Category Archives: Bloggery/Internetty Stuff

Off on tour (updated)

Not my tour but Scott’s tour for his latest book Extras. It pubs on the 2nd of October and is deeply awesome. In fact, it’s my favouritest of the Uglies series. Aya is my new hero.

I’ll be along at most of the public events. If you’re around come and say hello.

I plan to keep blogging everyday. You know, on account of I’m addicted. I managed it every day we were away at Dragoncon so I don’t see how a little tour will stop me.

Hey, does anyone who’s been on a book tour before have any survival tips? (Other than bring lots of shoes?)

Update: I’d be delighted to sign books. I may have to skip a few of the events to get some work done but I plan to be at most of them.

What won’t you blog about?

A friend of mine, who doesn’t blog or read blogs, asked me why I blog. “Don’t you feel weird sharing your personal life with total strangers?”

Their question surprised me because I don’t blog about my personal life. This isn’t that kind of a blog. I explained that to my friend. They didn’t believe me. “You talk about your writing, don’t you? That’s personal.”

Um, no. Writing is my job.

“But what about when your writing’s not going well? Aren’t the bad times personal?”

First of all, I don’t blog about when the writing’s going really badly.

Second, when I blog about the harder aspects of writing I do so to let people know that the writing life is not as glamorous as people think.1 And to demonstrate that, yes, even people who make a living writing have days that are not so productive. It would be the same if I was an accountant blogging about a bad accounting day.2

My friend continues to see blogging as a weird self-revelatory public display that only exhibitionists would engage in. I was bummed that I couldn’t persuade them about the goodness of blogging, but our conversation did leave me thinking about all the stuff I and my blogging friends don’t blog about.

I never blog about

    when I’m unwell or depressed (though I do occasionally talk about homesickness)

    the state of my relationships with family and friends

    my family and friends (unless it’s to boast about their achievements)

    politics (except indirectly)

    religion (though I will argue about it on other people’s blogs)

    personal or family crises of any kind

    books by living people that I hated

    publishing gossip

    uni***ns

So basically I don’t talk about stuff that is personal or that I think will start flame wars. I hate flame wars. I also avoid writing word counts (too boring), talking too much about works-in-progress (I’m superstitious), and whingeing when the writing’s going crappily (not only boring but irritating3). And bloggging about blogging is deeply lame. Ooops!

What about my fellow bloggers? What are your no-go areas?

  1. I cannot remember the last time I had a pina colada. And I’ve never had one served to me by a cabana boy or girl. [↩]
  2. Are there accounting blogs? And if not why not? [↩]
  3. Strangely, though, I really enjoy some other writers whingeing about their writing. Though they’re such fabulous writers they could write about accounting and make it riveting. Not that there’s anything wrong with accounting. Some of my best friends love accounting. Or they would if they did. [↩]

New does not equal young

I’ve been thinking about all the various awards out there for writers under a certain age and realising that I’m not sure I think such awards are a good idea. I figured it was just a case of me getting older and crankier. But it’s more than that.

I’m all for encouraging people who only have a book or two under their belt. I’m just not convinced that a first novel by someone who’s 23 has more intrinsic worth than a first novel by someone who’s 56 or 83. If we’re going to encourage new writing why does there have to be an age limit?1

Tayari Jones author of the brilliant Leaving Atlanta2 agrees with me. What’s more she’s put her finger on something else insidious about such awards:

I now am wondering if these lists are inherently biased in terms of socio-economic class. Think about it. Most of what anyone, not just writers, accomplish at a young age has much to do with that person’s family background. It takes a few years for the boot-strappy among us to catch up with the accomplishments of the silver-spoon crowd.

Why shouldn’t these lists of new writers be determined by the author’s publishing history? I know that “Best New Writers Who Have Published Two or Fewer Books” doesn’t have the same ring of “Best New Writers Under 30,” but it makes a whole lot more sense.

“Best New Writer” has a great ring to it.

  1. One of the things I like about the John W. Campbell Award for best new writer is that it has no age limit. [↩]
  2. It’s a seriously extraordinary book. You must read it! [↩]

Cross-dressing girls

I recently had a conversation with Oyceter about the conventions of romance in which I confessed that I love books where a girl has to pass as a boy. I’ve loved them ever since I was little. The book that set me off was These Old Shades by Georgette Heyer.

I don’t think the appeal of these books is mysterious. First of all, almost all of the books I loved were historicals. Most were (in one way or another) about how constrained the girls’ lives were. About all the things they couldn’t do and all the things they had to do, like marrying someone erky just because their father ordered them to. So for a girl character to be able to run around and get into sword fights she pretty much had to pretend to be a boy. I adored girls getting to have as much fun as the boys. It beat reading the books about boys’ adventures and pretending to myself that they were secretly girls. I always hated the books where the girl characters were only there to be rescued. I still do.

And not only does the convention allow for girls to do boy stuff it leads to also sorts of excellent misunderstandings. There’s a reason Twelfth Night is my favourite Shakespeare.

Holly Black and I once bonded over how much we love girls-passing-as-boys books. And now I know Oyceter loves them too. What about you guys? What are your favourite examples? I’ve just started reading Hana-Kimi and am enjoying it greatly.

The computer ate my novel

In the olden days people often had only one copy of their magnus opus and it was on paper. One copy! They used to lose their novels by leaving them on buses, or having the dog eat them, or the wind blowing it away. I know one person who lost their PhD thesis because their ex snuck into their flat and threw it in the fireplace. They had to write the entire thing over. I’ve heard that often leads to better work. But what a way to get there!

When the brave new world of word processors opened up, many people thought, “At last! It will be impossible for our books to go astray! Computers are indestructable!” Computers are much more durable than paper!1

Hah. I have never lost a whole novel but I have lots big chunks of work on several occasions because of computers dying. I have become much more rigorous in my backing up. Now that I’m published I have the best backup system of all: Thousands of copies of my books out there in the wild. Scott pointed that one out when we were in Dunedin on the South Island of New Zealand. He found a copy of his out-of-print first novel, Polymorph, in a used book shop there. “Best back up system ever!” he declared. Polymorph had only ever been published in North America.

Today Lisa Yee reports an entertaining2 novel disaster. Lisa is the queen of computer disaster story telling. How she could write about it so soon after the events I do not know. I would still be crying and sucking my thumb.

Has anyone got any excellent computer disasters or lost novel/thesis/mag op stories to tell? Share!

  1. I’m not convinced that’s true. There are books that are hundreds of years old that are still readable and in great shape—thousands if you count papyrus as paper. I doubt this computer I’m tapping on will still be working in a hundred years time. [↩]
  2. entertaining to us I’m not sure she had such a fab time with it [↩]

Sitting

Maureen Johnson ones again reveals the truth of what it is to be a writer:

Sitting plays a bigger role in writing than you would think. I mean, a lot of people say, “Oh yeah, I want to write a book one day.” And I smile and nod. Some of them will—but a lot of them can’t sit still for more than fifteen minutes if the TV isn’t on.

