Category Archives: Magic or Madness trilogy

Done and away and over and off and like that (Updated)

I just pressed the send button, and now Magic! Magic! Magic! Oi! Oi! Oi! is winging its way across the Pacific, and then across mainland USA, all the way to Hudson Street in New York City. Except that, you know, technology, being what it is, my baby is already there. Freaky, eh?

I can now watch the Sri Lanka v South Africa One Day International in good conscience. Who am I barracking for? Sri Lanka, natch. But it would prolly be more interesting for the competition if South Africa won. But, frankly, without Makhaya Ntini South Africa just ain’t that interesting. Even if Sean Pollock does look uncannily like my husband.


Sean Pollock aka Scott Westerfeld (original source)

Can I just say that I love the extreme slow mos? Beautiful.

I have now worked way more than 20 days straight on finishing MorM 3. In that time I also achieved the following:

    wrote the first 500 to 1,000 words of three other novels.

    exchanged many many whingey emails with Holly Black moaning about our novels-in-progress.

    was waited on hand and foot by my most excellent husband.

    resisted reading the second Temeraire book which Naomi Novik so kindly sent me (so. very. difficult.).

    was given a first edition hardcover copy of Steve Waugh’s autobiography by my wonderful Australian publisher, Laura Harris (Something else to resist reading).

    chewed my finger nails way beyond the quick (ewwww! Do you know how many times I’ve sworn I would stop that? Aarrghh!)

    read the last five chapters of my novel to Scott at least three times. Fortunately for him, each time they were completely different!

    wrote five different endings to the novel (two of them so shockingly bad I didn’t read them to Scott).

    watched the first ten episodes of the second series of Battlestar Galactica. Thank you Sean Williams! Thank you Cat Sparks and Rob Hood!

    watched all of Ultraviolet. More thanks to Cat & Rob!

    completely failed to arrange accommodation in Bologna.

    realised that there is no sport on earth remotely as wonderful as cricket.

And now I fall asleep on the couch watching Sri Lanka defeat South Africa. Yea verily, this is the life!

Update: South Africa won! Wowzer.

writer’s block and awards

From Jonathan Yardley’s Washington Post article about John Gregory Dunne comes this quote:

“Because one has written other books does not mean the next becomes any easier. Each book in fact is a tabula rasa; from book to book I seem to forget how to get characters in and out of rooms — a far more difficult task than the non-writer might think. Still I went to my office every day. That is the difference between the professional and the amateur. The professional guts a book through this period, in full knowledge that what he is doing is not very good. Not to work is to exhibit a failure of nerve, and a failure of nerve is the best definition I know for writer’s block.”

How wise! How true! And how apposite to my current situation! (MorM 3 is due in New York City in just under twelve hours.) Via the lovely Ms Bond.

Margo Lanagan‘s Black Juice is now a Printz honour book. Most excellent! If you haven’t already read it, then you really really must!

Now I return to twelve more hours of not exhibiting a failure of nerve . . . Fingernails? What fingernails?

French Title of Magic or Madness

It seems that the direct translation of Magic or Madness is less than euphonious in French, so my publishers there, Editions du Panama, have opted for a new title for both the series and the first book. The series title will be:

AU-DELA DE LA PORTE (BEYOND THE DOOR)

and Book 1 will be:

DANS LES GRIFFES DE LA SORCIERE (IN THE WITCH’S CLAWS)

Interesting, eh?

