of what goes well in pots in direct sunlight. We face north-west and north-east and there is loads of sun.

Here’s my list of Aussie plants I like the look and/or smell of:

Carpobrotus glaucescens

telopea speciosissima

Templetonia retusa

Melaleuca thymifolia

Backhousia citriodora

Doryanthes excelsa

Kangaroo paws

If any of you have any experience growing any of these in Sydney I’d love to hear about it. And if you can suggest other gorgeous Aussie native plants that would work I am all ears. Thanks to the twitter folk who’ve already made suggestions. No non-natives though. I am being very jingoistic in my plant selection. Aussie! Aussie! Aussie! Um, etc.

Thanks!

Update: added kangaroo paws at Patty’s suggestion.

Posted by Justine at 23:49, 14 January 2010 under Sydney/Australia | 13 Comments »

Why Interview?

My previous post on conducting interviews was largely addressed to inexperienced interviewers. Some of the comments on that post have me wondering what the point of conducting an interview is. For those who simply want to interview their favourite author and find out everything they always wanted to know then that’s your point right there. But I get the impression from quite a few of these interviews that they existence because the blogger feels that that’s what you should do on a blog about books. As you can imagine that does not usually make for a good interview.

I also wonder if people run interviews on their blog because they think it will increase traffic.¹ Especially if the author includes a link to the interview on their own site. However, if the interview is not very interesting, i.e. includes those generic questions I was talking about in the previous post, that traffic will be fleeting. Hardcore fans of the author won’t be interested.

Also I’m not convinced that people are particularly interested in interviews. Looking at my site stats, I can tell you that my interview page is probably the least trafficked page on the site. I suspect that many people, even those who love books and have many favourite authors, are uninterested in reading interviews. Unless those interviews are amazing. I know that’s how I feel. I have zero interest, unless the interview is on a topic that I care about, or is with someone I’m interested in who is rarely interviewed.

The book blogs I like best are full of excellent discussion of books. Opinions about the business, trends, books, authors and readers. One of my favourite recent posts was Miss Attitude’s passionate call for a greater variety of YA African-American historicals—ones not about slavery or the civil rights movement. That post generated a great deal of discussion and, I hope, some authors taking up her challenge.

What I’m trying to say is that interviews may seem like an easy way to create content and generate traffic, but they’re not either. A good interview is very hard to do and even then is unlikely to generate much traffic. I’ve conducted two interviews on this blog: one with Doret Canton about YA & girls playing sport and one with John Green about lying. Neither generated much traffic. Fortunately, I didn’t do them for the traffic, but for the fun of talking to two very smart people about two very interesting topics.

I would love to see bloggers doing as Ari and all my other favourite book bloggers do—writing about what they feel passionate about and conducting interviews not because they feel they must, but because they want to add to the conversation on their blog.

I’m sure there is varying mileage out there, feel free to share.

Part of why I suspect this is the blogger whose interview request also asked if I would link to the completed interview. [↩]

Posted by Justine at 19:44, 13 January 2010 under Bloggery, Ranting | 14 Comments »

How to Conduct an Interview

I’m always very flattered when someone wants to do an interview with me. I jump with joy. People are interested in what I think! They want me to blather on! I am a woman of many opinions so being offered the chance to opinionate in multiple places is most pleasing. Thank you everyone who’s ever asked. I truly appreciate it.

However, many of the questions I get could be asked of any writer. Sometimes they could be asked of any person. It’s a bit lowering to suspect that the interviewer doesn’t really care about my particular pearls of wisdom—they want any old writer’s wisdom.

Let me make it clear that I don’t mind being asked generic, could-be-answered-by-anyone-with-a-pulse questions if the interviewer forewarns me. Just today I got a very sweet email from someone who runs a writing website for kids and teens. She specifically said she was writing to many writers and getting their response to one of a long list of questions. I will definitely be answering one or more of those questions.

I just wish the people who ask for an interview, but then send the same questions they send everyone, would preface their request by saying “My blog has five questions I send all my favourite writers. Here’s the link to the questions. Let me know if you want to take part.” Rather than, “I think you’re wonderful! I love your work! Please let me interview you!” Followed by the same five questions they ask everyone.

My friend Scalzi just ranted about this. Another friend, who I won’t name,¹ gets cross about it too. They feel that the interviewer is doing zero work, but expecting them do loads, that the interviewer just wants easy content for their blogs.

Now, while I agree with some of what they have to say, I think there’s more to it than that. I’m convinced that the biggest problem is that most of these interviewers have little experience with interviewing and don’t know how to go about it. Learning to be a good interviewer takes time. It’s a skill. And not one that many people are taught.

Thus I thought I would share my tips. While I’ve never been a journalist, I was a researcher for many years, and that involved interviewing gazillions of writers, fans, and publishing people.

Justine’s guide to conducting a cool and interesting interview with a writer:

1. Research your subject. Read as many of their books as you can find. Read reviews of their books. Read all the previous interviews you can find. If they have a blog—read it. Yes, the entire thing. Or as much as is available online. If they’ve been blogging since the dawn of time (i.e. 1998) at least read a year or two’s worth of the archives.

2. Ask questions that are informed by this research. Rather than asking generic questions such as “where do you get your ideas” look at their responses to that question in previous interviews. Here’s Maureen Johnson talking at length about where she gets her ideas:

Almost every writer I know hates this question. We are, by nature, a lazy people. Hard questions disturb our state of mind. This is one of the hardest of the hard, topped only by things like “How do you write a book?” and “Why are there so many headless girls on the covers of your novels?”

Instead of asking her the question she hates being asked you could ask her why she thinks writers hate this question so much. Because, clearly, it’s not because writers are by nature lazy. Maureen Johnson certainly isn’t—ten seconds of research on her will reveal that fact. But, wait, she’s already answered that question:

I always try to make something up . . . some weird, cobbled-together, IKEA-quality answer that will definitely fall apart the second you attempt to deconstruct it. This is because, for me, there IS no answer.

The ideas just come from my brain. I store stuff up there, and the brain monkeys play around with it and put together different combinations. They come to me with stuff all the time, as your brain monkeys must do for you.

So why not ask why she thinks there’s no answer? Or why she thinks this question is asked so often. Writers seem to emphasise that the ideas are the least important part, yet people who aren’t writers seem convinced it’s the most important part. What’s up with that?

3. Conduct a subject-specific interview. One of my favourite recent interviews is over at Racebending.com where I was interviewed about the casting for Avatar: The Last Airbender. Of the interviews I’ve conducted I’m most fond of this recent one with Doret Canton of the Happy Nappy Bookseller blog about YA & girls playing sport as well as this one on lying and the links to being a novelist with John Green. Having a specific topic helps you focus your interview and often leads to really interesting exchanges.

4. If you’re conducting your interview via email try to start with around five questions. More than that can overwhelm your interviewee and cause them not to answer straight away or, you know, ever. I know my heart sinks when I’m sent interviews of hundreds of questions. Even if they’re really good questions. Actually, especially if they’re really good questions because those are the questions that make you think and as well all know thinking is hard. Also fewer initial questions allows you to ask fun follow-up questions that bounce off the answers you’ve been given. This can also make an interview seem more like a conversation than an interview, which is always a good thing.

5. Think about doing an interview via IM. Now, some authors are going to shudder with horror at the very idea. It is a considerable timesuck. If they agree, many will probably tell you they’ll only give you 30 mins or an hour. But the results can be very pleasing. Scott has done several IMterviews on his blog. Here’s one he did with Robin Wasserman and here’s one of my fave interviews, conducted by Tempest Bradford, of me and Ekaterina Sedia about being foreign writers in the USA.

Since I said that any more than five questions is overwhelming I think I will stop at five tips. I’m sure the experienced interviewers who read this blog will add more in the comments. I hope mine will be helpful to some of you.

Cause they’ve only said it offline. [↩]

Posted by Justine at 3:05, 11 January 2010 under Bloggery, Ideas, Writing life | 33 Comments »

Covers

The most discussed aspect of a book, other than whether it’s any good, is its cover. But looking around online and off- at gazillions of different cover discussions the cover’s main function is sometimes forgotten. Thus I’ve decided to devote today’s post to talking about what a cover is and how they’re made.

When a publisher buys a book one of the first things they start thinking about is how to sell it. Who is its ideal audience? How can they position the book so those readers will find it? How can they position it so they expand beyond those readers? These discussions quickly wind up with ideas for the cover. That’s because the most important function of a book cover is

To sell the book.

That’s right, folks, a book cover is an advertisement. Typically, ads don’t go after the existing customers, they go after new ones. A cover that’s totally true to the book might make the author’s heart go pitter pat and please mad-keen fans, but if it works only for author and hard-core fans, it is not a successful cover.¹ A successful cover calls out to people who’ve never heard of the book or the author and says, “Pick me up! Read me! Buy me!”

A successful cover expands your audience. Other than word of mouth, the cover is the most important factor in selling a book. Often it is the biggest and best, or even, only advertisement for the book.

Uglies is Scott’s most successful series. The first book in the series, Uglies, was an original paperback that went out into the world with little fanfare. But, wow, did that cover attract a lot of attention. Scott has had countless letters from fans telling him that they picked the book up because of the cover. That it called to them from across many aisles. That cover is a huge part of why Uglies did so well.²

How is a cover made at the big publishing houses?

Typically³ the first step is for editorial to put together a cover brief and send it to the art department. A cover brief is a description of what they’d like the cover to look like and/or the element of the book they’d like to see reflected in the cover.

The artists who design the covers tend not to read the books they’re working on because they don’t have time. They’re working on so many books in a year and their deadlines are so tight they barely have time to read the cover brief. On top of that sometimes the book they’re working on hasn’t been written yet. (Or, at least, not finished.)

Next a series of rough ideas are sent back to editorial. There is discussion and one or more direction is pursued. Then editorial okays one and the art department completes it. Sometimes editorial changes its mind and sends art in another direction. Once editorial likes the cover it’s sent to sales and marketing to be approved. Sometimes it isn’t and the process has to start over. The next important approval comes from the big accounts, the stores that order the books. Sometimes if they don’t like a cover it gets redesigned.

Something else to remember: all of this starts a long time before the book comes out because—have I mentioned this already?—the cover is the single most important part of advertising the book. Sometimes the book isn’t even finished and the cover is. The cover of Magic’s Child was completed before the first draft of the book was, which was weird, though it gave me time to add more butterflies to the text.