You have to sit like a champion when you write. Oh, you’re laughing. You think you can sit like a pro. But when it starts to all go rocky, when your characters don’t behave, when the wolf is at the door and the plot is starting to quake like a jello mold on a trampoline . . . . I defy you to keep sitting.

The sitting thing is why I rarely join my writer compadres in coffee shops. I’m only there if I absolutely have to get out of the house.1 My back is so destroyed by the whole sitting thing that I need an entirely ergonomic set up. I’ve got my ergie chair, my ergie desk, my ergie keyboard. All of it the right amount of heights and distances and blah blah blah. Even with all of that the end of every book I’ve ever written has seen me spending considerable time and money at the chiropractor’s. Oh joy.

Except this last book. I started going to the gym four times a week with a trainer—oh, yes, I’m now one of those wankers—and working mostly on my back and tummy muscles. Result: I finished a book without having to go into traction. I could achieve the same thing by swimming every day but there’s not a 50 metre pool within coo-ee. Buggered if I’ll swim in one of those annoying short course pools. Aargh. Yoga’s good too. But I’ve never found a yoga teacher as good as the one I had back in Sydney. Le sigh.

Anyways, writing = sitting. And sitting can get very bloody ouchy. I’ll never understand why people think being a writer is glamorous. Hah!

  1. So I don’t wind up climbing the walls and rending my hair with writerly frustration and madness. [↩]

book tour

In a bit over a week Scott is going on his very first proper book tour. Hooray! I am going along in my wifely capacity. Largely because everyone we know who’s done a book tour solo says it can be total misery. “Don’t do it alone!” they all cried.

The whole book tour thing is deeply weird. Most writers never get sent on one and are desperate for it to happen to them:

FOR the publication in July [2007] of her first book, “The Late Bloomer’s Revolution,” Amy Cohen imagined a promotional tour of bookstores in Sydney, Australia. And Paris. And a few places closer to home, New York City, would work, too.

Then her publicist at Hyperion told her, as Ms. Cohen recalled somewhat tongue in cheek, “You aren’t going to Scarsdale.”

Yet many writers who do get sent on tour really dislike it and start wondering what the point of the whole thing is:

Why, I sometimes wonder, does anybody want a book signed? I have a whole wall of books by friends, and it never occurs to me to ask them to sign them.

My wife, who has an abiding passion for hagiography—we have a surprising number of editions of Lives of the Saints, not one of them signed—has her own theory. As she explains it, a book signed by its author is a second-degree relic, not as precious as a finger bone, but on a par with a pair of cast-off sandals.

I like the explanation, but how long before the bastards start wanting the damned books signed in blood?

Writers who get to tour are aware that whingeing about it is unseemly:

I was stuck in traffic yesterday, thinking about how awful book tours were because I had to get up early and not get enough sleep and deal with lots of different people and never get any down time to just relax and I remembered what it reminded me of: working for a living. Not that writing isn’t working for a living, but I used to have to put on pantyhose and go out to teach at 7:30 every morning and I was always on the run and there was never any quiet time and I almost lost my mind. Which is what most people do every damn day. Meanwhile on the tour, I was sacking out in the Hotel Metro eating amazing room service and bemoaning my fate. Tell me again why nobody here threw things at me? Note to self: STOP WHINING, YOU INGRATE.

The folks I know who’ve enjoyed their book tour did it with someone else. Holly Black and Cassandra Clare had a fabulous time on their book tour earlier this year. The way a whole bunch of us did going to DragonCon together.

There are lots of claims that book tours don’t work: That for most authors they don’t increase sales; or contribute to that writer being better known; and that more money is lost than gained from doing them. Others claim that you have to look beyond immediate money returns for the value of book tours.

Although I’ve never been on an official book tour, I’ve done appearances back home and in the US of A, mostly I really enjoy them. I love meeting the people who sell and lend and buy and borrow my books. I love hanging out with folks who are knowledgeable and enthusiastic about books—YA books in particular—and gossiping and arguing with them. I find signing and talking to folks fun. I enjoy the Q & A sessions. And I love going to places I’ve never been before.

There’s less than fabulous stuff too. I’m not wild about staying in hotels where the windows don’t open, having to eat truly horrendous food cause it’s that or faint, air travel and all the related hassles, but compared to the cool stuff all of that is minor. Also I’m lucky: I’ve never had to do any of it alone. I’ve barely done any events alone. We usually put on the Justine-and-Scott show which we both enjoy heaps and seems to go over better with audiences then when we do appearances on our own.

For the authors who’ve toured—do you like touring? Consider it a necessary evil? And for those—like me—who haven’t do you want to? What are your expectations if you do tour?

I’m also curious to hear from the publishing pros: what’s your take? Does it entirely depend on who’s touring? Do you think blog tours are more useful? Are there authors who, no matter how great they’re books are doing, you would never send on tour?

And the booksellers and librarians who host authors on tour—what do you make of the whole thing?

And those who’ve seen authors on tour doing appearances what do you reckon?

Jack Heath blogs at insideadog

Remember when Scott and me were blogging at insideadog? Well, this month it’s Jack Heath’s turn. We met him last time we were back home and were charmed and impressed by his wit and elan and the fact that he’s published, like, a hundred novels all before his (approximately) fourteenth birthday. His first US publication will be out some time in 2008 (I think). Go say hello and tell him I sent you.

Because you whinged

The comments now have a live preview. Just start typing your comment and you will see.

I guess I should now find a proper footnote plugin since so many of you have whinged about my jerry-rigged ones. Some day . . .

Thank you, Mr McLaren.

Series

A warning: this is one of those stumbly thinking out loud posts.

I just read a dead interesting essay by Jim Huang reflecting on twenty years of selling books. Most of his comments have to do with mystery books but a lot of it applies to other genres. I’ve been thinking about this comment:

When I think about the center of gravity of the mystery genre, I still believe that it lies in series. Seventy percent of the titles on the bestsellers lists of the Independent Mystery Booksellers Association in 2007 year to date are part of a series. Seventy percent of these series titles belong to long-running series of five or more books. Sales in IMBA member stores are not necessarily representative of the marketplace in general, but they are the best indication we have of what the most devoted mystery lovers are looking for. Yet you can in fact generalize from these numbers. When you look at the BookScan mystery bestseller list for the week of 8/12/07, representing sales throughout the industry, you see that over 70%—closer to 80%, actually—of these bestselling titles also belong to series.

While not to that extent, Young Adult, is also dominated by series books: from Nancy Drew to Harry Potter through to the Gossip Girls. There’s a great deal of pleasure to be had from following the adventures of the same characters over multiple books and huge sales prove that I’m not alone in thinking so.