Books about Writing (updated)

As I’ve mentioned I recently read Samuel R. Delany‘s About Writing which is seriously very very good. One of the smartest, most inspiring books on writing I’ve ever read. It includes a piece on “thickening the plot” where he shows you precisely how he does it. The many moments where he goes through word by word pointing out exactly what isn’t working in any given passage are gorgeous (as are the pastiches he whips up for dissection). His advice to wannabe writers is harsh and honest and reveals heaps about his own writing life. The introduction—where he discusses the difference between “talented” and “good” writing—is worth the price of the whole book (as is the appendix, “Nits, Nips, Tucks and Tips”). In the intro he sets out the rules of good writing, it’s the usual suspects: “use precise language”, “avoid the passive voice” etc. etc. and then Delany writes

If you start with a confused, unclear, and badly written story, and apply the rules of good writing to it, you can probably turn it into a simple, logical, clearly written story. It will still not be a good one. The major fault of eight-five to ninety-five percent of all fiction is that it is banal and dull . . . However paradoxical it sounds, good writing as a set of strictures (that is, when the writing is good and nothing more) produces most bad fiction.

Delany is such an extraordinary writer that reading him musing at length on his profession is beyond pleasure and off into a whole other realm. His book made me realise how far I still have to go to become the kind of writer I want to be. I’m a mere beginner at the published writer game, there’s still oceans for me to learn (especially about punctuating conversation!—see the section on same in the Appendix). A sobering and incredibly useful realisation. How many books force you to look close and hard at what you do for a living? The book has fuelled my own writing and left me hungry for more brilliant books on writing. Books as good as Delany’s.

So far I’m not doing great on finding such a book. Right now I’m reading Sol Stein’s Stein on Writing but compared to the Delany it seems kind of anaemic. I suspect that this is because, unlike Delany’s book, the Stein is aimed at beginning writers and also because what I really want to be reading is more Delany on writing.

I’ve been asking around for recommendations and so far I have From Where You Dream by Robert Olen Butler, Writing the Australian Crawl by William Stafford, A Dangerous Profession by Frederick Busch, and The Art of Fiction by John Gardner on my list. Anyone read ’em? Whatcha reckon?

Update: Just to be clear all the books in the following paragraph are books I’ve already read. There’s no need to keep recommending Stephen King’s On Writing!

Other books on writing I’ve read and enjoyed are Flannery O’Conner’s Mystery and Manners, Patricia Highsmith’s Plotting and Writing Suspense Fiction, Stephen King’s On Writing and Ursula Le Guin’s Steering the Craft. The books I enjoy most are not how-tos, but personal accounts of a writer’s relationship to writing. I’d love to hear of more.

PS I know this post should have been all exquisitely writ and that, but I got a book due Tuesday and I’m saving my pretty sentences for Magic! Magic! Magic! Oi! Oi! Oi!!

Ooops!

Apparently, calling my first novel, Magic or Madness was a big fat mistake. It’s the “or” that’s the problem, with certain searches it brings up lots of results that get in between you and finding my book. That can’t be good. And of course no one can spell my surname . . .

I suspect the title Magic Lessons isn’t much of an improvement. There must be gazillions of books with that title. You know, ones that actually teach you how to do magic tricks. Thank Elvis the third book in the trilogy has an utterly unique title: Magic! Magic! Magic! Oi! Oi! Oi!.

Best go finish writing it so I’ll have at least one book in the catalogue punters can actually find!

Magic Lessons in Australia

I just found out that Penguin Australia has made an offer for Magic Lessons! They’re planning to publish it in September exactly a year after Magic or Madness was released here. I’m thrilled! Penguin Au doesn’t buy many foreign books (yes, even though an Aussie wrote them, the MorM books are “foreign” because they’re being sold through Penguin USA), so it’s really exciting that they’ve now bought two of mine, and two of Scott‘s (So Yesterday and Peeps). Yay! It means a lot to me to be published in my own country.

More on the Art of the Synopsis

Diana Peterfreund who claims to love writing synopses is doing her very best to try and get out of writing one. Her methods include, well, actually you really have to see it. It’s very very funny, and I may steal it for our workshop on synopses in March, especially the interpretative dance!

C’mon, Diana, just write the damn thing!

Speaking of which I’ll be getting back to writing my own damn book . . .