Another important consideration that you can’t actually do anything about is how the book will look when it’s in the bookstores. I.e. will the cover pop. You can design the most gorgeous eye-catching cover in the world in luscious golds and browns and rusts and then have it disappear on the new releases table because guess what? Every book that season is a a luscious blend of golds and browns and rust. But that book in the white and teal that everyone was worried about? Pops like you wouldn’t believe. You can see that book the minute you step foot in the store.

See how random that is? And because of such randomness no one really knows what makes a cover sell. Lots of books fail utterly despite everyone—from author to publishing house to the big booksellers to reviewers—believing the cover to be utterly gorgeous. There are last-minute, emergency covers that everyone’s nervous about that sell like gangbusters. Sometimes you’re sure a cover’s going to sell great and it does; sometimes it does not. The unpredictability leads to all sorts of superstitious nonsense in publishing houses. Green doesn’t sell! Illustrated covers on YA never works! Never put a chicken on the front of a middle grade! A skeleton on the front means the book is doomed! Etc. etc.

There are also house styles. Publishing companies that have had a lot of success with a certain kind of cover are keen to keep using that look and loathe to experiment. Especially if past experiments have failed. Now, with the recession, publishing companies and the big accounts are being more cautious and conservative than usual with the result that are an awful lot of same-same covers out there. But many of those covers are selling.

I’m sure I’ve missed some important aspects. Remember that I’m an author, while we’re part of the publishing industry, we’re also at a remove from it. There are authors who’ve published multiple books, who still don’t understand how their royalty statements work,⁴ or what co-op, or a P&L is. Yes, I am also a publishing geek and have spent the last decade asking questions, but I’ve never worked in a publishing house. Actual people who work at publishing houses no way more than I do about this.

If you have any questions or information to add fire away!

Ideally you want a cover that works for those who know and love the book as well as for those who’ve never heard of it. But such covers are rare and wonderful beasties. [↩]
Initially, that it keeps on selling is due to its own goodness. [↩]
It varies from house to house and book to book. [↩]
I’ll admit I’m one of them. [↩]

Posted by Justine at 0:17, 10 January 2010 under Magic or Madness trilogy, Publishing business, Scott's books | 31 Comments »

New Year’s Resolution: Finding Balance

I know many people are all bah humbug about new year’s resolutions but I love them. This year I resolve to find a balance with my time online.

Let me explain: when I first became a published author of an actual novel I kind of went a little bit insane. I tracked down every teeny tiny reference to my book or me. I used every tool then available (and remember this was the long distant past of 2005) to stalk mentions online. At first there were few, very few, and I was convinced no one was ever going to read or review ~~my baby~~ Magic or Madness. Wah! Then there was what seemed a lot, which provided momentary flickers of joy—yay! good review!—and longer bouts of misery—boo! bad review.¹ But then the mentions slowed down and lo there was despair again. No one is reading my book!

All of that slowed down my writing. Considerably. I was spending more time thinking about what people were saying about my book then, you know, actually writing the next one. Fortunately, for me I’d already finished my second book, Magic Lessons before my first appeared. But all the they-hate-me-they-love-me-they-think-I’m-meh-they’re-ignoring-me significantly affected the writing of the third book in the trilogy, Magic’s Child. I ran late, very late, because I was wasting so much time online googling myself and angsting about the results of those searches.

It got so bad I considered pulling the plug and not going online ever again, which, as you can imagine, is not possible. A large part of what I do online is directly related to my work: communicating with my agent and publisher, all the online promotery stuff my publisher likes me to do, research, keeping up with my field, blogging (my favourite thing ever!) etc. I can’t really let any of that slide for more than a week or so.

So instead I vowed to go cold turkey on self-stalking. I turned off my google alerts, unlearned the existence of technorati, icerocket, blogpulse etc etc and concentrated on finishing How to Ditch Your Fairy. It went well. I could go online without doing my head in. I was productive again! I learned that people would forward me any interesting reviews or commentary on my work.² I did not need to seek out.

I also found that after several published books, bad reviews worry me far less than they used to. What I used to know only intellectually—that most reviews say far more about the reviewer than the reviewee—I now know all the way through me. Bad reviews rarely rile me now.

Thus I happily remained until 2009. Yes, I was still given to procrastinating. I would discover new blogs and be compelled to read through the entire archive. What? You can’t understand a blog until you’ve read the whole thing! And certain people still seem to think I spend an inordinate amount of time IMing with friends and family. What can I say? I don’t like phones. Plus some of those chats have led to Very Important Things. I’m just sayin’.

This year, however, for the first time in my online life, I was at the centre of a storm. People started saying things about me that were not true and were sometimes downright nasty. I’d become inured to people hating my books, but I’d never had strangers hating on me before. I’d seen many of my friends go through it. I’d even counselled these friends not to let it get to them, to make sure they took time away, that it’s not really as big a deal as it seems, and that those nasty, small-minded people don’t know them and what they say doesn’t matter. All of which is true.

But then it happened to me and I let it get to me. I fell off the wagon. I reinstated my google alerts. I used every search engine known to humanity to search out every single mention. I lost sleep. I lost days and weeks and months of work time.

I found some wonderful friends and allies during this time. However, I’m pretty certain I would have come across them regardless. Throughout this time, people were writing me wonderful supportive letters and sending me all sorts of wonderful links to amazing discussions. All I got from my self-stalking was misery and woe. My hard-fought-for balance shattered.

But here’s what I learned: it doesn’t matter what random strangers think of me. As long as I’m doing what I know is right and the people I trust and respect think so too, then I’m good. Sure, nasty shit said about you hurts. But some of the stuff that was said about me last year was so absurd that no one was taking it seriously. Literally no one. Except me. Spot the problem? So I stopped.

The even more important lesson I learned was that none of what happened was about me. It was about much bigger and much more important issues. I always knew that intellectually, but the lizard brain is very slow to learn. The lizard brain wanted to track down every slur, every insult. The lizard brain is an idiot.

I resolve this year to ignore the lizard brain and go back to the lovely balance I once had.

Here’s what gives me balance:

Writing

Making sure I get out of the house at least once a day and preferably go for a long walk, or to the gym, or for a bike ride—something physical daily that keeps me away from computer and phone.

Turning off google alerts

Not getting involved in flamewars. If someone is saying something offensive or appalling or wrong I no longer engage them. If the issue is important I blog about it here. I cut off flamewars in the comment threads here also.

Hanging out with my family and friends

Blogging

Cooking

And like that.

How do youse lot achieve balance?

For some reason the bad ones lingered longer in the memory than the good. Funny that. [↩]
In my turn I started forwarding cool stuff I found about other people’s work to them. [↩]

Posted by Justine at 1:17, 9 January 2010 under Bloggery, Magic or Madness trilogy, State of the World, Whingeing, Writing life | 18 Comments »

Signed Books

Some folks have been asking lately how to get hold of signed copies of my books. And asking if I’ll sign a book if they send it to me. Tragically the answer is no, I won’t. This is not because I’m mean but because,

I travel too much. Your book is unlikely to get to me in a timely fashion.
I am hopeless at getting to the post office. If your book does land in the right country at the right time it will then sit on my desk for about a decade. I tried book plates and I was just as bad at mailing them. It’s a sickness.

So I have created a signed books page. See the link in the right sidebar under Books? There’s a list of the bookshops where I regularly sign stock in the two cities I spend the most time: Sydney & New York City.

At the moment there’s only two, Kinokuniya in Sydney—it’s my fave bookshop here because it’s one-stop shopping, every single book I crave plus manga plus grahic novels plus anime—and Books of Wonder in NYC, which if you haven’t been there, you should. Best kids bookshop in the city.

I recently also signed a few copies of Liar for Berkelouw Books in Paddington. And am happy to sign for any other bookshop in my area that wants my signature scribbled on their stock.¹

Also before we left NYC me and Scott signed at a number of Barnes & Nobles and Borders in Manhattan. So you may stumble across some signed copies in one of those stores.

Not to mention that I signed many, many books while on tour in the USA in October and November. If you live near any of those bookshops there may still be signed books left.

Hope this helps.

And, yes, I should probably have posted this before xmas etc. Whoops.

Of my books, obviously. I’m not going to vandalise anyone else’s books. [↩]

Posted by Justine at 1:38, 8 January 2010 under Admin | 3 Comments »

In Which, Yet Again, I am Annoyed by a Review

As mentioned in my previous post, I just finished Joan Schenkar’s The Talented Miss Highsmith. I loved it so I was curious to take a squizz at what reviewers had made of it and came across this one by Jonathan Lethem. Oh. Dear.

It is exactly the kind of review that annoys me the most. The I-don’t-like-this-kind-of-book-but-I’m-reviewing-it-anyway review. Editors seem to think it dreadfully clever to get the reviewer who hates feminism to review the feminist tome, the hater of romance to review Jennifer Crusie’s latest, and those who are full of contempt for teenagers and books to review YA. It will generate conflict and controversy! Goodie!

No, it will generate annoyance and boredom. I know what people who hate YA think of YA. I want to know if this is a good example of YA. I don’t want to read some boring tosser explaining why the genre sucks. Heard it all before.

Lethem is not a fan of literary biographies so he barely engages with Schankar’s biography. The first three quarters of the review is taken up with his view of the Highsmith revival and which books of hers he thinks best. When he finally mentions the bio, he complains that Schenkar goes into too much detail:

No impression, however, could have possibly prepared Schenkar for the catalogue of torments her scrupulous and excruciating research uncovered. She is compelled by that research to tell us more than we could possibly wish to know. Much as Highsmith rates full treatment, I can’t help wishing Schenkar had spared herself (and me) and written a personal recollection instead (think of Shirley Hazzard’s short memoir of Graham Greene, “Greene On Capri”).

Trouble is Schenkar never met Highsmith, so such a memoir would have to be fiction. That Lethem came away with the impression that Joan Schenkar knew Patricia Highsmith is very odd indeed. No where in it does she so much as imply such a meeting took place, let alone an acquaintance long enough to supply material for a memoir. Which leads me to think that Lethem did not read the whole book or skimmed it.

He concludes by saying:

The best thing Schenkar accomplished, for me, was to drive me back to the work. If Highsmith’s antidote to the poison of living was the writing of her novels, we can follow suit and read them. The antidote to literary biography is literature. [My emphasis.]

That last line is key. Me thinks Mr Lethem does not like literary biography if he feels it requires an antidote, which makes me wonder why he bothered to review one. I can certainly understand his reasons for not liking the whole genre. He’s a much more famous writer than I am so the odds of there one day being bios of him are relatively high. I worry about it and—other than J. K. Rowling and Stephenie Meyer—there’s not exactly a huge number of YA writer bios. But then I squirm every time I read a profile or interview of me.