I know I have whinged about the trickiness of writing a trilogy, which is just a shorter series, but as a devourer of story I am all about the arc plot. In fact, lately I’ve kind of lost interest in movies and am much more into television precisely because it’s all arc. Right now we’re working our way through Homicide: Life on the Streets (which Scott had never seen!) and the first season of Heroes (anyone spoils me I kill them) having already screamed through American Gothic and the first three series of The Wire, there being no more Rome or Deadwood to be had.

I’m also gobbling manga by the truckload—my current obsession being Hikaru no go and Hellsing. I love them! But it’s also frustrating. Like right now I’m missing volume 6 of Hikaru. I have 7-10 waiting for me but no 6. And when I have all of the available volumes, I’m waiting on the next ones. Where is Nana 7? Emma 5? ES (Eternal Sabbath) 6? Hellsing 9? Her Majesty’s Dog 7? Monster 11? Mushishi 3? Waaaah!!!

But that’s nothing compared to the kinds of problems readers of mysteries have. Huang writes:

Series matter, and what publishers do with them tells you a lot about their inclinations and abilities. I write a lot about series and the bad job that the most publishers do with them: not keeping books in print (especially the first book which is where readers want to start), not clearly indicating the order of books in series, not identifying books as part of a series, not packaging series titles with a common look to make it easier to find them on new releases tables, not timing publication of new hardcovers and paperbacks to maximize sales, not indicating for the benefit of buyers for stores a new title’s place in the series, not soliciting orders for series backlist and frontlist together, not waiting months (if not years) between UK and US publication, etc.

I’ve definitely seen this happening a lot in sf and fantasy publishing but less so in YA. I wonder if that’s because YA books tend to stay on the shelves longer? Or maybe my anecdotal evidence is dodgy and it happens in YA too. Whatever. I will never understand how publishers allow book 1 of a series to go out of print while books 2, 3, 4 etc are still in print.

The first volume is always the biggest seller of a series because every time a new volume comes out it kickstarts fresh sales for the first volume. I’ve had several people write me to say that they bought Magic or Madness when Magic Lessons or Magic’s Child came out because the appearance of the later books reminded them about the series and also meant they could by the first book in paperback. My sales figures show the sales of Magic or Madness going up on the publication of the other two books.

On a much bigger scale that’s what happened with each book in Scott’s Uglies series. So much so that books two and three made it on to the New York Times bestseller list more than a year after first publcation. It will be interesting to see what happens when the fourth book comes out next month.

Obviously, the first volume of a bestselling series like Scott’s won’t be allowed to go out of print, but why publish the third book in a lesser selling series if the first one is no longer available? It minimises sales of all volumes in the series.

I have no idea where I’m going with any of this. Read Jim Huang’s essay!

Making the words good after you already writ ’em

I’ve had a few requests lately to explain how to edit a book once the first draft is done. I’ve started a long and exhaustive post on just that, but it’s not finished, plus Maureen already wrote about it. In the meantime David Louis Edelman has a really useful ten-point guide to line editing:

1. Eliminate unnecessary modifiers. When I say unnecessary modifiers, I’m talking about both “weasel” words that lessen the impact of your prose and useless modifiers that emphasize for no reason. Words like possibly, simply, really, totally, very, supposedly, seriously, terribly, allegedly, utterly, sort of, kind of, usually, extremely, almost, mostly, practically, probably, and quite. Why write “It was quite hot out that day” or “It was extremely hot that day” when the sentence “It was hot that day” accomplishes the same thing? The more clutter you can get rid of, the better your sentences will be.

What he said. Add “actually” and “just” and “though” to that list. But remember there are always exceptions. Like many of those words are dead useful in dialogue for conveying dithering etc. For example:

“Actually, I was totally going to set the zombies on the unicorns. Seriously I was! But I was possibly maybe almost kind of sort of distracted by the troll invasion. They’re really big!”

Edelman’s list—like all such lists—is a guide not a set of rules.

Cherie Priest tells the truth

The ever fabulous Cherie Priest has compiled a list of everything she’s learned about publishing since her first book came out. It is all totally true!

My favourites:

You will not be rich. Whatever money you might have earned from an advance will have been spent fully a year before your book appears. Maybe you paid off your car, or maybe you got that leather jacket out of lay-away at Wilson’s. Whatever, that money is LONG gone.

My advances for the trilogy and my two scholarly books are long, long, long gone. I just got a royalty cheque for the scholarly books. Yes, they’ve both earned out! The amount: $200. I’m rich! My Magic or Madness trilogy has yet to earn out. I’m hoping it will by the next royalty statement (two and a half years after the first book was published; almost four years since I sold the trilogy). The only money I’ve received this year is from foreign sales of Magic or Madness. Enough to cover the rent . . . barely.

Getting your foot in the door is not the hard part. It is the first hard part.

Sing it, Cherie! People (especially aspiring writers) have this bizarre idea that you’ve made it when you have a book published. Au contraire. Most writers never make enough money to live off. Many writers don’t get reviewed, or win prizes, or sell more than a thousand copies. Even authors with a squillion published books. Being published does not mean that you will cease to be rejected. Selling your first book does not mean that you will sell your seventh or seventieth.

There is such a thing as the law of aggregate success. You will also be offered more paying gigs, and if possible, you should probably try to take advantage of them. Some paying gigs (especially short markets) do not pay much, but there are plenty of very fine venues that can’t afford to offer a huge rate.

I wouldn’t have believed that one until this year when for the first time I’ve been approached to write stories for well-paid anthologies. Cool, huh? Now if only I could write short stories . . .

People will ask you questions about stuff you wrote, and you will say, “Um …” By the time your book actually comes out, it will have been a full year or even two years since you actually composed the material. You will have moved on to other projects, in which you are wholly immersed; and when someone asks about why character X in book one does thing Y, you’ll have no earthly idea. But you’ll be confident that there was an excellent reason.

This is true beyond trueness. People keep asking me questions about the trilogy but it’s almost a year since I last looked at Magic’s Chld and way longer than that since I looked at the first two books. It’s almost ten years since I looked at Battle of the Sexes. I can’t remember a thing about it. All I know is the book I’m writing right now.

You will acquire fans. This will blow your freakin’ mind.

Oh, yes. I’m still embarrassed and weirded out and made ecstatically happy by people (I’m not related to or friends with) liking my books. I’m not sure I’ll ever get used to it. I loves it.

Maureen’s editing skills

Maureen put together a vid of hers and Scott’s DragonCon footage:

It is fabulous in all ways!

Well, except for one way: Maureen promised me that she would edit me out. She did not. I am unhappy to realise that her promises are WORTH NOTHING.