Green Man Review of MorM

I got up all ready to start turning my sketchy draft of MorM 3 into something a whole lot better. Before starting I thought I’d have a quick squiz at the email, just in case there was something important (you know like a foreign language sale, those always start the day off marvellously well). Of course, the fact that it was Saturday in the US of A and Sunday here made that vanishingly unlikely. Instead I found one of the most blush-worthy reviews so far, which is almost as good as a sale for starting the day off humming.

It’s written by an online friend of mine, Rachel Manija Brown. I very much enjoyed her memoir, All the Fishes Come Home to Roost. However, reading her other reviews I don’t think she’d’ve pulled her punches had she not liked my book.

Here’s a quote:

Magic or Madness takes place in Sydney and New York City, and both are drawn with such vivid detail that, to a reviewer who knows New York (as Reason does not) but not Sydney (as Reason does) that both cities become equally alien, equally disconcerting, and equally enticing. Larbalestier captures the culture shock that an unwary traveler can fall victim to when even countries where English is spoken can seem impossibly different from each other, and where even that English can sound like a foreign tongue. This is the first fantasy I’ve ever read that gets the effect of having a character transported to Elfland without ever leaving the fields that we know.

Green Man Review

Right then, now I roll up sleeves and dive back into the world of MorM 3. I’ve got nine days to make it perfect. Wish me luck!

Me Quoted in the Chicago Tribune

I know it’s not the New York Times, but I’m pretty stoked. Especially as Pat Reardon has written a smart and interesting article about author photos and I’m quoted alongside the likes of Jane Smiley. Woo hoo! Here are my pearls of wisdom:

“When you’re really sucked into a book, it’s an incredibly intimate experience,” says Justine Larbalestier, an Australian science fiction young adult writer and historian. “You’re really in that person’s brain.”

As an author, Larbalestier is ambivalent about dust-jacket photos. She’s even tried, unsuccessfully, to persuade her publishers to go without her photo. But, as a reader, there are times she finds herself gazing at the writer’s image for answers. She did so recently while reading The Music of the Primes: Searching to Solve the Greatest Mystery in Mathematics by Marcus du Sautoy.

“It’s about maths, but the writing is passionate and beautiful,” Larbalestier says, “and I kept trying to reconcile the smug picture of the author with the elegance of the text.”

Mate, I hope Mr du Sautoy doesn’t come across it. I didn’t really mean smug exactly, the photo’s more, sort of, pompous. No! That’s worse isn’t it? How about self-satisfied? Or, um, I know, English. The photo looks very English. And, Mr du Sautoy, I really, really love your book.

Don’t mind me, I’ll get back to finishing my own book now.

First novel? Second novel?

There’s a lovely little article by Malcom Knox1 that appeared in last Thursday’s Sydney Morning Herald (I discovered it by way of the lovely Maud Newton). In it he discusses second-novel syndrome (SNS). The inability to write a second novel that can set in after your first novel’s been a success.

Of course, as Knox points out,

true SNS can only exist where the first novel has been hugely successful. All writers know that if you haven’t had a big bestseller, it’s harder to get published next time, no matter what you write; and if you have had a big bestseller, you will be published, no matter what you write.

And there’s the tricky matter of whether a first novel is truly a first novel:

Many novelists’ first published work is actually the third, fourth, seventh or 10th novel they have written. Another Australian author, Venero Armanno, estimated he had written a million words in unpublished novels before his “first book”.

The second published novel is often one that was started and even finished before the first. What the critic praises as the brilliant first book, long in gestation, inspired and innocent, may well be novel No. 8 by that writer; and the condemned second book, “pumped out too quickly”, “too conscious of an audience”, “a disappointing follow-up”, is in fact novel No. 4 that took several years longer. Unless you know the novelist’s working method intimately, you can’t make assumptions.

My first published novel, Magic or Madness, was my third written novel. My fourth, Magic Lessons, which will be my second published novel, was finished before Magic or Madness came out. So whatever (moderate) success MorM has had in no way affected the writing of its sequel. Got that? No, me neither.