As a writer reading a bio of another writer I find myself wondering just how particular episodes in my past would be portrayed. It makes for much discomfort and a strong desire to destroy all my journals. And I’m a model of good behaviour compared to Highsmith.

I admit I may be projecting my own feelings onto Lethem. Maybe he dislikes literary bios because he doesn’t want to know the warts and failings of his literary heroes? Or maybe one fell on him in his cradle?

I also disagree with the implication that biography is not literature. As it happens Schenkar is an excellent and witty writer. Lethem quotes one of the many passages I’ve read out loud to Scott:

Luckily, their African trip never came off. Jane Bowles had phobias about trains, tunnels, bridges, elevators, and making decisions, while Pat’s phobias included, but were not confined to, noise, space, cleanliness, and food, as well as making decisions. A journey to the Dark Continent by Patricia Highsmith and Jane Bowles in each other’s unmediated company doesn’t bear thinking about.

Some of my favourite writers are biographers. I’m sure they’d be astonished to discover they have not been writing literature. But surely he didn’t mean that last line to be read in an exclusionary way. I have heard Lethem at science fiction conventions making strong arguments for the inclusion of science fiction in the category of literature. Which makes it even more peculiar to see him employing such exclusionary tactics himself.

What I loved so much about Schenkar’s bio was that it created such a three-dimensional portrait of Highsmith. The book is fascinating. I had to stop and read sections out loud to Scott multiple times. Over the past few days of reading it I’ve been talking about it to everyone I know.¹ It’s an incredibly intimate portrait of a writer. Of their life and their craft and their process.

It’s also a fascinating portrait of the development of a misogynist, bigoted, racist, anti-semite. Highsmith is awful. A genuinely bad person. But I now have a much clearer idea of how she got that way.

My main complaint about the book is that there was not enough detail. I was very frustrated that there was not a separate section on Highsmith’s publishing career and how, when, and where her current literary reputation emerged. We’re told in passing that her 1950s lesbian novel, The Price of Salt (later retitled Carol) sold hundreds of thousands of copies, but we’re not told over what period of time, and that Found in the Street only sold 3,000 copies on its first US publication. But those are pretty much the only sales figures in the book. The story of her finding her first agent and selling her first book, Strangers on a Train is not told directly. There are references to these events in other sections of the book but I itched for the whole story. Nor was the sale of the film rights to Hitchcock dwelt on—it’s a mere summation in the “Just the Facts” section at the back of the book. Much is made of her deal with the Swiss publisher Diogenes to handle world rights to her book but the specific details of the deal were not revealed.² For this publishing geek, it was very frustrating.

Lethem’s right about one thing though³ reading the bio has led me back to the books. To thinking about what made her such a good writer when she had so little understanding of, or compassion for, anyone but herself. Not that her lack of empathy doesn’t come through in the books. There’s a reason I can’t read more than three Highsmiths in a row without sinking into a deep depression. Bleak is too mild a word for the outlook.

Except for The Price of Salt which is the outlier Highsmith book and one of my favourites. Think I’ll be re-reading it first.

Sorry for being such a bore, people. [↩]
I get why but I’d've loved a hint. How much more than the usual 85% did Highsmith get? [↩]
Well, two, I also agree with his list of her best books. Though I would add The Price of Salt/Carol to the list. [↩]

Posted by Justine at 0:02, 7 January 2010 under Ranting, Reading | 7 Comments »

Patricia Highsmith, Much Crazier than You

All writers fear they are a bit crazy. Some of them are. Obviously, I am at the hardly-crazy-at-all end of the crazy-writer scale, most other writers are much loopier than me. While that is clearly a fact, I confess that I have my moments of doubt. I have found just the cure for those moments of doubt: Patricia Highsmith.

I am reading the new bio, The Talented Miss Highsmith by Joan Schenkar. Oh my. Oh wow. Oh Elvis. Highsmith redefines the crazy end of the crazy-writer scale. I have a million different responses to this book, but one is relief. Cause no matter how crazy I might (rarely) fear I am, Miss Highsmith will always be much much much much worse. Because she’s not just crazy, she’s mean crazy. She’s curse-out-everyone-at-your-favourite-restaurant crazy. Throw-a-dead-rat-in-your-room crazy. You know, not even slightly charmingly eccentric.

*Heh hem* I must get back to it. Best bio I’ve read in ages. So glad I never ever met Highsmith.

But, yeah, if you’re feeling loopy, read this bio. You’ll feel much much better.

Posted by Justine at 9:08, 6 January 2010 under Reading, Writing life | 10 Comments »

Hair Stories Redux

Thank you so much for all the wonderful, moving, scary, funny stories about hair.

I wanted to highlight this comment from Wonders of Maybe because it underlines how hair and fashion and politics and identity (self and imposed from the outside) co-exist:

Hmm — I’m multiracial (Black/Native American/White) and very, very light-skinned with extremely thick, curly hair. I’m talking spirals on “good” days and fluffy frizz on “bad” days! When I was young I wanted to straighten my hair because of how much I got hassled but once I turned 12, I was intent upon my hair staying natural. With such light skin, I feel it’s an honest indicator of what I am and who I am since I so often am mistaken for being Latino or Italian or Jewish or “something.”

Have you all heard of the “pencil test”? I learned about it as a child and it was, apparently, used in apartheid South Africa. If a pencil was stuck in your hair and it fell out, you could be counted as white (or coloured, if you were darker skinned). If it didn’t fall through, if the pencil simply stayed right in your hair, well, you were coloured or black. As a youngster, I was obsessed with learning about the various tests governments, leagues and clubs had through out history to determine someone’s background based on their hair. Interesting hobby, kid!

So for me, taking care of my natural hair is part a matter of respecting my history, as much as it is part of trying to look nice.

I remember my friend, the wonderful South African writer, Yvette Christianse, telling me about the pencil test. Like everything about Apartheid it was hard for me to get comprehend. A person’s race was reclassified, they were made to move, to lose their jobs—sometimes their lives—because of how a pencil sat in their hair.

Of course, as Susan, points out people are still being discriminated against because of their hair. Though, it’s hard not to wonder if it’s really only hair we’re talking about. How often in the US do racist commentators go after a black person’s hair and then claim they’re not being racist because they’re just talking about hair? Answer: too often.

The other thing Wonders of Maybe touches on is the “good” hair versus the “bad” hair debate. Frizz seems to be a key indication of badness. And as someone with straight hair, I can attest that sometimes the short, new, flyaway hair sticking up everywhere causes me despair. Lay flat, damn you.

So, why do we hate frizz? There’s nothing intrinsically wrong with frizz. I think we’re taught to see it as “bad” hair. I think years and years of ads and movies and tv shows full of women with “controllable” hair has shaped how we see hair and what we expect of it. It’s even worse now when the vast majority of hair product ads are photoshopped into shiny, unfrizzy, unmoving or moving-in-a-really-weird-way, impossible-to-achieve hair.

About ten years ago, an acquaintance with very tight curls left the house without doing anything to her hair as an experiment. It was a ball of frizzy fuzz haloing her head. It looked amazing. I wish I had photos to show you how great it looked. Many people commented. Most were very positive, but she abandoned the experiment because she couldn’t handle everyone staring at her and everyone commenting. Bad enough, she said, when it was in its usual state of curliness.

Her chief pleasure in straightening her hair is that, other than people who know her, it’s the only time her hair is what she thinks of as “neutral.” People don’t comment, people don’t ask to touch her hair. She isn’t seen through the lens of her hair in quite the same way.

To bring this back to writing,¹ I think what goes wrong in many books is that writers give their characters traits to distinguish them, such as curly hair, without thinking about how that would shape who the character is and their experience of the world. Not to mention how long they spend doing their hair. So, you know, don’t do that.

Thanks again for all your responses.

I’ve had a few complaints that I’m not devoting January to answering questions about writng like I did last year. [↩]

Posted by Justine at 21:45, 5 January 2010 under Fashion, State of the World, Writing process | 9 Comments »

Curly Versus Straight (updated)

I have always loved curly hair. I myself have straight hair so my preference for curly is usually ascribed to the fact that I don’t have it. My hairdresser says all the straight-haired girls want curly hair and all the curly-haired girls want straight hair. When I press him on this, however, he admits that it’s not entirely true. That many of his clients are quite happy with their hair. I, too, am quite happy with my hair. But I do get bored and I’m glad that I know how to make it wavy without too much effort. A change, they say, is as good as a holiday. To which I’d say depends on the change and depends on the holiday. I once went to [redacted] for a holiday and let me tell you . . . *heh hem* I digress.

I don’t actually think my love of non-straight hair—it’s not just curly hair, any kind of non-straight, textured hair fills my heart with joy: kinky, curly, wavy, nappy, twists, locs etc. all looks good to me—is because I don’t myself have such hair. I think it’s because I like curves. Aesthetically I always choose a curve over a straight line. I don’t like hard edges or Modernism, I love Art Noveau and Art Deco. I love Gaudi and Zaha Hadid.

I’m not saying straight hair is ugly. I’m just saying that when people rave about the beauty of, say, Megan Fox’s hair, I don’t see it. I mean it doesn’t look bad, it’s shiny and that, but I can’t get excited. It certainly doesn’t look beautiful to me the way that Nicole Kidman’s hair was before she straightened it and nuked it blonde, or Gina Torres’, or Tawny Cypress’. I could go on for a week listing women with gorgeous hair.

It could be that part of my curly hair love is from being a kid in the 1980s in Australia when curly was the thing. Yes, I had a disastrous perm when I was wee. I used to think all perms left you with fried hair that smelled bad for months, but then I met a rich girl in my first year of uni, who had gorgeous corkscrew hair down to the small of her back, that you would swear was natural. It was not. She got it done once a week. I had never met anyone who went to the hairdresser once a week before. Well, not other than the ladies with their weekly sets. But I’m betting those sets did not cost $200 a pop. I did mention she was rich, right?

So that might be part of my curly hair love, but I don’t think it accounts for all of it, because I have been a lover of curls and curves and waves and spirals and twists, not just in hair, but in art, in buildings, in plots, in nature, in pretty much everything my entire life. And, frankly, I’m not particularly convinced by the grass is greener argument. That’s too easy and it’s certainly not the main reason so many people with curly hair want straight hair. Most of the curly-haired women I know were taught to hate their hair. They endured a lifetime of being told that the way their hair grows out of their head is messy and out of control and somehow wrong. I have curly, kinky and nappy-haired friends who’ve been knocked back from jobs because of their hair.