Other than that everything is good. Watch, enjoy! DragonCon and DragonTrain were teh awesome. When I’m less knackered I’ll tell youse all about it. Especially our dramatic readings from the worst book ever written.

Barzak Day

It’s Christopher Barzak day! I’ve known Barzak for years. In fact when we first met I’m pretty sure neither of us had been published yet. And here we are both with books.

His first, One for Sorrow, comes out today. It’s a wonderfully moving sad beautiful ghost story. If you don’t believe me ask Scott. It’s published as adult but totally works as YA. Though it would get the 14+ classification on account of the sex in it. Steamy sex.

You can read an essay by the man himself on Gwenda’s blog. Or you can check out Barzak’s blog. But whatever you do make sure you get hold of One for Sorrow. If you’re broke then make your library order a copy. You’ll not regret it. Promise!

Yes, the theme broke (updated)

For some reason the theme broke this evening. I have no idea why. I have no idea how to get it working again. It is making me cry. In the meantime I have gone to the hideously ugly bog standard theme.

I have a book due on Wednesday which is also the day I head to DragonCon so the odds of getting the old theme working again or finding a new pretty one are very very very low. In the meantime you’ll just have to avert your eyes from the ugliness of this theme.

If any of you are wordpress heads and would like to recommend a pretty three-columned theme I’d love to hear about it.

In the meantime: Waaahhh!!!

Update: Chris McLaren to the rescue. He is a god. I owe him hugely. Thank you so very much, Chris!

My blog is pretty again. I am so happy!

Writerly naughtiness

Meg Cabot hates rewriting. In her rant against it she mentions that

the first time I got a copy-edited manuscript back, I was so offended by anyone second-guessing all my research (this was in the days before everyone had the Internet, and I had done all of it in the library), I ripped all the Post-It notes off and threw them away and just sent the manuscript back without addressing any of them. And no one said anything about it!

That’s, like, the naughtiest thing a writer could do. Well, other than being years late with a book, or stealing your editor’s car, or spouse, or, um, never mind.

I do know of one writer who totally ignored their editorial letter. They changed a few things in the first chapter—very cursory stuff—and then sent it back with a cover letter saying how helpful the ed letter was, how much they appreciated it etc. etc. The editor wrote the writer to thank them for all their hard work and the book went through to copyediting. I think that one only works if your editor is lazy or insanely overstretched. It would never work for mine. They read every single word. Over and over and over again. Bless them.

Now I’m wondering what other naughtinesses writers have gotten up to. Feel free to comment anonymously. No one here will reveal your dread secrets. Promise!

Adults and YA books

For obvious reasons I keep an eye on reviews of YA books—both online and offline, in magazines, journals, and blogs. And I gotta tell you reviews written by adults are close to collapsing under the weight of their insane expectations about what YA books should do and rigid ideas about what teenagers are like. Apparently humans only become diverse when they turn twenty. Teenagers, it seems, are all the same.

I’m not going to link to any of the examples I give below because this is not about beating up on any one particular reviewer. Nor will I identify the books on account of that would only help identify the dodgy reviews. I have employed exaggeration and caricature to further disguise some of my examples.

I just came across a review that dismissed a book because it had a character in it who has sex and doesn’t die or suffer any other dire consequences. Except that the character in question turns into a monster courtesy of having sex. Quite a horrible consequence I would have thought. That aside—really? YA books have to show sex as evil and wrong?

One felt the use of swear words in the book in question was inappropriate because teens don’t talk like that. The irony was that of the two words singled out, one didn’t appear in the book at all, and the other wasn’t used anywhere in the dialogue of the teenage characters.

Another reviewer automatically dismissed all YA books with unhappy endings. Teenagers don’t need grimness, this reviewer opined, they need sunshine and rainbows and lollipops. One of the books this reviewer didn’t like ended with the fifteen-year-old female protag being stronger and more sure of who she was in the world but without a boyfriend. Fifteen years old and no man of her own? Yes, what a horribly unhappy ending that is.

My favourite one complained that using contractions in the dialogue of teenagers was jarring because teenagers don’t—I am sorry, do not—speak like that. Huh? Does anyone speak without using contractions? Other than robots, I mean.

Another reviewer panned a book because it offered no moral lessons. Since the book featured a protag dealing with an addict parent and learning to take care of themself, their addict parent, and their siblings, and showing much resilience, fortitude and guts in the process, I couldn’t help but be bewildered by the reviewer’s objection.

Billions of reviewers objected to books that were too smart, sophisticated, or adult for teenagers because teenagers, apparently, don’t think about sex, or philopsophy, or social injustice, and they definitely never question the way things are.

Billions of other reviewers worried that YA books are too stupid and trashy for teenagers and teach them the wrong lessons about consumerism.

From all these reviews I learned that teenagers are robots who don’t swear or speak in contractions or have sex and they read books only in order to learn moral lessons which, as robots they desperately need. Cause how does a robot become a model human adult without an instruction manual?

I will adjust the book I am working on accordingly.

P.S. I apologise for the contractions used in this post which may encourage teenagers to start using them too. However, I’m an adult and we can’t help ourselves.

I heart Meg Cabot

As regular readers of my blog know I am not a fan of vampires. I’m especially not a fan of the vampire-as-love-interest because falling in love with a vampire is falling in love with a corpse. Frankly, Ewwwwwwwww!!! is too mild a response. Turns out Meg Cabot feels the same way I do (via Diana Peterfreund):

Anyway, as a consequence of that experience [having lyme disease], I just don’t enjoy books (or movies or TV shows) where vampires are the love interest. Because they remind me of the parasite that caused the disease that almost made me bald (if the fiftieth—only a slight exaggeration—doctor in two years that I went to hadn’t successfully figured out what was wrong with me, and cured me before I ended up looking like Britney before her extensions. You will note I am more upset about nearly being bald than I am about nearly dying. That is yet another sign of how shallow I am), and I honestly don’t understand how any girl could not want to spray a vampire in the face with Off.

So me and vampire love stories? Not so much.

Yes, I know, I liked Buffy—but she KILLED vampires, remember, and never toyed with the idea of BECOMING one. I didn’t take my husband’s last NAME when we got married. Do you honestly think I’d like a story about a girl considering changing SPECIES for a guy? No offense to any of you, but as a feminist, I just can’t go there…especially considering it’s a species that has so much in common with the one that tried so hard to make me bald. I mean, kill me.

What she said. Times a billion.

Against blogging

Robin Hobb is against blogging. In a witty and amusing screed she argues that blogging will suck away all your writing time:

For once a writer has entered that realm, there is no turning back. T’is true, so sadly true. Soon when your precious hour of free time arrives and you sit down to write, you will think to yourself, ‘oh, but I must do my blog first.’ And you will go there, and dutifully blog. At first, you will notice nothing amiss. It is pleasant to receive the daily dose of recognition from your readers, the gratifying feedback, and the responses that invite a response from you.