Many of the published novelists I know had written more than one novel before they sold one. They kept on writing until the publishing gods at long last smiled. And then they were in the excellent position of having inventory (don’t you love that word? they’re not trunk novels, they’re inventory). Too many unpublished writers obsess about getting their first novel accepted and are so wounded by the failure of their beloved that they forget to write a second or a third one.

In the end Knox decides that if you’re suffering from second-novel syndrome you’re dead lucky—it means you’re a success. And if you’re not suffering from second-novel syndrome than it also means you’re dead lucky cause you’re not suffering from over-inflated expectations—you can work in peace. (It could also mean you’re not a novelist—in which case how smart are you? Very!) It’s all good.

  1. I first came across Knox’s writing when he was cricket correspondent for the SMH. He was excellent, not just smart about the game, but smart about its history, people and politics. (I miss him!) Recently, I read his second novel, A Private Man. Okay, when I say I read it, I’m kind of lying. it was more skimming than reading. One of my many failing is that I’m completely unable to concentrate on the non-cricket bits of a book if I know there’s going to be cricket in it. I wound up skipping all the non-cricket chapters. I can report that the cricket bits were really, really excellent. [↩]

Bookshops and the Signing thing

Wow, thanks to everyone for sharing all their writers’ humiliations. Apparently I’m not alone!

This post is for the bookseller who wrote to tell me that if I went to her bookshop I could sign whatever books I wanted.

On the same day I had my less than stellar experience at a chain I also visited Galaxy, Kinokuniya, Gleebooks and Better Read than Dead. All of them had many copies of Scott’s books and all told me that Uglies in particular is flying off the shelves. And they all had the Oz version of Magic or Madness and were very keen on me signing them. At Galaxy I didn’t even have to ask. Bless Galaxy. They rolled out the books, handed me a pen, and told me how well MorM‘d been doing for them. There was also mention of the possibility of Scott and me doing events for all of these shops. Way to make you feel wanted. Lovely!

I also figured out that I’ve been shopping at Galaxy for at least fourteen years! Oh my Elvis! That’s longer than some of my readers have been alive! And I’ve been a regular customer at Gleebooks for even longer . . . They’re two of my fave bookshops in all the world and have been incredibly good to me as both customer and now as author.

I have to admit though, that the whole signing thing is weird. I always feel like a loon asking people in bookshops if they want me to scribble on their books. It seems such an odd thing to do: “Deface your stock, Ma’am?” Though, of course, I’m very happy to have books by my favourite writers defaced, and treasure my two signed Dorothy Dunnett’s (Caprice and Rondo and Gemini).

Other than that initial awkwardness—“Hi, I’m Justine Larbalestier and, er, you seem to have some of my books. I was wondering if you wouldn’t mind if I, um, signed them for you”—other than that I really like going into bookshops and chatting with the staff. For one thing, they’re mostly really into books. Surprising that, eh? And once I’ve gotten the self-promotery thing over and done with (quick as poss) I can ask about their favourite YAs and rave about mine (I talked up Haitani’s A Rabbit’s Eyes big time at Kinokuniya). Alliyx at Kinokuniya is a huge Scott Westerfeld and Holly Black fan so it was quite a treat to goss about their books. Interesting how much easier it is to push someone else’s work than it is your own.

I’d never been to Kinokuniya before. It’s amazing. I don’t think I’ve seen that much manga in one place. And the design and architecture section is huge! So’s the young adult section. In fact the whole bookstore is vast and full of bubbly helpful staff and way too many books that I lust after. And, yeah, they had my book, too. I wonder if I’ll ever stop being thrilled by seeing my book in shops? I hope not.

So, yes, Ms Bookseller-who-wrote-me, my chain bookshop experience was an anomaly.

Writer Humiliations (updated)

Because of late I’ve been all—look how well my book has been doing! award nominations! foreign sales! good reviews! la la la!—I thought I’d write about the less fabby side of being a writer. You know, so you don’t all think my life is nothing but caviar and champagne and flying foxes at dusk. Time to talk about writer humiliations!