Most of those women have grown to love their hair. And in their professions—writers, journalists, musicians, academics—they’re able to wear their hair however they please. But I still know plenty of women who keep their hair straight for a variety of reasons, including being taken seriously in the work place and looking “professional”. If Michelle Obama were to appear in public with natural hair many, many people would say, What has she done to her hair.¹

My straight hair has never cost me anything. When I make my hair wavy it doesn’t cost me anything either.² No one has ever commented on the professionalism of my hair.

I’ve never lost a job over my hair. I’ve never had to deal with the politics of hair per se. I’m white, with straight hair. I’m not a politician, neither is my husband. But even without those huge pressures, I have spent lots of time and money and angst (I found my first grey hair when I was fourteen & thought that was the beginning of The End) over this stuff that grows out of my head. It’s a multi-billion industry world-wide and I’m throwing my money at much product and hours-long visits to the hairdresser every four weeks. I have to admit that sometimes I do find myself wondering why?³

Care to share your hair stories?

Update: You can find some of my additional thoughts on this fascinating subject here.

See the crazy responses to Malia Obama’s gorgeous twists. No, I’m not going to link, makes me too cranky. [↩]
Well, except for the product involved. [↩]
Other times I’m just giddy at the new colour and waviness of my salon hair. [↩]

Posted by Justine at 6:40, 3 January 2010 under Fashion, State of the World | 60 Comments »

Books Like Liar

Some of the people who enjoyed Liar have started telling me that they want to read something else like it. I’m not sure what to tell them. I can’t recommend one of my other novels because they bear no resemblance to Liar and readers would just be disappointed.

Here are three novels that people have compared to Liar:

Jacqueline Woodson’s If You Come Softly. This is hugely flattering. Softly is one of the best books I’ve ever read. I think Liar has some of the emotional intensity of Softly and it shares an NYC setting—with Central Park playing a key role in both novels. If Liar evokes New York City even half as well, then I’ve done a bang up job, haven’t I? This book will not satisfy the urge to battle with an unreliable narrator, however. Though it will gut you.

Roger Cormier’s I am the Cheese. If I have read this it was so very long ago that I don’t remember it. Maybe someone will say what the points of similarity are in the comments? NO SPOILERS.

John Marsden’s Letters from the Inside. Again I haven’t read it. All I know is that it features not one, but two, unreliable narrators. I can tell you, though, that the Marsden books I have read I’ve liked a lot.

Anyone got any other suggestions for Liar read alikes? Thank you!

Posted by Justine at 2:12, 2 January 2010 under Liar, Reading, Young Adult literature | 15 Comments »

Muhammara Dip

After I blogged about our feast of Turkish cooking, I had a few people demand recipes. To them I strongly recommend getting a copy of Classic Turkish Cookery by Ghillie Başan. We’ve now tried multiple dishes from it and they’ve all turned out delicious.

However, there’s one recipe that wasn’t in that book: muhammara (walnut and roast red capsicum) dip. For that I had to google. I’ve now made it a bunch of times so this recipe is my take on the half a dozen or more recipes I found online.

5 or 6 big red capsicum (bell peppers)
2 cups of walnuts
approx half to 1 cup bread crumbs (1 pull two slices of bread out of the freezer, which defrost almost instantly, and then crumb them. Don’t use packaged bread crumbs. You can also leave the bread out altogether. Go easy on the liquids in that case and you’ll probably need more walnuts.)
garlic (I use A LOT.)
1 tbs pomegranate molasses or pomegranate juice
1 tsp kirmizi biber (a Turkish spice mix made from chilli peppers. So far I haven’t been able to find it in Sydney so I use half cayenne pepper and half sweet paprika.)
1 tsp ground cumin
juice of half a lemon (if they’re super juicy)
salt
pepper

I make it using two mortars and pestle, a large and a small one. Most people use a food processor. I’ve not used a food processor in, like, a million years, so you’re own your own if that’s how you want to do it. I’m sure you’ll know how.

1) Roast the capsicum. I do this by pre-heating the oven to 200C. I cover a baking tray with foil then oil it with olive oil. I put the whole capsicum on top and roll them in the oil and put a small hole in each one. (It’s never happened to me but a friend swears they can explode.) It takes about an hour. When they start to blacken, take them out, and put them in a large saucepan. Cover it with a clean, dry tea towel and stick the lid on top. When they’re cool you’ll find it’s easy to de-skin, de-seed and de-string them. As you pull the roasted capsicum free of that stuff, tear it into tiny pieces and place it in a bowl. You’ll find it tears easily. You can even squish it if you like. But basically you want it in as many small bits as you can.

When you’re finished you’ll find you’ve got a fair amount of liquid. I put all the capsicum bits into a large strainer to collect even more liquid and to drain the capsicum. This liquid can be used later to moisten the bread crumbs. The lemon juice is also good for that.

2) Bash the crap out of the walnuts in the big mortar and pestle. Have your assistant (mine’s called Scott) bash the garlic with some salt in the wee mortar and pestle until it’s practically liquid.

3) When the walnuts are near dust add the roasted capsicum bits and pound them.

4) Now it’s time to add three quarters of the breadcrumbs. (You hold back a quarter just in case it becomes too sloppy.) Moisten them a bit first. Most recipes say to use water, but I think that dilutes the intensity of the flavours, so I use either the capsicum liquid or some of the lemon juice. Bash away at it.

5) Next add the near-liquid garlic, the pomegranate molasses (or juice), and the cumin and chilli. Mix it together with a spoon. If you feel like it, pound remaining unpounded bits of capsicum or walnut. But don’t stress, part of the beauty of using a mortar and pestle is that you don’t get an absolutely uniform texture. It results in a better taste and mouth feel.¹

6) Taste it. Add salt, pepper and more lemon juice until you think the balance is right. Mix it together with a spoon.

7) If it’s too liquid add the remaining bread. Bash the bread into the mixture. Repeat 6)

Last) Serve and eat! So far I’ve eaten it on bread, on carrot sticks, as a condiment with the main course, and off a spoon out of the fridge.²

You can add the ingredients in any order you like. The above is just what I’ve found works best for me. (I’m sure you food processor barbarians throw the lot into your evil machines in one go.) Though you do have to roast the capsicum first. The proportions are up to you as well. Depending on who I’m making it for I’ll use more chilli than I’ve suggested here. Make it a few times and figure out what you think works best.

Hope my directions make sense. You can tell I don’t make a living writing cook books, can’t you?

Enjoy.

Happy new year!

Yes, “mouth feel” is a real term. I did not make it up. [↩]
Don’t tell Scott about that last one. [↩]

Posted by Justine at 3:57, 1 January 2010 under Food | 7 Comments »

Last Day of 2009

This is my annual post where I sum up what happened in my professional life in that year and look ahead to what’s going to happen in 2010. Basically I do this so I can have a handy record that I can get to in seconds. (Hence the “last day of the year” tag.) Do feel free to skip it.¹

This year, though, was less happy than any of the previous years I’ve summed up here. Thus my summary is brief. I want to get past 2009 and on to the fun of 2010 as fast as I can.

Books out: Liar (hc in US & tpb in Oz), HTDYF (in Oz & pb in US)

MorM&MLDeustchEd Liar sold in nine different countries this year (in order of sale): Taiwan, Germany, France, Brazil, Turkey, Italy, Denmark, the Netherlands & Spain. That last sale was to Ediciones Versatil. I only just found out about it. Since I’ve been wanting to sell Spanish-language rights since I even knew such a thing existed I’m dead happy. (Champagne tonight!) Spanish is the only language I can even vaguely speak. (Other than English, obviously.) I’m going to be very curious to read the translation. (Or try to anyways.) Liar has now sold in as many countries as the Magic or Madness trilogy. HTDYF remains my least popular book o.s. having only sold in Australia, the US, Germany & this year to Japan. Germany is the only country other than Australia and the USA to have bought all my novels. Apparently, the trilogy is doing well there—yay for German readers! I figure that’s because of the awesome covers. The cover above is of a new German edition of the first two books in the trilogy which will be out in October next year. Isn’t it gorgeous?

There were also audio editions of Liar and How To Ditch Your Fairy released in Australia by Bolinda and the USA by Brilliance. I was able to sit in on a bit of the recording of Liar and was invited to help choose the narrator of HTDYF both wonderful, wonderful experiences. I think the end results are amazing.

Okay, that was my 2009. Now on to next year!

First up, I have two books coming out in the USA in fall:

The paperback edition of Liar

Zombies versus Unicorns anthology edited with Holly Black

I am so excited about the antho. You would not believe how fantastic the stories are. Not a dud one in the book. Well, except for the unicorn stories which are all dreadful (Holly edited those) but you are going to adore the zombie stories, which are, no lie, the best stories written in the history of the universe by some of the best writers ever. Um, yes, I edited those ones. I’m not sure if I’m allowed to announce who the writers are yet. I’ll just give you their initials: LB, CC, AJ, MJ, SW, & CR. Tell no one! I’m not giving you the unicorn story writer initials because 1) I know you don’t care, 2) they’re all hack writers you never heard of anyways.

It’s quite astonishing that someone as spectacularly talented as Holly could be such a unicorn fan. I don’t understand. I think the best plan is for everyone to skip the unicorn stories and instead read Holly’s new novel, The White Cat, which is out in May next year and is the best thing she’s ever written. I say that as someone who adores everything Holly writes. The White Cat, though, beats them, hands down. It’s one of my favourite books of all time. You are in for such a treat! In even better news: it’s the first of a trilogy.

The ZvU antho began life as a sekrit project in 2007. It is my first sekrit project to see the light of day. Very happy making. It’s also the first project of mine to be inspired by this blog. By this comment exchange between me and Holly and many others, to be exact.

So that’s what I’m publishing, what about what I’m working on? People have been asking me about that a lot lately. I suspect because I’ve not blogged about it much lately. Especially compared the flurry of 1930s book posts earlier in the year. Speaking of which there have been queries about how the 1930s novel is going, seeing as how I haven’t mentioned it in awhile. “Have you given up on it?” I’ve been asked anxiously. (Mostly by my friend and critique partner Diana Peterfreund, who’s read some chunks of it.) I have not! But I have kind of been cheating on it.

Right now I’m working on four novels at once:

One is the 1930s novel, which has turned out to be much bigger than I thought. More than one novel, in fact. When it became clear to me that there was no way I was finishing it any time soon my brain spat out another idea for a much shorter novel and I started working on that.

That novel is set in the here² and now and is closer in tone to How To Ditch Your Fairy. When I started working on it I stopped reading only 1930s books. I now only restrict myself when I’m working on the 1930s novel.