But my dear friends, it is NO COINCIDENCE that blog and blood begin with the same three letters!

I disagree. (Well, yes, they do begin with the same three letters but it’s DEFINITELY a coincidence!)

Blogging is no more pernicious than knitting or cooking or video games or any other hobby or procrastinatory activity a writer can undertake.

I love blogging. I do it pretty much every day. It makes me happy.

My blogging roughly co-incides with my pro writing career. Since I started blogging I’ve written a book a year. This year (so far) I’ve written a book and a long short story and the first ten thousand words of a new novel.

Blogging feeds into my writing. It’s a way of stretching the writing muscles that’s relaxing and fun. Without it I don’t write so good.

Lately, I’ve realised that part of my writing process is to procrastinate. I need to futz around blogging, reading blogs, cooking, reading books, watching tellie in order to get my brain to the point where it’s ready to write. When I just leap into writing gears grind on gears and it ain’t pretty. Blogging and other procratinatory activities are necessary brain lubricants.

Also blogging makes me feel like there are other folks out there writing and loving/hating it. Other people who are like me. It gives me daily access to several communities. When I blog cricket the cricket fans come out basketball ditto. I’m strongly and passionately in favour of blogging and the intramanets in general.

This doesn’t mean that blogging isn’t a disaster for some writers. If you’re blogging when you should be writing and thus not meeting your deadlines then you’ve got a problem. When the procrastination gets out of control and eats the work then it’s time to stop. But then Worlds of Warcraft is a disaster for some writers, so is sudoku.

I also come across writer’s blogs that seem to exist only because the writer has been told that blogging is great publicity for your books.

No, it isn’t. Not if you don’t enjoy blogging.

Cause if you don’t enjoy it you prolly aren’t any good at it and you’re writing the world’s most boring blog. Frankly, I am bored by announcements of award nominations/wins and other writerly achievements. I’m bored by my own. I don’t read other writers’ blogs to hear about that stuff. I read them to find out their opinions on American Gothic, politics, cats, mangosteens, their writing process and whatever else is on their mind. I read the blogs that are engaging, funny, whingy, moving, informative, mean, gossipy, snarky and fun.

When I started this blog I used to crap on about my various writing achievements way more than I do now cause I thought that’s what you were supposed to do. As I’ve gone on I’ve cut those kind of posts down both in number and in length. And I try to post something interesting quickly afterwards. Blogs that are just a boast-a-thon are dire. I’m definitely considering saving that stuff for the newsletter and the front of my website and leaving this blog skite free.

In short: Blogging rules! (But only if you like it and can get writing done as well!)

Spelling (updated)

I am not a great speller. I wouldn’t say I was a terrible speller either, but I doubt I’d get many rounds into a spelling bee. I subscribe to two online dictionaries—the Macquarie and the OED—so I can check and double check words that look wrong to me1. For the last few years many words have looked wrong. Mostly because I spend part of my life in a country that spells differently from where I grew up. I don’t think it would be an issue if I were a solid speller, but because I’m not I live in a state of constant confusion.

I am not alone. I know lots of writers who are only av. spellers like me. I know a few who are TERRIBLE. I will not name them—they know who they are. Hello, Sarah! But, for example, Samuel R. Delany is dyslexic. Great writer, not so great speller.

I bring this up because I keep seeing over and over again in flamey online writing discussions people declaring that someone else will never make it as a writer because they can’t spell.

Rubbish.

Usually the comment they’re responding to is terrible for lots of reasons, such as badly constructed sentences, being illogical, ungrammatical, as well as poorly spelled. If the sentences were gorge, made sense, and were grammatical, a few wrong spellings wouldn’t be that big a deal. They’re not when you hand your ms. into your editor.

Also, hastily written, off the cuff comments and emails do not equal a polished gone-over-a-billion-times manuscript.

I truly doubt that an agent or editor—unless they’re totally pedantic crazy people—would pass on a genius ms. because it had some spelling issues.

Not being able to spell does not make you a bad person or a bad writer. It is not a moral failing. It just makes life a little bit harder for your copyeditor and proofreader.

Update: Okay, this is an irritable update as people seem to be thinking that I am saying there’s no need to proofread work before submitting. Au contraire! Of course you proof your work and get other people to look at it before submitting. Especially if you’re a crap speller. All I’m saying is a career as a writer is feasible even for those of us who can’t spell.

  1. Oh, okay and so I can spend hours finding out if “grunch” and “flird” etc. are real words. [↩]

International Blog Against Racism Week

International Blog Against Racism Week is on again. Yay! If you’re confused about racism and race you can ask the awesome Angry Black Woman questions. She’s smart and funny and will treat you with the respect that you will, naturally, accord her. It is a brave and time consuming thing she has agreed to do.

You can find lots of links and posts here.

I was thinking of responding to Scalzi’s post about how he deals with race in his books, but Kameron Hurly has eloquently said what I was gunna say.

I’ve also decided against writing about the miscegenation bruhaha over on lj because so many smart people have covered it.

And I’m definitely not going to write about my nervousness in discussing race and racism. I see no way of doing it that doesn’t go down the white liberal guilt road, which is, frankly, deadly dull.

I would, however, like to post about my theories as to why I get asked about the race of the protagonist of the Magic or Madness trilogy (Reason Cansino) who isn’t white, but I never get asked about the race of the white characters (like Tom Yarbro). I’ve also had people complain that Reason being of Aboriginal ancestry doesn’t “add” anything to the story. As if the story should somehow be “about” her race. (Though it might not happen on account of the whole busy-ness thing—also I’m not sure I’ve sorted my thoughts out yet.)

Then there’s Tobias Buckell’s post on being (not visibly1) mixed race and how it freaks many white people. The assumption that (visibly) white people have two white parents, and that (visibly) black people have two black parents, or that a light-skinned black person has to have a white parent speaks to misapprehensions about how genes are passed on. Not to mention the cultural specificity of race. Black and white are not tidy terms, they leak.

In Australia a black person is, by and large, an indigenous person. In the US of A it usually means someone of African ancestry. In the UK I have heard people of Indian ancestry described as “black” and also as “asian”. In Australia only people from China, Japan, and Southeast Asia are called “asian”. And so it goes.

In Toure‘s review of CHARGING THE NET: A History of Blacks in Tennis From Althea Gibson and Arthur Ashe to the Williams Sisters by Cecil Harris and Larryette Kyle-DeBoseof he questioned some of the inclusions and exclusions:

There are some strange choices—they barely mention two Africans now on the tour, Hicham Arazi and Younes el-Aynaoui, both from Morocco, but give several pages to the Wimbledon winner Evonne Goolagong, an Australian aborigine. Aborigines may be oppressed and darker-skinned, but does that make them black? The original Australians are no blacker than, say, Vijay Amritraj of India, who played in the ’70s and ’80s and acted opposite Roger Moore in “Octopussy.” Alas, he’s not in the book.