There was a book out a while ago, Mortification: Writers’ Stories of Their Public Shame. Part of me wants to read it; the other part cringes at the very idea of its existence: way too close to the bone! The vast majority of working writers never get anywhere near the level of J. K. Rowling or Dan Brown fame. Every writer I know—no matter how well known in their field—can tell stories of doing signings or readings for an audience of no one but the bookshop staff. We’ve all had conversations like the following.

Typical conversation at a party:

    “So you’re a novelist, huh? That’s cool. Will I have heard of you?”

    “Well, so far I only have one novel out—”

    “Dan Brown has only one novel.”

    “Ah, doesn’t Dan Brown have—”

    “So, have I heard of you?”

    “Well, what kind of novels do you read?”

    “Oh, I don’t read novels.”

    “Then, no, you won’t have heard of me.”

Conversation with casual friend while checking out some stuff online:

    “So, your book’s published in America? That is so cool.””Thanks. I’m really excited about it.”

    “Hey!” says the casual friend, rapidly typing in a new URL. “I can look up the review in the New York Times!”

    “No need, there hasn’t been a review in the New York Times.”

    Casual friend continues looking me up in the Times.

    “Not many books get reviewed in the Times,” I say.

    Casual friend looks at me with incomprehension, presses the find button, and stares at the “no hits” result. “I thought you said your book was published in America?”

    “It is,” I say, rapidly typing, pointing to the Amazon listing.

    “But no review in the New York Times?”

Conversation with the clerk in charge of kid’s books at a Sydney branch of a chain bookstore which has twelve copies of Magic or Madness prominently displayed face out:

    “Hi, I’m Justine Larbalestier the author of Magic or Madness.”Clerk stares at me blankly.

    “Uh, I was told you were in charge of kid’s books?”

    “That’s right. Do we have your book?”

    “Er, yes, quite a few of them. Just over there.” I point.

    “Huh. I haven’t read that one. Are you a local author?”

    “Yup that’s right. Sydney born and bred. I’ve been away for a bit, so I was just stopping into bookshops to see how it’s going.”

    “Oh, I don’t think we’ve sold any of that one. I can check it for you if you like.”

    Heart sinks. “No, no, never mind.”

    “So, what’s it about?”

    I blurt out an over-detailed and incoherent version of the plot.

    “Huh? That sounds complicated. What age group is it aimed at?”

    “Twelve years old and up. But the book’s not really that complicated, it’s just about a door in a house in Sydney that opens onto a street in New York City.”

    “Your book is about a door? That’s unusual.”

    “Um, yeah, I guess.” I leave before I can do any more damage. “Thanks so much for your time.”

If anyone else has some writerly humiliations to share, I’d love to hear ’em. And yes, by all means choose the cloak of anonymity.

Update: Tobias Buckell shares one of his here. For the record, I’m not L. Ron Hubbard either.

And now Diana Peterfreund has joined in (but she doesn’t mention whether she’s L. Ron Hubbard or not).

Happy New Year!!!

How about this for a good omen on which to start the new year? My friend Shana noticed Magic or Madness in the window of one of the best children’s bookshops in the world, Books of Wonder in New York City:

And what’s more—it’s right next to The Very Hungry Caterpillar! This is going to be a very good year, indeed. (Well, for me, anyway, here’s hoping it will be for the rest of the world, too. And, yeah, I’d swap for the world to be better off, but, you know, I don’t think it works like that.)

Oh, and one last thing: Scott Lynch (whose lj I just discovered via matociquala) also had a good year—he became a firey.

Happy new year!

Last Day of 2005

Woo hoo! Another year gone! A fridge full of champagne and yummy food! Who could ask for anything more? (Well, it would be nice if we didn’t both have books due 3 Jan . . . )

I see that many in blogland (and elsewhere) are summing up their year, taking stock, making resolutions for 2006 and etc. I’ve already skited enough about my achievements this year. It’s been a bloody brilliant year personally. I just want it all to keep on keeping on.