The third book I started awhile ago, it’s the lodger book for those of you who’ve been with this blog for awhile, and then rediscovered it while procrastinating. It was the one I put aside to concentrate on Liar.

The fourth one is a sekrit. Though not the sekrit project I thought would come to fruition this year that I mentioned at the end of last year. I still have hopes for that sekrit project but I do not see it happening for at least two or three years. Thank Elvis for the new sekrit project, eh?

At the moment none of these novels is winning the fight for my attention. And, honestly, while touring I was unable to get any writing done at all. I truly admire those who can. School events all day and then a library or book store event at night means no writing on tour for this particular writer. And travelling and returning home ate my December. (In a good way!) My next clear, no travelling, stretch starts tomorrow. Bless you, January 2010. So tomorrow I start writing again in earnest and that’s when I expect one of the four novels to take over my brain completely. But maybe it won’t. Maybe my new style of writing is to flit back and forth between books. I guess I’ll find out in 2010.

My only goal for this year is to be happy writing. If I finish one or more of these novels then wonderful. If not, no big deal.

I hope 2010 shapes up beautifully for all of us.

Happy new year!

Cause it will be boring. Don’t say you weren’t warned. [↩]
Well, not Sydney (or NYC), but this planet and not an alternative version of it. [↩]

Posted by Justine at 0:59, 31 December 2009 under 1930s NYC novel, Bloggery, How To Ditch Your Fairy, Last Day of the Year, Liar, Magic or Madness trilogy, Travelling, Unicorns, Zombies, Zombies v Unicorns | 12 Comments »

Wonderful New Blogs Discovered in 2009

In no particular order here are my favourite new-to-me blogs of the year:

Reading in Color. Ari reads and reviews and discusses and generously gives away YA books about people of colour. Ari was the first person to tell me about Flygirl by Sherri L. Smith, which was one of my fave books of the year. For that alone I would be her devoted follower forever, but there’s way more to her blog than book reviews. If you have any interest in YA and you’re not following Reading in Color, then shame on you!

The Intern. An intern’s view of publishing. Funny as hell. She even has a nemesis and refers to herself in third person. She’s crazy, but so is publishing. They are the perfect match.

White Readers Meet Black Authors. Some wonderfully warm and witty outreach to us white folks who would like to expand our reading horizons.

Journal of a Baby Power Dyke in Training. Wickedly witty, insightful, Barbra Streisand-obsessed and happy making. Although I do not share the BS obsession I am a fan of many of her other faves, such as Rachel Maddow and Melissa Harris-Lacewell. I adore a good ole rant about politics and BPD is very happy to oblige.

Happy Nappy Bookseller. Doret Canton is my new favourite bookseller. Not only does she love YA, but she’s also a total sportshead and has given me enough girls sports book recs to last me a lifetime. Happiness! She runs two or three very thoughtful reviews a week. If you have have any interest in childrens lit, from picture books through to YA, you need to add Doret to your blogroll ASAP.

Eat Drink One Woman. Ganda is all about the food. Me too. This is probably one of my fave food blogs of all time. And she talks about bikes too! Perfect. Following her food adventures in Sweden was one of the blog reading highlights of my year.

Taste Life Twice. Two California girls, Tashi & Kiki, who love to blog about books. Their blog is chockers with book reviews and interviews. Their crazy high school schedule means they don’t blog as often as I’d like but, hey, that just means I treasure what they do post. Another essential for us YA fans.

Apophenia. Danah Boyd’s a researcher who writes incredibly thoughtfully about social networking online. I’m particularly fascinated by her research on facebook, myspace, twitter and race and class.

Color Online.

This is not just a blog about the work of women writers of colour, it’s also a non-profit that among many other things runs a library to get books by and about people of colour into the hands of those least able to get hold of books. They welcome book donations. It’s also a truly excellent blog with some of the best coverage of YA online. It really is essentially reading if you care about publishing or YA or reading. Susan also has an excellent personal blog, Black-Eyed Susan.

If you don’t know any of these there’s some wonderful reading in store for you. What were your fave new blogs this year? Oh, and no recommending your own blog. Self praise is no praise, people!

Posted by Justine at 0:06, 30 December 2009 under Bloggery | 10 Comments »

Things What Are Making Me Laugh

The first thing that’s making me laugh is that Scott is currently making me breakfast. A very happy breakfast:

happybrekkie

The next thing is that last night Scott was told about this gadget and now it is all he wants in the entire world:

The Dyson fan with NO BLADES! But how does it work? Because of AIR MULTIPLIER TECHNOLOGY.

Air multiplier technology. Hahahahaha.

This skit is making me laugh even harder. Via the fabulous Snazzydee I was introduced to The Armstrong & Miller Show. Here they are RAF airmen chatting up some fetching gels in Chav speak:

I’m sorry “innit” rendered as “isn’t it” in Posh Pommy Talk (or RP as it also known). I laughs every time.

What’s making you laugh?

Posted by Justine at 19:37, 29 December 2009 under Frippery, Viewing | 14 Comments »

I’m Not Your Target Audience (Yes, You Are)

Much of the fan mail and comments I get from adults includes this phrase “I’m not your target audience” before continuing to say how much they enjoyed one or more of my books in (sometimes) slightly embarrassed tones. As if they’re a tad worried to find themselves reading and enjoying a book published for teenagers. How did that happen? they wonder. Does it make me less of an adult?

I understand the anxiety. Before I became a published YA author, I was unaware of how disdainful many adults are towards teenagers and anything that smacks of teenager-y-ness, such as books marketed at teenagers. Looking back, I now find it weird that I was unaware of this. Firstly, I once was a teenager. How did I manage to forget the way many adults treated me?¹ Secondly, I stopped reading books for teenagers when I was twelve because I decided I was too ~~good~~ grown up for them. So, yeah, I seemed to have imbibed adult disdain for the things of childhood and adolescence at a very early age. Yet I got over it enough to forget such disdain existed until I started writing YA.

At which point, wow, did I learn it all over again.

So, yes, I understand why some adult readers of YA feel a bit apologetic about it. But, truly, you don’t need to apologise to me. I am very happy to be writing the books I write and to be published as YA. Every day I wake up and cannot believe my luck to be in such a fabulous genre.

Also it so happens that I don’t write for a target audience. When I’m deep in the writing I’m not thinking about audience, but about writing the best book I can. Unless by “target audience” they mean “subject matter”. Absolutely, adolescence is the central matter of my work. But that’s a subject of interest for those who are about to be adolescents, for those who are adolescents, and for those, like me and the readers who say they are not my target audience, who were adolescents. From the fan mail I see that my books are read by all three of those groups, which makes me very happy.

Or in other words: I happen to think that everyone is my target audience.

You’ve been warned. I’m aiming at YOU.

Heh hem. As you were.

How come so many adults forget this? [↩]

Posted by Justine at 17:44, 28 December 2009 under Fans & readers, Writing life, Young Adult literature | 29 Comments »

The Audience of Leviathan

I recently tweeted a really interesting review of Leviathan by Tansy Rayner Roberts. It’s my favourite review so far partly because she puts into words something Scott and I have been noticing:

I find it interesting that so many people are talking about this as the latest Scott Westerfeld novel without really acknowledging that this is such a departure from his more recent work. I would not be surprised if some of the audience for the Uglies and Midnighters and Peeps books (at least the teenagers) were less interested in this new series, even as Leviathan draws in an entirely new generation of readers. It’s always interesting to see an author whose work you admire move on to pastures new.

Note: she’s NOT saying that teens aren’t reading Leviathan, she’s just saying that some of the teen fans of Scott’s other YA books will be less interested in the new series. But that a whole new audience will be.

This is exactly what we’ve been finding. Especially amongst the hardcore Uglies fans. Many of whom won’t read any of Scott’s books other than the Uglies books. Here’s a conversation Scott had at almost every stop on his recent tour:

Fan: OMG! I love the Uglies books SO MUCH. You are my favourite writer in the entire world! *hands Scott multiple editions of every Uglies book to be signed plus extra copies to be signed for friends*
Scott: Thank you! So many Uglies books. Amazing!
Fan: When will you be writing a new book? I can’t wait for the next one!
Scott: Well, I’m on tour for a new book. *points to giant stack of Leviathan*
Fan: *looks at Scott blankly*
Scott: Leviathan is my new book.
Fan: Um, when will there be a new Uglies book?

Now, Scott has plenty of fans who read every single book he writes. There are even a few who’ve tracked down his very first publications: kids books about Watergate and the Berlin Airlift. And a few more who are proud owners of Scott’s choose-your-own-adventure Powerpuff Girl books. However, there are a substantial group who are not Westerfans per se, but fans of only one of his series.¹ Especially when it comes to the Uglies books.

Now, this is not at all uncommon. There are plenty of Dorothy Dunnett fanatics who only read her Lymond books and have zero interest in the others, Scalzi fans who only like the Old Mans War books, McCaffrey fans who ditto the Pern books and so on. I myself am a Georgette Heyer fan who only likes her regency romances. I won’t touch her straight historicals or detective fiction with a barge pole. So I totally get it.

It is, in fact, a small percentage of readers who will follow a prolific and diverse writer throughout their career and read all their books. This is true even for writers like Stephen King. Plenty of his readers read only the novels and ignore the short stories and non-fiction.

I frequently describe myself as a huge Margeret Mahy and Diana Wynne Jones fan. Yet I have not read all their books. Most, but not all. There are fans and then there are fans.

What’s been so interesting about Leviathan is that it seems like the same percentage of Uglies fans that didn’t pick up Midnighters or the three New York books² are also not picking up Leviathan. The difference is that a whole bunch of folks who never really heard of Scott before are picking it up in their place. Leviathan really does seem to have brought Scott a whole new audience.

Broadly, we’re noticing way more boy readers than before and a much wider age spread: from eight year olds up through eighty year olds. Scott toured with Sarah Rees Brennnan, Robin Wasserman, Holly Black and Cassie Clare. At pretty much every event, boyfriends of these other authors’ fans, who had come along in a suffering kind of way, saw Scott’s presentation and wound up buying Leviathan, stunned that something could possibly interest them at such an event. Leviathan has also drawn in two specific groups who’ve had little interest in Scott’s books previously:

Steampunk fans

History buffs

Obviously there’s a big overlap between those two groups. But it’s been fascinating to watch the audience of his tour events change. Scott’s always had people coming along dressed up like Tally or Shay or other characters from his books, but this tour he had people showing up in full on steampunk garb. Fabulous. So far pretty much all the steampunkers are dressing in a generic steampunk way. I’m hoping that will change for his 2010 tour. I can’t wait to see the first person showing up dressed like Derryn or Alek.