Today in a review of a new reality TV show set in an affluent black suburb of Los Angeles the term “white” is jokingly used to described a group of affluent black teenagers:

This leaves “Baldwin Hills” in constant danger of turning into “The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air,” albeit with better jokes. The show avoids that fate by focusing much of its attention on the hugely charismatic Staci, the only cast member to live in the low-lying, less wealthy district known as the J’s (for “the jungle”), and her constant nemesis, Garnette, the self-possessed queen bee of the girls up the hill.

In one of the show’s main plot lines so far, Garnette, against her better judgment, invites Staci—whose sense of humor makes her popular—to a party and then watches in horror as Staci, the “party starter,” takes center stage and shows everyone how to dance. Back in the J’s with her friends, Staci is asked where she’s been and sums up the whole situation in six words: “Hanging out with the white chicks.”

Black people are often accused of being culturally “white”. Do white people ever get accused of being culturally “black”? And if so how different are the effects of those accusations? Working class whites aspiring to upper class tastes and culture are pursuing the great [insert country here] dream or at worst getting above themselves; black people are trying to be “white”.

Then there’s the Brazilians who are white in Brazil, but black and/or hispanic (even though they speak Portugese) in the US of A (sorry can’t find the link to the fabby article about this—will keep searching).

It would be comforting to think that this was all a matter of linguistics, but way too often it’s a matter of life, death, and freedom.

  1. Whatever “visibly white” means. One person’s white person is another person’s Jennifer Beals. [↩]

Money writing advice

Someone wrote to Victoria Strauss over at Writers Beware asking for advice on pursuing writing as a career. Namely will it make me money?

Strauss was honest about what a hit-and-miss career writing is and how the vast majority of pro writers do not make a lot of money. Her respondee did not take kindly to the truth and wrote to Strauss to tell her that he was

not worried about your discouragement. I understand, the history of the human race is but a brief spot in time, and its first lesson is modesty, but some people are better than others. I wouldn’t discourage anybody from having high ambitions, because the good of their success outweighs the bad of their failure. The successful ones always tell everybody to be more ambitious, which is why I think you’re biased and your judgement cannot altogether be respected.

Aside from this being a breathtakingly rude response to someone who’s gone out of their way to give an honest answer the layers of delusions are breathtaking. How is telling someone the truth discouraging someone from being ambitious? If you want to be a writer the odds are that you will not make much money. Best to know that straight away because if that’s your main motivation then you’d be better off playing the stock market or getting a law degree or becoming a plumber or finding a rich spouse.

I’ve been asked the money question by aspiring writers many times during my brief career (I’ve been a full-time writer only four years) and like Victoria Strauss’s correspondent they really don’t want to hear the truth. They want success stories. They want to be told that they will sell their first novel for six figures.

They might. I know one first timer who did. But the vast majority of first-novel advances I’ve heard of have been under twenty grand. Way under. Mine was. Scott’s was. Garth Nix’s was. So was J. K. Rowling’s.

If you don’t believe me subscribe to Publisher’s Lunch. Start counting how many of those debut novel deals are anything other than “nice” deals ($1-$49,000). Make sure to check how many books are in the deal. A “good” deal ($100,000 – $250,000) sounds fabulous but often those deals are for at least three books. I’ve seen a six-book “nice” deal which means the author got at most $8,000 a book.

Strauss’s questioner ends by telling her:

And if you don’t get it, maybe that’s why you’re not very successful. Write until your words bleed. I don’t see that color in your prose.

His notion of success is all tied up with money and he has the hide to hell Strauss that she’s not a success? He hasn’t sold a book; she’s published many. The only thing Strauss is not a success at is telling him what he wants to hear: you, sir, are the chosen one who will earn gazillions.

Hard work has a lot to do with success (though bleeding really isn’t necessary) but I know plenty of hardworking writers who don’t earn enough to support themselves, not to mention all the hard workers who’ve never made it into print. Talent and hard work are very necessary, but to make the big bucks luck is essential.

You can be a very successful writer—well reviewed, award winning, decent sales—and earn only 30 thou or less a year. The majority of pro writers would be over the moon to be earning that much year in and year out. Money for writers is low and erratic. It’s August and I’ve been paid about $4,000 for my writing this year. I’m owed more but who knows when it will come? That’s the writer’s life right there. Just like any other freelancer.

Besides what is a successful writer? There are many genius writers who made bugger-all writing during their lifetimes. You can’t tell me that Joseph Conrad and Emily Dickinson and Philip K. Dick weren’t successes. They’re still in print and they’re still read unlike gazillions of best sellers over the years. Who’s reading Coningsby Dawson and Warwick Deeping now?

An unanswerable question

Someone just wrote to ask me what to do when the writing is not going well. Fortunately, Diana Peterfreund has just written on this because I have no useful answer.

I suspect my own struggles with sentences that crumble as I type, with plot and character and meaning twisting out of my control, are at least partly because I’m very early on in my career. Old timers are much smarter about this stuff. Fer instance, my parents heard Thomas Kenneally interviewed the other day and he said that the writing got easier as he got older. After having written for more than forty years and having produced a bazillion gazillion novels (or, you know, thirty odd) he knows his own process and what to expect.

I don’t.

Not really. I’ve only written six novels and the writing of each one was different. I’ve been a freelancer writer for four years. I still have no idea how long it takes me to write a book. I can tell you how long the last one took, but not how long the next one will.

When you’re starting out you don’t know what to expect. You don’t know what you’re capable of. When the crappy writing days hit you—it’s a shock and you don’t know how to handle them.

Even super disciplined writers, like my old man, have days of words dissolving into puddles of putrescence, when they can’t focuss, and can barely squeeze out five words let alone a thousand.

What he does is keep writing. That’s where the discipline comes in. The act of getting yourself into the chair and typing—even if the words you’re producing make William McGonagall look like a genius—can be enough to get you past the crap and into the good.

Or not.

Sometimes people just need a break.

And only the writer can figure out which it is.

Personally, I’m pretty much always convinced that I need a break. Preferably in a place where there’s plentiful cricket coverage (alas, poor England), the food is fabulous, and the wine even better.

Sadly, my deadlines say otherwise . . .

Only 24 hours of LOLYA contest left

It’s midnight on the east coast of Australia (10AM on the east cost of the USA) the beginning of the final day of the LOLYA contest. Get your entries in by 11:59PM of today, Tuesday 31 July (East coast USA: 9:59AM 31 July). The comments will be turned off at that time.

We’ll announce the winners on the morning of 6 August (the evening of 5 August in the US of A).

Good luck!