I’m aiming to write two books (both of which I’ve already started) in 2006 and sell one (two would be nice, but I don’t want to jinx myself). I also plan to spend the majority of the year in Sydney, cause now that I’m home I just want to stay. And I really, really, really want to get tickets for the Sydney Ashes test. Ideally for every day of play. If anyone has a cunning method of getting said tickets, or is a member of the SCG—I’m am so up for offering you huge bribes! Whatever you want you got it!

Best book I read this year: Walter Mosley’s The Man in My Basement. I just made my parents read it too and they were also blown away. It’s the most powerful, moving examination of evil, of race and gender, and what it is to be human I’ve ever read. But rest assured this ain’t just philosophy and ethics; it’s a scary arse story that’s completely unputtdownable.

Books I’m most looking forward to: The Night Watch by Sarah Waters and Elizabeth Knox’s Dreamquake the sequel to Dreamhunter, and frankly it just can’t get into my hands soon enough!

Hope you lot have a fabby new year, too. And achieve everything you want to achieve. I’m going to get started on the champers now. Happy new year!

Another good review for Magic or Madness!

And of all places it’s in Australian Family Circle (December 2005 issue). A lifestyle magazine filled with recipes and stuff on quilting etc. (or at least that’s what it looks like from the cover) with a circulation of more than 300,000. In a country of only 20 million that’s pretty good going. Here’s what they said:

Reason Cansino has spent all her life in the outback with her mother, trying to hide from her grandmother—a witch. But when her mother falls ill, Reason has live with her grandmother and discovers all is not as she thought. While this is technically a fantasy novel, the very real world that’s created will enchant anyone who reads it.

Not bad, eh? And while some genre fans may objec, I like them pointing out that it will also appeal to non-fantasy fans. Bigger audience = good.

I think this might be the first t time I’ve been reviewed in a place not devoted to books, children’s fiction, or genre. Yay me!

Thanks to Ana Vivas of Hachette Children’s Books for for passing it along.

The Art of the Synopsis

As many people have noted Miss Snark is providing commentary on more than a hundred synopses. If you’re at all interested in a career as a writer or the publishing industry you should definitely take a squiz.

As Scott and me’ll be giving a workshop on writing these buggers in March (in Bologna!) I’ve been following Miss Snark’s critques and the resulting discussions closely. I found Diana Peterfreund’s posts particularly useful, especially her reminder to everyone that even when you’re already a published writer you still have to write ’em:

Often, being published means that your synopsis is even more important, for instead of merely trying to get an editor to read the manuscript on the basis of your synopsis, you’re trying to get them to lay down money for a manuscript you haven’t even written because the synopsis makes it sound cool. In some contracts, there’s a whole chunk of money reserved until you turn in your synopsis or outline or what have you. At many houses, it’s the synopsis, and not the manuscript, that is given to the art and marketing departments. It’s the synopsis that tells the PR person what to put in the press release, the flap copy writer what to put in the blurb, etc. etc. It’s the synopsis that helps the marketing department decide how to present your book to the public. It’s kinda important.

I can vouch for that. I sold the Magic or Madness trilogy on the basis of a proposal (including synopsis) and the first three chapters. In the contract I get paid when I turn in the synopsis for each book and then on publication. So, even though I’d already written the synopsis of the whole series I had to write a new one for books 2 and 3.

I nagged and nagged my editors until they let me out of writing a synopsis for the third book. I don’t hate writing them; I’m just lazy. Instead I had a meeting about the book with my editors and we all took lots of notes and gossiped. Much fun. I was feeling very cunning and pleased with myself for having substituted writing a synopsis with a fun gossip session, but then some publishers interested in foreign-language rights for the whole trilogy requested, you guessed it, a synopsis for book 3. Sucked in, Justine.