Now before any of you jump into the comments and say “I’m a bloke! I love military history and steampunk and I’ve ALWAYS read Scott’s books!” I’m not saying you don’t exist, I’m just saying that before Leviathan you were only a teeny tiny slice of Scott’s audience. Now, you’ve got lots more company. Enjoy! We sure are.

There are adult readers who’ve only read The Risen Empire and have no intention of ever touching that smelly YA stuff. [↩]
So Yesterday, Peeps & The Last Days. All three books are set in the same world, by the way. It’s just that Hunter (of So Yesterday) is totally unaware of all the vampires running around. See how the world of products and advertising distracts you from what’s really important? Let that be a lesson for you. [↩]

Posted by Justine at 20:38, 27 December 2009 under Book tour, Fans & readers, Reading, Scott's books, Young Adult literature | 29 Comments »

What Novel I Wrote Next

Searching for something else entirely, I stumbled across this old post from March 2007 where I asked my faithful readers to help me choose what to write next. I decided it would be fun to do an update. Fun for me, anyways.¹

First on the list of possibilities is this one:

The compulsive liar book narrated by a—you guessed it—compulsive liar. Downside: will involve lots of outlining. I hates outlining. Plus it’s going to be so hard! Upside: whenever I mention this one folks get very excited.

Sound familiar? Why, yes, it’s the book I wrote next: Liar which published in September this year. As it happens it involved no outlining at all. But I was right it was hard. Much harder than I knew at the time. It also generated more excitement than I anticipated.

The other now completed item on the list was this one:

Try to write a short story. I’ve had a brain wave for completely transforming a story of mine that’s never worked into one that will. It involves making the ending not suck (why did I not think of that before?!) and setting it a couple hundred years ahead of where it’s set now. It involves no research. Downside: I suck at short stories. Upside: Not starting from scratch and may lead to an actual good story. That would be cool!

The story was “Thinner than Water”, which was published in 2008 in Love is Hell. You can find a bit more about the story here. Even if I do say so myself it is an actual good story. I’m proud of it. But it was many years work and I think I’ll be sticking to novels from here on out.

I don’t know why the 1930s book isn’t on that list. I was already thinking about writing it in October 2006. Though the specifics didn’t come together until a fortuitous conversation with Cassie Clare in 2007. (Thank you, Cassie!)

The other idea on that list I’ve made a substantial start on is this one:

Protag’s father goes missing presumed dead on account of he and protag’s mum very into each other. Mum is forced to take in a lodger to help pay the mortgage. She advertises for a female uni student but takes in a strange youngish man who has no visible means of support and yet pays the rent on time. He’s gorge and speaks a zillion languages but the seventeen-year old girl protag doesn’t trust him. Her twin brothers (eight years old) almost immediately fall under his sway. I could go on, but it’s just not very pitchable. Alas. Downside: Not very ptichable. Tis one of those books that’s clear in my head but takes months to explain. Sigh. Upside: tis very clear in my head.

I have, in fact, recently resumed work on it. Though as I am at work on many other things that does not mean the lodger novel will be finished any time soon.

Actually none of the other things I’m working on is included on that list. Mostly because I hadn’t thought of them way back then. Which just goes to show you that ideas really are a dime a dozen. Why, I just got a new one yesterday that I’m valiantly struggling against given that I already have four novels on the go. Five would be too many.

It was lovely looking at that list from almost two years ago and realising that in the intervening time I’d written two of them. Novels take ages and for me short stories take even longer. It will be many years before I write all those books. If, indeed, I write them at all. Most likely I’ll forgot about them and move on to other shinier ideas.

Because it’s not about the ideas, it’s about what you do with them. My barely sketched out idea of Liar from early 2007 does not invoke the completed book. There’s no mention of murder, no sense of what Micah is like, and no hint of why she lies. The book you write is never a perfect match with the imaginary book that was in your head before you began.

And now I must go and do some of that writing thing. Hmm, lodger novel? 1930s? Or that shiny new idea from yesterday . . . ?

Hey, it’s the holidays no one’s reading this right now. [↩]

Posted by Justine at 19:59, 26 December 2009 under 1930s NYC novel, Liar, Love is Hell, Writing goals & milestones, Writing life, Writing process | 10 Comments »

Sydney Christmas

This year Scott and me hosted the family xmas at our new digs. This is the first time in my entire life it’s been held anywhere but at my parents’ place. Made me feel very grown up indeed.

Because of our recent Istanbul sojurn we went with a Turkish feast. Here’s me and Scott putting the finishing touches on the main course patates bastisi (potato casserole) and çingene pilavi (gypsy salad) and part of the mezze (first course) haveuç köftesi (carrot rolls with apricots and pine nuts):

xmascooking

And here’s the mezze spread on the table. The dishes are aci domates ezmesi (chilli tomato paste), yoghurt with garlic and lemon juice to go with the carrot rolls, kisir (bulgur patties) which you squeeze lemon on (see the wedge on everyone’s plate), humus (which my sister made), and muhammara (walnut and capsicum dip):

mezzespread

The meal was powered by garlic (it was in every single dish—even dessert! Just kidding! Or am I?) and our mighty mortar and pestle (two of them: one huge, one wee). All the recipes come from Classic Turkish Cookery by Ghillie Başan, which is dead good.

Hope you’re all eating and drinking as well as we are!

Posted by Justine at 20:36, 25 December 2009 under Food, Sydney/Australia | 8 Comments »

Wrongness on the Internet

This goes out with love to some dear friends of mine. You know who you are.

There’s an xkcd cartoon so famous that many refer to it by its number, 386. It’s my favourite and one that is referred to frequently in the Larbfeld household.

“OMG!” I will yell, looking up from my computer.

“Is someone wrong on the internet?” Scott will say, making me feel a wee bit foolish, and deflating my outrage by at least 50%. Thank you, Randall Munroe.

Turns out that it’s not as famous as I thought it was. Recently I discovered that my sister, who makes a living in the visual effects industry, had never heard of it or xkcd. Now, there aren’t many geekier professions or industries than my sister’s. And yet she did not know xkcd. I did a wee survey. Many of my friends, who spend as much time online as I do, had never heard of it.

Which leads me to my point: Internet famous is not the same as world famous. The internet may be vast, but it still isn’t as vast as the real world. Much that feels big and important online, that the whole world is paying attention to is, in fact, unnoticed by anyone but you and your online friends and enemies.

When you are caught up in some drama or other that has broken out on a list (or loops as some people call them), newsgroup, twitter, comment thread it’s easy to forget that. Many of these conflagrations are about incredibly important matters like race, gender, inequality etc. etc. Some are not. But no matter how grave the matter, getting caught up in an online shitstorm, or worse, being at the centre of one, is hellish. It can eat days or weeks of your life, mess with your head, and get in the way of work.

It’s easy to lose your sense of proportion and forget that the vast majority of people have never heard of the storm that’s been encircling you. Not only do they not know about it, they’ve never heard of the site where it took place, or the game it was about, or the field it’s part of. You will have friends and colleagues in your field who have no idea it ever took place.

The interweebs are vast. That’s true. But they’re also tiny and fragmented.

When I was on tour, I met countless booksellers who had no idea there’d been any storm surrounding the cover of Liar. These were YA specialists who make a living buying and selling YA.

The vast majority of people who read YA do not know about the YA lit blog world. I did many school visits. Most of the students I talked to had no idea that some writers blog, let alone that there are active communities and blogs solely devoted to discussing YA. So they certainly weren’t reading any of those blogs. Some of the librarians and booksellers and teachers ditto.

When you’re caught up in an online conflagration is exactly the time to remember that it’s a speck of sand in the scale of things. Sure, it’s important to argue for what you believe is right and to do so for multiple audiences. But don’t do it at the expense of your work and your mental health. Don’t think that the survival of the universe depends on your doing so. Let yourself back away when you need to.

Because one of the wonderful things about the intermawebbys is that you can back away. You can turn it off. Something it’s a lot harder to do with conflict in the real world.¹

Besides for many of us around the world it’s holiday time. Enjoy yourself out in the sunshine!²

This is me turning off the internets and starting the xmas cooking.

Hope you have a wonderful break from work. I know I will.

To be clear, what happens online is real. But it’s a real that’s a lot easier to turn off than conflict at work or at home. [↩]
Or out in the snow and cold and misery if you are unfortunate enough to live in the wrong hemisphere. [↩]

Posted by Justine at 20:38, 23 December 2009 under Bloggery, Liar, Young Adult literature | 15 Comments »

More on Unhappy Endings

I started to respond to comments on the last post and realised it was turning into it’s own post. So, um, here it is.

Reading all your responses has crystallised something for me that I’ve been thinking for a long time: That there’s a gap between my expectations as a reader and what I do as a writer. The reader me desperately wanted a good ending¹ for Lily Bart in House of Mirth and was furious with Edith Wharton for all the misery. Why, Wharton, why?!

The writer me though is unmoved by such readerly desires. I write the books the way they have to be writ. They have their own logic and I cannot force them to go where they don’t want to go. Trust me, I tried to force Magic’s Child to go in the direction I had planned for it. Wound up having to rewrite that ending a kajillion times until finally it was somewhere near where it was supposed to be. Yes, some readers are unhappy with it. Whatcha gunna do?

It fascinates me that, on the one hand, I can be angry with a writer for breaking my heart while, on the other hand, I’m more than happy to break readers’ hearts with some of my own stories and novels.

As a reader I would like to go back in time and force Edith Wharton to make it better for Lily Bart. Kind of a la Stephen King’s Misery. But, you know, without kidnapping or breaking ankles. But were I her I would tell me where to go. It’s not her fault I was under the misapprehension that she was the USA’s Jane Austen. Wharton wrote the best book she could with the ending that made sense given the world and characters she had created. My desire for the ending to be Pollyanna’d is my problem, not hers.

As a writer, nothing will convince me that we owe our readers anything other than the very best books we can write. And, we’ll be the judges of that, thank you very much.

As a reader, who just read a book she was not in the right space for, I think all you smelly writers can go rot in hell.

Yeah, sometimes it’s confusing to be me.

Thanks, so much for the wonderful comments on happy endings. It was lovely to see such a diversity of views.