Email bankruptcy, or, attempting to cope

I am in crunch time. I am in crunchy crunch time. The busyness I have been complaining about has rebounded on itself and leapt to a whole new level of busy. In a word: Aaaarggghh!!!!

I’m going to keep blogging. I made a little bet with myself to see if I could blog every day of July and so far so good. I hate to lose bets with myself. Especially fun ones. Also blogging kind of clears my head. Dunno why but when I’m deep in writing, blogging really helps me to unwind—that and a glass of wine.

However, I’ll no longer be replying to comments as much as I have been (which I know has been down on what it used to be)—Sorry! The UFB has to be rewritten and that’s my top priority.

Then there’s the email problem. A while back John Green declared email bankruptcy. I think I may have to do the same. I have more than five hundred unanswered emails, which I know is nothing compared to Cory Doctorow who gets, like, two thousand a day, but, well, I ain’t coping. Important emails are getting lost in the shuffle. So I’m going to put them all in a folder to be dealt with after crunch time. I hope that if it was important folks will resend.

I’m very sorry for not replying. I suck.

So from now until I’ve finished the rewrites and made solid inroads into the new novel, I’ll be very bad about answering email and your comments here. And if I am responding to comments here in the next few months—that means I’m being an evil procrastinator and you have my full permission to hassle me about it.

Now I return to the UFB.

Ed Letters

Via Elizabeth Bear a discussion of how writers feel about getting editorial letters.

First up, for those who don’t know an editorial letter is pretty much what it sounds like: a letter from your editor about your book, telling you all the things they want you to change in your manuscript. You only get an editorial letter if they’ve already bought your book.

The responses over at Blue Rose Girls are varied and run from love to hate and back again.

Me, I love editorial letters. I will go so far as to say that I find them sexy.

Seriously, imagine receiving a long letter (I’ve had up to ten pages single-spaced) that is all about your book, that totally gets what you were trying to do, and has billions of awesome ideas about how to make it better. I get a yummy shiver every time I receive my latest ed letter.

I’m lucky, of course, I’ve never had a bad ed letter. Mine have been not only full of insight and brilliant structural solutions, but they’ve been well-written and witty as well.

My relationship with my ed letters runs like this:

  1. Nervous anticipation as I wait for the letter to show. Will we agree about how the ms. is broken?
  2. Ecstasy at the ed letter’s arrival and discovery that not only do we agree but my editor has noticed all sorts of other stuff I did not.
  3. Shivery joy as I imagine the fixed book. Magically it has all fallen into place. I can do this, I think. I can!
  4. Despair on the day that I begin the work as I realise that I haven’t in fact rewritten the whole book by osmosis from having read the ed letter multiple times, and that I have to sit down and figure out how to do all those excellent and elegant structural changes.
  5. Despair turns to ecstasy as I work out solutions and back to despair as I come up against the next problem to be fixed. And repeat. A lot.
  6. Ecstatic joy when the ms. is finally whipped into shape and sent back to my editor.
  7. Nervous anticipation as I wait for the second letter to show. Will we agree about how the ms. is broken?
  8. And repeat.

I am a much, much, much better writer now then I was before I was professionally published. Part of that is because I write far more than I did back then, but a larger chunk of it is from being edited by professionals. My ed letters push me much farther than any other criticism I’ve ever received. My editors want my books to be the very best I can write as much as I do. They have a vested interest in them being good—it’s not only their job, but my success is their success, and my failure is their failure.

To sum up: a good ed letter and thus a good editor are worth their weight in mangosteens. There is nothing finer!

The Curse of Google

I just came across a post claiming that blog’s readership consists of

three of us, a couple of our friends on occasion, that person who runs Safe Libraries, people who stumble upon specific posts when Googling, and the YA authors who Google themselves.

Now given that I got to that blog because I was googling Scott (husband-googling surely isn’t as egregious as self-googling, right?) this made me wonder how many other blogs have readership that breaks down that way. And how do those who read and write about books on their blogs feel knowing that certain authors are likely to come across those discussions?

I can tell you that I am deeply weirded out when a writer comments or emails me after I mention their book even though several times it’s led to excellent exchanges and even friendships. It’s one of the reasons I only bag books that are written by dead people (take that, Herman “bores my arse off” Melville and Henry “creepy sexist loser” Miller!) or where I reveal neither the title nor author and disguise the plots. Because for us delicate writers reading a bad review is like being stabbed through our very hearts.

Also the one very slightly negative thing I ever wrote about a book on this blog elicited a long email from the author explaining why I was completely wrong. This person was not a YA writer. The book was non-fiction and the author well-known. The whole thing made me feel really uncomfortable.

So what about those of you who write less than positive reviews? How do you feel about the authors reading your words of dissatisfaction? Are you tempted to post your bad reviews of Moggle’s Baby by Ustinej Labelisterai or Squinting at Arkansas by Hojn Eergn just so you can bag ’em in peace?

Does knowing that self-googing writers might come across what you say about their books affect what you write? And how do you feel when an author comments on your blog? Even if it’s just to say “thank you” for a good review? Does it make you shudder and scream, “Stop googling yourself and go write! Isn’t that what you’re supposed to do for a living?! Leave me alone!”

LOLYA covers contest continues

The contest is open until the end of this month (rules are here). The response has been amazing. I mean, we were hoping for at least half a dozen responses, there’s been more than fifty.

If you don’t want to spend all day being clicky with links, the lovely Lili Wilkinson has put all the covers in one place. And as more come in she’ll keep adding them. Check it out!

I have no idea how we’re going to pick winners. So many of them make me giggle. Now if only someone would do a cover in praise of zombies or that mocked uni***ns . . .

This is officially the best contest ever!

That glorious feeling

Today I finished and sent off something I’ve been working on for quite awhile that has been kicking my arse and keeping me from working on the secret shiny new things I want to work on, not to mention the delicious Ultimate Fairy Book rewrites.

Anyway now it’s done!

And right at this minute I think it’s pretty good. I’m all buzzy and happy.

Ironically, I now want to expand it into something even bigger and more complicated. Last week I was dying to finish it; this week I’m wanting to keep at it.

Stupid brain.

But the feeling of having written something I’m proud of? Yum. I hug it to my chest. Especially as I know next time I read it I’ll prolly hate it.

Anyone else done something they’re proud of lately? (Other than all the fabulous LOLcovers. Mate, we’re going to have some trying times deciding the winners.) Tell us all about your prideful work!

I’m gunna be drinking champers tonight!

Vampire elves

Holly Black is making me giggle (via Gwenda). Now all I can think about is vampire elves and zombie unicorns and werewolf-griffins and pirate-orcs and . . . and which of all of those would win in battle and what they’d look like and what they’d eat. Would vampire elves still not like steel and not tell lies? And what would a novel with all these creatures in it be like?

Oh, hush, Justine. You have stories to write! Novels to unbuggerize! Admin to adminerate! Stop procrastinating.