And because I was three-quarters of the way through writing Magic or Madness 3 when I had to turn around and write the synopsis, I found it very hard going. For me it’s much easier to write the synop first. If I’ve already written the book, or worse, haven’t quite finished it, then I’m all bogged down in the detail and writing a decent synop is agony.

From now on I’ll be writing a synop early on in the writing of each new novel—or, you know, I’ll intend to—because sooner or later someone’s going to want one out of me. And it doesn’t matter if it’s not an exact snapshot of the book—as Diana says quoting one of her teachers: “a synopsis is a sales tool”.

So there you have it: the synopsis is a mostly unavoidable part of selling novels. Live with it!

School Library Journal‘s Best Books of the Year

I mentioned a while ago that both Scott and me had made SLJ‘s best books of the year list. That issue is now available. I was very pleased by their description of Magic or Madness:

In this Australian page-turner, a resourceful teen tries to sort out her contentious family’s secrets and is astonishingly transported to New York City via a portal in her grandmother’s house. A potent mix of mystery and magic with a thoughtful exploration of personal-identity issues and familial relationships.

It also turns out that Scott has not one, but two books on the list: Peeps and Uglies. I’m dead proud. It’s one thing to be prolific, it’s another to be prolific and good. He’s had quite the amazing year, hasn’t he?

Off to Byron, Whingeing about Deadlines, Boasting about My Sister, and Some Lovely News (updated)

Sorry about the not blogging of late, especially with you lot being all interesting in the comments (I’ve finally gone through and responded, bless you all). I was kept from it by boring, boring non-internets stuff and the looming deadline. Or rather, panic about the looming deadline. Corey asked of my deadline how soon “scary soon” is: 2 January, which is 17 days away, and I’m about 15-20 thou words short of the end. Also, I’d like to, you know, revise and rewrite before I send it off.

Ordinarily I leave myself a month or more for that, and while I’m revising I send it out to my first readers for comments. There won’t be none of that this time, which worries me deeply. Maybe I can send to first readers at the same time as sending to my editors? Hmmm. Don’t mind my panicking out loud here. Any suggestions for creating time pockets or outsourcing some of the writing are very welcome.

Today we’re off to Byron Bay for almost a week courtesy of my hard-working and very talented sister, Niki Bern, who is so very cool that one of her shots is the current front cover of Cinefex magazine. How amazing is that? Here’s a better look at her shot:

For Niki making the front cover of Cinefex is even better than if I got the front cover and a rave review in The New York Times Book Review. It’s beyond cool! My sister is ubercool! And she’s just hired a house in Byron on the beach for us all to hang out and relax. I ask you: does anyone have a better sister than I do? I didn’t think so. Now, if only I didn’t have to work the whole time I’m there . . .

The lovely news is that Magic or Madness is a finalist for the Aurealis Award for Young Adult novel and so are two (!) of Scott’s books: Peeps and Uglies! Between us we make up three quarters [update: three fifths] of the short list. Most excellent, eh? The other quarter [update: one fifth] is Anthony Eaton for Nightpeople [update: and Isobel Carmody’s Alyzon Whitestar] both of which we’ll be grabbing copies of asap. To make the lovely news even lovelier many our friends are also nominated in other categories: Cat, Sean, Rjurik, and Garth, as well as Rob (stories he edited).

Oh, and one last thing: First Test against South Africa starts at the WACA today. Kill ’em, boys! Aussie! Aussie! Aussie! Oi! Oi! Oi!

Settling in

Slowly, very, very slowly, and not that surely, I’m settling back into life in Sydney. I have some bookshelves, though no where near enough to cope with all my many, many books. But for the first time in almost three years I can sit and gaze at my first editions of Geek Love, Wide Sargasso Sea, Fireworks, Black Glass and The King Hereafter and all my other beloveds and try to figure out which to re-read first. I’m very, very tempted to start with the Lymond books.