That good ending does not include Lily winding up with that spineless loser Selden, by the way. [↩]

Posted by Justine at 23:39, 22 December 2009 under Reading, Writing life | 12 Comments »

On Happy Endings or the Lack Thereof

I recently read House of Mirth by Edith Wharton for the first time and I was gutted. Unlike, most USians, who’ve at least some inkling of what to expect from a Wharton book I had zero expectations or, rather, zero correct expectations. Wharton is not nearly so well known here as she is in her native country. Those Aussies who do know Wharton tend to know her from the Hollywood adaptations of her novels. I have managed to see none of them. So, I went in to the House of Mirth blind, like a lamb to the slaughter. Let me tell you: There was NO mirth.

I also went in kind of expecting her to be the USA’s Jane Austen. I have no idea why. It was a wrong expectation. For starters there was no happy ending. It was the bleakest most horrible ending imaginable. And the awfulness started about half way through the book, which is when I first started weeping. But it kept getting worse. And worse and even worse. Until it had the worst ending of all time and I was crying so hard snot was pouring out of my nose.

Thanks a bunch, Edith Wharton! If you weren’t already dead . . .

Have I mentioned that it’s a wonderful book? That Wharton is a brilliant writer? That Lily Bart’s dilemma is what ties her to Jane Austen? For there is a connection even across an ocean and nearly a century: their books are about the same matter: what are the options for women of a certain class? Women who are expected to marry “well”?

Marriage, or dependence on relatives, or ruin, or attempting to work at crappy jobs despite never being trained to be anything but ornamental. It’s grim. And Wharton shows just how grim.

I will definitely be reading more Wharton but I’m not exactly looking forward to it. Miserable endings are difficult. And I say that as someone whose has many favourite books that do not end at all well¹ I have to steel myself to read them or I have to be in the mood for a good cry.

There’s something very vulnerable about reading. When I am immersed in a good book I feel so utterly consumed by it that an unhappy ending, the death of a favourite character can totally wreck me. My defenses are down. I cannot cope with the enormity of loss and grief and sorrow. Even though it’s not real. Movies, theatre and television never affect me so badly.² But there’s something about the intimacy and privacy of reading that increases the emotional impact of a story.

Which is why I understand those readers who won’t read books with unhappy endings. I am in total sympathy with the need for reading that doesn’t take you to a scary, uncomfortable, or painful place. I was not quite in the right place for House of Mirth. I imagine it will be some time before I am brave enough to read it again.

How about youse lot? How many of you need a happy ending? Do any of you read the end first to see if it’s safe?

To be expected when two of your favourite writers are Toni Morrison and Jean Rhys. [↩]
Though they all make me cry on occasion. I am a massive sook. [↩]

Posted by Justine at 23:57, 21 December 2009 under Praising, Reading | 25 Comments »

On Rereading Persuasion

Well, that was pure unalloyed pleasure. Though I wish I’d written this post immediately after finishing Persuasion, rather than now, when I’m still in post traumatic stress from having just read House of Mirth for the first time.¹

Heh hem. Persuasion. Love it. Remains my favourite Jane Austen. With Pride & Prejudice only slightly behind. As I’m doing all this (re)reading in order to think about romance and heroines let’s start there.

The Romance: This books seethes. It’s full of glances, almost everything between Anne & Wentworth is unspoken. Until they get to Bath that is, which doesn’t happen until at least two thirds into the book. The scene where Wentworth writes his passionate letter remains one of my favourites in any book ever. I first read Anne’s speech as a littlie but I still hug it to my chest. Here’s a fave bit:

“If you please, no reference to examples in books. Men have had every advantage of us in telling their own story. Education has been theirs in so much higher a degree; the pen has been in their hands. I will not allow books to prove anything.”

I love that Wentworth is not of noble birth. I love that Anne learns that who you are is much more important than what you were born. Though it does seem she never cared about birth or status because she was more than happy to marry Wentworth at 19. It was smelly Lady Russell who talked her out of it. I like to think that Russell learns at the end of the book that you can be born a prince and still be a vulgar moron, like Anne Elliot’s father, but I find myself not entirely believing it. She’s just a bit too smug and satisfied by her own opinions for my liking. Yet unlike Sir Walter or Anne’s sisters she’s smart so there’s less excuse for it.

One thing I was struck by in this read was Jane Austen’s critique of the artificial means by which romances keep their lovers apart. At the time I’m not sure it was the staple of romance that is now.² But I can’t tell you how many Romances I’ve read or romcoms I’ve watched where the stupid misunderstanding/transparent lie by “best friend”/missdelivered letter/whatever that has kept the lovers apart is tissue thin and unbelievable. In Persuasion I believe it. Yet here is Wentworth realising they could have been together sooner:

“But I too have been thinking over the past, and a question has suggested itself, whether there may not have been one person more my enemy even than that lady? My own self. Tell me if, when I returned to England in the year eight, with a few thousand pounds, and was posted into the Laconia, if I had then written to you, would you have answered my letter? Would you, in short, have renewed the engagement then?”

“Would I!” was all her answer; but the accent was decisive enough.

I can’t help reading that as a swipe at all the dumb misunderstandings that are used over and over that could be so simply resolved. But, of course, in Persuasion Wentworth’s reasons for not trying to reconcile sooner are perfectly clear: He thinks his chances are zero. The Elliots and Lady Russell were perfectly vile. They persuaded the love of his life to dump his arse. And BEING DUMPED? It takes a while to recover. Only the Mr Collineses of the world keep on trying and that’s only because they don’t get they’ve been dumped. As soon as they do they’re off with the nearest Charlotte.

I love Anne and Wentworth’s relationship. I love that it’s agony to them when they are not able to speak and when they are at last, the words come gushing out. There is so much to share, so much to tell that only the other would understand. I love Anne’s restraint and well, manliness. And Wentworth’s womanly passion. It’s he that’s always trembling with emotion, not Anne. LOVE THAT.

I’d also forgotten how funny Persuasion is, you know, in between the seething passion. This bit where Sir Elliot is unhappy with the women and men of Bath cracks me up. Tell me you haven’t known someone like this:

“He hoped she might make some amends for the many very plain faces he was continually passing in the streets. The worst of Bath was the number of its plain women. He did not mean to say that there were no pretty women, but the number of the plain was out of all proportion. He had frequently observed, as he walked, that one handsome face would be followed by thirty, or five-and-thirty frights; and once, as he had stood in a shop on Bond Street, he had counted eighty-seven women go by, one after another, without there being a tolerable face among them. It had been a frosty morning, to be sure, a sharp frost, which hardly one woman in a thousand could stand the test of. But still, there certainly were a dreadful multitude of ugly women in Bath; and as for the men! they were infinitely worse. Such scarecrows as the streets were full of! It was evident how little the women were used to the sight of anything tolerable, by the effect which a man of decent appearance produced. He had never walked anywhere arm-in-arm with Colonel Wallis (who was a fine military figure, though sandy-haired) without observing that every woman’s eye was upon him; every woman’s eye was sure to be upon Colonel Wallis.” Modest Sir Walter! He was not allowed to escape, however. His daughter and Mrs Clay united in hinting that Colonel Wallis’s companion might have as good a figure as Colonel Wallis, and certainly was not sandy-haired.

I know that’s a long quote but I could not resist. Modest Sir Walter, indeed.

In conclusion: Persuasion rocks out loud. And if I ever write a romantic heroine as strong and principled and honourable yet not boring or annoying as Anne Elliot then I will die a very happy writer. Persuasion is an incredible contrast with House of Mirth. Both Anne and Lily Bart’s existence are constrained by expectations of their class and sex. Anne cannot sail off to sea to make her fortune without forfeiting everything. And Lily can be disgraced as a whore, while still a virgin. I ached for both of them. My compassion for Charlotte and her dreadful marriage in Pride and Prejudice embiggened once again. I’m so glad I was born when I was and not when they were.

Note: This is not the place to declare your hatred of Jane Austen. We’re here to discuss our love. I’m sure there’s a Jane Austen haters forum you can find somewhere to share your hate. Yes, your hate will be deleted. Yes, I had to delete quite a number of JA haters from the Northanger Abbey discussion.

More on that in another post. Complete with a detailed description of just how hard I wish to shake Selden and Lily Bart. Aaargh! [↩]
At the time there was no Romance with a capital R . . . [↩]

Posted by Justine at 18:43, 20 December 2009 under Praising, Reading | 28 Comments »

Beginning of the Day

Breakfast is my favourite meal. (Other than lunch and dinner.)

breakfast

Hope you’re having as wonderful and relaxed a day as I am.

Posted by Justine at 0:00, 20 December 2009 under Food, Sydney/Australia | 8 Comments »

Music Listened to a Lot While Writing Liar

Micah, the first person narrator of Liar, is very explicit about music not being her thing:

I hate music. It hurts my ears, my brain. Even the membranes in my nose. Any music. All music. I can’t distinguish between hip hop and hillbilly ramblings, between symphonies and traffic noise. All of it hurts.

So it’s a bit weird given that I listened to so much music while writing Liar. I know that she would hate very single one of these, but they were essential for me to get in the right state to be able to write Micah’s voice. I needed short cuts to sadness, anger and confusion. Hence the following songs proving to be just the ticket:

Shakira “La Pared”

An obsessive love song which includes lyrics like “Sabes que sin ti/Ya yo no soy” “You know that without you/I’m not me”. Perfect.

Billie Holiday “God Bless the Child”

I’ve always thought this was the most ironically biting song of all time. Angry, sad, brilliant. Kind of like Micah.

Blood Makes Noise @ Yahoo! Video

Suzanne Vega “Blood Makes Noise”

Self-explanatory really.

Samuel Barber’s Adagio for Strings (Original broadcast from the Albert Hall in London September 15 2001. Leonard Slatkin conducts the BBC Orchestra.)

Quite possibly the saddest piece of music of all time. If I was feeling too cheerful to write Micah I played this. Instant woe.

Danger Mouse & Jay-Z & The Beatles “99 Problems”

I just love this mash up. Micah would hate it. I mean more than she already hates most music. I cannot explain why it helped writing the book so much, but it did.

Posted by Justine at 4:14, 19 December 2009 under Liar, Writing process | 4 Comments »

Commenting Etiquette

Before I begin I will confess that I have committed many of these sins. I know it was wrong and I will try very very hard never to do it again because it was rude and wrong of me.

I also know that everyone who comes to this blog is good and wise and already knows all this. I’m really writing this post to remind myself. Please to bear with my stating of much obviousness.

So here’s my rules of commenting etiquette:

Read the entire post before commenting. Nothing is more annoying to a blogger than to have someone say “But why did you not mention French beanbags?” when you have just spent six paragraphs doing exactly that.

Click through the links in the post. Nothing is more annoying to a blogger than to have someone say “Oh! You should read this genius article on the evil of French beanbags!” when you have linked to that very article and quoted from it four times.