Dry T-shirt contest

Over at insideadog Scott has had an attack of the lolcats and defaced several fine Australian young adult book covers. I am deeply horrified. Has he no sense of the sacred?

If you feel the urge to vandalise some other book covers (they don’t have to be Australian or young adult) post the links to your efforts in the comments thread over there. The best ones will receive a lovely Extras T-shirt. The contest is open until the end of the month and we’ll announce the winners in early August.

Meg Cabot interview

Here’s a fabby Meg Cabot interview for youse. There are many many things I find inspiring about her. One of them is the way her career has unfolded. She started out in romance and wound up as queen of YA. Hers is not an overnight success story. She’s had series of books be cancelled. Her first advances were tiny. Her first film deal—for The Princess Diaries—was made when she was still unknown:

And here’s a tip for all you aspiring authors out there: if you ever sell your film rights, and they tell you that you’re going to get a percentage of the gross net deficit, what that actually means is that you’re going to get . . . nothing. The Princess Diaries movies have yet, according to my bi-annual statements, to earn a profit.

Oh, and authors don’t get DVD sale money, either. At least, I don’t! Remember, I was a nobody when I was negotiating my film contract . . . so it was sort of take it or leave it. I took it. And I don’t regret it. Thanks to those films, a lot of kids who might not otherwise have picked up my books did so, and I will always be grateful for that! (It’s hard not to be when you get letters every day that go, “Deer Meg, I never read a book before until I saw your movie The Princess Diaries. I loved it so much I bought your book of it. Now I can’t stop reeding. Just to let you know, though, your book has a lot of mistakes in it. In the movie the dad is dead. In the book he’s not. You should fix this. Love, Brittany“)

So she definitely got ripped off, but it paved the way for all this other fabulous stuff: way more of her books selling, bestsellerness, much better deals with Hollywood, really gorgeous clothes etc etc.

I sometimes regret the less-than-good deals I signed before I had a clue (or an agent) but I gained quite a few clues out of the experience. Also it’s important to remember that a beginning writer—even with an agent—usually doesn’t have that many options. A less-than-fab deal may be all they can get, but it may—with luck and hard work—lead the way to better deals in the future.

Not everyone is going to have Meg Cabot levels of success. Leaving aside the luck, very few writers can work that hard. If I wrote as many books a year as she does I would die. For the last few weeks I’ve been (leaving the monster admin aside) working exclusively on one novel and one short story and it’s just about killing me. In that time Cabot would have written three new novels and gone over the copyedits and proofs of at least three others. Not to mention all her blogging and interviews and appearances and etc.

Okay, now I’m tired. But the point of this post was not to make comparisons (how odious they are!) but that there are many different paths to publication, many different kinds of writing careers, and that very few writers—even the Meg Cabots of this world—make it big straight away (or ever).

And besides all that you should read the interview cause Meg Cabot is funny. She makes me laugh.

Another quessie

For youse lot is now over at insideadog. A most excellent quessie even if I do say so myself. Go forth and satisfy my curiosity!

Also I’m really sorry for not answering anyone’s emails or responding to comments in like a million years. Remember how I’ve had to give up The Tour? Well, the business keeps on keeping on. But I’m really enjoying reading everything you have to say. Youse lots are funny, wise and most excellent. Thank you!

And back to work I go.

Blerk. Well, not all blerk. Just mostly blerk. Short stories? I stab them in the eye.

New Look (Maybe)

As you can see I’ve been experimenting with a new look for the blog. Basically what I wanted was the old look plus an extra column. Sadly I couldn’t figure how to change the old template. (Css skills=zero.) So I mucked around with another template trying to get it to look like my old one. This is as good as I’ve managed.

There are many things I’m unhappy with:

  • the bullets in the sidebars
  • how tight the space between the three columns is
  • the disappearance of my blogroll
  • navigation between posts gone
  • header not clickable any more

I’m off to see the Liberty take on the Sacramento Monarchs at Madison Square Garden. Maybe I’ll figure out how to fix these problems when I get back. If any of you wise folks have suggestions I’d love to hear it!

Let’s go Liberty!

Title angst

Sometimes it seems like the hardest part of writing a book is coming up with a good title, so I wasn’t surprised by E. Lockhart, Sarah Mylnowski and Lauren Myracle struggling to find one. I’ve seen those arguments before; I’ve been in those arguments before.

The discussion that flowed from my post about their title poll is almost exactly like what happens when you, your editor, your agent and others are agonising over what title to go with. There’s always someone who hates every title. And they always have really convincing reasons. The arguments are intense and passionate. Getting the title right seems like the most important thing in the world and also the least likely thing in the world.

And then the book is titled and everyone forgets about it. The title is rarely mentioned again. I’ve had one reviewer complain that Magic Lessons and Magic’s Child are boring, generic titles, but that’s about it. It’s like the title becomes the thing itself and arguing about it feels like arguing about whether “table” is a good name for actual tables. They just are tables. What else would you call them? (You know other than “mesa” or all the other words in other languages for “table”.)

Sure, a really good title helps heaps: I picked up A Great and Terrible Beauty because of the title (I’m one of the few people who wasn’t in love with the cover—I’m not down with headless women). I’ve also picked up books because of their covers. But if the book isn’t good it doesn’t matter what the title is or how fab the cover. The title and cover are all about making us punters pick up the book after that it’s up to the actual words inside.

I just stopped reading a wonderfully titled book a third of the way through. I loved the musicality of the title and the premise it promised. I’d heard good things about the writer, but the book sucks. I hates it.

There’s no sense of place. I had no idea where I was until place names were mentioned. In fact, the book is mostly dialogue or first person self-absorbed monologue. The awesome premise is not really explored—it’s like the writer had this cool idea and then had no idea what to do with it. I didn’t believe in any of the characters, or what they were doing, or the first person narrator’s response to them. The brilliant title didn’t stop me putting the book down and reading something else.

Titles really aren’t that big a deal. I’ll be buying and reading E., Sarah and Lauren’s book no matter what it’s called. I bet heaps of other people will too.

Help title a book

E. Lockhart (The Boyfriend List, Fly on the Wall, Dramarama) Sarah Mlynowski (Bras & Broomsticks, Milkrun, Frogs & French Kisses) and Lauren Myracle (TTYL, TTFN, L8R G8R, Rhymes with Witches) are writing a book together about three girls taking a road trip through the sticky heat of Florida in pursuit of love and adventure.

They’re stuck on what title to use. I so sympathise. Picking the right title is a nightmare!

So right now Harper Teen is holding a quiz. All you have to do is read the three top titles and vote on your choice.

It takes seconds. I just voted. Won’t tell you for which—don’t want to sway the results. But, um, I sure do like the idea of lessons in badness . . .

The results will be announced 1 August.