Read all the comments before commenting. Nothing is more annoying to blogger and commenters than to have someone come along and say “Those French beanbags are totally a rip off the Eritrean ones!” when that point has already been made and responded to by multiple commenters. If the comment thread is insanely long, read at least the first few dozen and then if you must comment say “I’ve not been able to get through all the comments so sorry if this is a repeat . . . “

Do not explode on to a comment thread in a whirl of fire and outrage. Particularly don’t do this if all the discourse up to that point has been calm and measured.¹ Try to match your tone to the rest of the comments. If something truly outrageous has been said point it out. But there is no need to yell. This is especially annoying if you’re also violating one of the previous points. Exploding into a comment thread in high dudgeon to rant about something which has already been pointed out is double plus annoying.

If your outrage is so extreme you are shaking, if the post is the worst post in the history of posts,² why not blog about it on your own blog? This is what I do. But then I’m kind of allergic to flamewars. Basically I view blogs as someone’s living room. It’s pretty rude to start screaming abuse at someone in their own home. But by all means go back to your own living room and scream about them from there.

This last ones for the bloggers: if you write a post and the comment thread fills with outrage you might want to figure out what it is you’ve done to upset so many people. It could be a case of innocently blogging about beanbags without knowing about the great beanbag schism of 1985. Thank the people for correcting your ignorance and move on. It could be your post’s been linked to by a forum for crazy people who believe that beanbags are immoral. Delete their arses, ban them, or do whatever it is you do to crazy trolls. Or it could be that you’ve unknowingly said something genuinely appalling. When a whole bunch of people say they’re hurt and offended it’s always a good idea to try and figure out why and how you can avoid being offensive like that in the future. Onus is on you to apologise.

Maybe it’s more that blogs are salons and the blogger is the host. They become communities and develop their own mores and standards. When you show up at a new blog for the first time you should lurk, figure it out, and only join in when you have a sense of how it operates. Which is a pretty good rule for all social settings. Now, all I have to do is remember that!

Did I miss any obvious ones? Any commenting etiquette rules you’d all like to add?

There are, of course, plenty of blogs and forums that welcome, nay, thrive on fire and outrage. In which cause go ahead. You’re definitely matching the existing discourse. [↩]
Valiantly resists temptation to link to some of those truly dreadful posts. But that recent one comparing Barack Obama and Tiger Woods? I’m looking at you. [↩]

Posted by Justine at 8:29, 18 December 2009 under Bloggery | 6 Comments »

Re-reading Northanger Abbey

As you, my faithful readers, know lately I’ve been thinking about heroines and reader responses to them more than somewhat. This led me to re-reading Jane Austen’s Northanger Abbey because I’ve never had much of an opinion about Catherine and was curious to see where she fell on the blank page spectrum. I adore Lizzy Bennet and Anne Elliot. I don’t like Emma or Fanny Price. Elinor bores me and Marianne gets on my nerves but they both have their moments. But Catherine? I couldn’t even remember much about her other than she’s a bit wet. Cue re-read.

So what did I find? That Catherine and Henry’s pairing is unequal. It’s like the anti-Lizzy & Darcy. Catherine has nothing to teach Henry. He’s older, smarter and wiser. And I simply don’t see what he sees in Catherine. He must school her. Often. He is amused by her not because she’s witty but because she’s an idiot child. It verges on being what Diana Peterfreund describes as “the wiser/more cynical/world-weary/advisor dude who totally has the hots (or vice versa, or mutual) for our naive heroine.”

Except that Henry isn’t really into Catherine, not at first, not for some time:

[F]or, though Henry was now sincerely attached to her, though he felt and delighted in all the excellencies of her character and truly loved her society, I must confess that his affection originated in nothing better than gratitude, or, in other words, that a persuasion of her partiality for him had been the only cause of giving her a serious thought.

In other words, he came to like her because she was so besotted with him. Which, to be sure, happens all the time. But in this case when he’s so much smarter than her I just don’t believe it as the beginning of a wonderful marriage. In future years I fear they’ll wind up a bit like Mr & Mrs Bennet.

I don’t think Jane Austen believed it either. Northanger Abbey is, after all, a spoof on the novels popular at the time such as The Mysteries of Udolpho and very amusing it is too. But as a romance? For this reader the book is an utter failure. I need equality between my leads. I need for one of them to not be continually patronising the other. Don’t know about you but being patronised is not my idea of sexy.

Okay, now I must re-read Persuasion to see Jane Austen’s writing at its sexy best.

Posted by Justine at 20:28, 16 December 2009 under Reading | 31 Comments »

Is This Thing On? tap tap

Well, that was a long break, wasn’t it? I return refreshed and ready to resume blogging activities.

First boring admin: I have yet to tackle my mail, given all the totally urgent work on my plate, I won’t get to it until the new year. Resend if urgent. I do try to answer all mail so if I still don’t answer in January could be my spam filters ate it.

And now some commentary over at the Misfits’ Book Club on the new covers of E. Lockhart’s Ruby Oliver books. It made me really happy for two reasons:

It’s a very interesting discussion of covers. I’ve been working on a big fat post about covers for a while now. One of the things I talk about the divide between the way people who’ve read a book see the cover as opposed to those who have not. People forget that most covers designs are aimed at the people who haven’t read the book and haven’t heard of the author. Cassandra Mortmain’s¹ discussion of the rejacketing of the Ruby Oliver books perfectly illustrates that divide. She’s unhappy with the new jackets but also hopes that it will bring in new readers. Her and me both.

I’ve thought for ages that the Ruby Oliver books were being overlooked. Just because they’re fluffy and light does not mean that they don’t also have a lot to say about sex and gender in high school. It bugs me how often light books that tackle serious subjects just don’t register with many critics and award committees. For my money every one of the Ruby books should be garlanded with every award going. Cassandra Mortmain agrees with me. Most pleasing.

If you haven’t read the Ruby Oliver books. I strongly recommend that you do so. Rather than me explaining them, let Ruby tell you about the first book, The Boyfriend List:

WHAT HAPPENED, YOU WANT TO KNOW?

In the same ten days I —

lost my boyfriend (boy #13)

lost my best friend

lost all my other friends

learned gory details about my now-ex boyfriend’s sexual adventures

did something shockingly advanced with boy #15

did something suspicious with boy #10

had an argument with boy #14

drank my first beer

got caught by my mom

lost a lacrosse game

failed a math test

hurt Meghan’s feelings

became a leper

and became a famous slut.

Enough to give anyone panic attacks, right?

I was so overwhelmed by the horror of the whole debacle that I had to skip school for a day to read mystery novels, cry, and eat spearmint jelly candies.

The Ruby Oliver book in order are: The Boyfriend List, The Boy Book, The Treasure Map of Boys, Real Live Boyfriends (out next year). Read them!

That is all.

This is a pen name. For those of you who don’t know Cassandra Mortmain is the protag of the marvellous I Capture the Castle. Yes, my feet are in the sink as I write this. [↩]

Posted by Justine at 18:36, 16 December 2009 under Admin, Praising, Reading, Young Adult literature | 9 Comments »

In Istanbul

I have fallen in love with yet another city. Istanbul is glorious. We have met with our lovely agent here, Asli Ermiş, who took us to meet our publishers, Omer Yenici at Epsilon (who will be publishing Leviathan) and Ilgin Toydemir at Artemis (who will be publishing Liar and already publish Midnighters). They in turn took us out for fabulous lunches.

In Istanbul we have eaten.

A lot.

Borsa
First course at Borsa restaurant.

baklavaci
A baklava shop, which sells many sweet and wondrous things. Yes, we bought and we ate.

EgyptianMarket
The Egyptian spice market.

amenities
I am of the school that finds Turkish Delight delightful. In fact, even Scott liked the Turkish Delight here and he claims to hate it on account of its grandma soap taste. The Turkish Delight in Istanbul is the best I’ve ever had.

Ciya
Ciya, my favourite restaurant so far. So many things I’d never tasted before in my life. All of it really good. If I could live at Ciya, I would. A multi-course meal for the two of us cost under forty USD (that’s together, not each). And we ate an INSANE amount of food, and drank mulberry and other fruit juices of wonder.

FourSeasonsBrunch
Brunch at the Four Seasons. This is the dessert station.

Once again my apologies for not posting or responding to mail and comments. We are too busy eating and seeing the glorious sights. This is the first real holiday I’ve had in a long time and I’m enjoying it muchly.

Hmm . . . is it lunch time yet?

Posted by Justine at 5:54, 11 December 2009 under Excuses, Food, Praising, Publishing business, Travelling | 21 Comments »

On the Road Again + Collaboration Quessie

Or getting in a plane again. This time to Istanbul, which is a city I’ve never been before. Am I excited? Yes, I am. But it does mean that blogging may not be as every single day as I like it to be. Might be a couple of weeks before normal service resumes. On the other hand, there may be kickarse wireless in the hotel and I’ll blog like a demon. Just to keep you on your toes.

Have fun in my absence—I know it will be hard—and patient with my slow response to emails and questions etc. If you do have any quessies for me the best way to get a response is to go to the FAQs and ask there. I check them regularly. Whereas questions asked on regular posts often go unanswered. Sorry bout that.

I have a question for youse lot though: What do you feel about novels written in collaboration? I’ve heard some readers won’t touch them, which I find really odd. But I’m curious to know if it’s a widespread feeling. You don’t see that many bestselling collaborations, though there are a few. (I’m excluding ghostwritten books.) I’ve always wanted to do one but the opportunity has never arisen.

Thanks for your answers.

Posted by Justine at 0:24, 4 December 2009 under Admin, Reading, Travelling | 39 Comments »

Quick Note on Yesterday’s Post

I’m very sorry that some reviewers of YA were upset or worried by yesterday’s post. I truly was not talking about you. If you’re reading my blog. odds are you know and care about the genre, which is something the people who write those kinds of reviews are often lacking—especially the knowledge.

There are two groups who are writing the kinds of reviews I was mocking:

Reviewers for trade mags/journals/newspaper who are being asked to review outside their area of expertise

Amateur reviewers whose gateway drug to YA was Twilight

The vast majority of specialist kidlit bloggers and trade reviewers are mad keen lovers of the genre who are knowledgeable about its history and don’t make idiotic mistakes like accusing L. J. Smith of ripping off Stephenie Meyer. My post was not aimed at any of you. The kidlit bloggers and reviewers do a wonderful job of keeping people like me informed about our genre and what books we should be reading.

Keep up the good work!

Posted by Justine at 17:33, 3 December 2009 under Young Adult literature | 2 Comments »

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