Right now a whole bunch of LJers are reading The Tale of Genji. Having just unearthed my never-read copy I’m very tempted to read along with them. So very tempted . . .

Sadly, the third Magic or Madness book is due scary soon and I’m not exactly on top of it. I have fifty thousand words. Remember? Pretty much the same fifty thousand words I had at the end of my San Miguel sojourn. Not good. But maybe The Tale of Genji will be inspiring . . .

Lovely Texas and other matters

A few things:

1) I got my intramanet back!! In my very own home. My excitement is beyond words: email! dictionaries! blogs! posts! The whole world at my fingertips!

2) Magic or Madness made its third best books of the year list, the Tayshas reading list put together by the Young Adult Round Table of the Texas Library Association. I’m particularly chuffed about this one on account of I got family in Texas—that’s where my in-laws hail from and my uncle-in-law is the principal of a high school in Houston. Also there are many very cool books on the list. Not just Scott’s Uglies, but the work of at least two other Aussies: Fiona McIntosh’s Myrren’s Gift and Marcus Zusak’s I Am the Messenger. Very pleasing.

3) In our new flat we can go out onto the balcony and watch the nightly exodus of flying foxes from the Tannie gardens. I love them.

4) The nothing changes convo continues (so fab to see the nattering continue without me—I love youse guys!) and is taken up by David Moles and a cast of thousands on his blog. All fascinating stuff. Oh, and Claire & Lauren? I’m so with you on Ghost World. I was double plus unthrilled by that movie. Especially cause the Bollywood music opening sequence was luverly.

Many Things

Hung out with Agnes and Lili of the Centre for Youth Literature and talked books. Tried to remember all the cool, hot YA books of this year and failed, so raved about A Rabbit’s Eyes yet again. Agnes raved about Adam Rapp and his books 33 snowfish and Under the Wolf, Under the Dog. I want to read them right now.

I found out that Magic or Madness is a Magpies pick of 2005 for older readers. That’s the second best book of the year list for MorM. How bout that?

Afternoon spent at the Penguin Australia offices where we were champagned and cheesed and got to meet more of everybody. Yay all of them! And had our very first meeting with the sales people, which was fabulous. We got to sit and talk about us and our books, which is pretty much all we talk about anyways. Much fun.

Last of all dinner with the mighty Tessa and wild-eyed Rjurik. Very very very silly. They are excellent.

This has been a great year

I just found out that both Scott and me made School Library Journal‘s best books of 2005 list. Scott for Peeps and me (obviously) for Magic or Madness. We is most happy. For me it’s more icing on an already well-iced cake.

I’d like to take a moment to (incoherently and jetlaggedly) say how amazed I am by how Morm has been doing. It’s my first novel. I’ve seen lots of first novels published, so I knew what to expect. The reviews have been amazing, the placement in bookshops, and the response from readers. After we hooked up with our foreign rights agent, Whitney Lee, I had hopes of selling into countries other than the US and Australia (where the book is set), but I wasn’t really expecting it to happen. But it’s now sold in Thailand, Taiwan, France and Germany. I keep having to pinch myself.

As long as I can remember I’ve wanted to be a writer, to make a living writing stories. And now I am.

Cool links (Updated)

1. Me and Scott just joined a most excellent group called AS IF! Authors supporting intellectual freedom. It’s a bunch of writers of young adult fiction, including folks like Holly Black and a host of other amazing writers, who’re fighting the good fight against book banning and other attempts to control the content of books for young adults. The blog lists all the members and our first action. Yay us!

2. Novelist Nicole Galland is following the path of the fourth crusade (which never reached the holy land) as research for her third novel and she’s blogging it in a most entertaining manner.

3. Claire Light just wrote a very fine piece on Rosa Parks and how her story has been distorted over and over again.

4. Magic or Madness got a B for morality! Joking aside, I really like this review, especially the third paragraph. That’s exactly what I hoped I was doing. It’s always a lovely feeling to be understood. I think the trilogy is very moral (and in that site’s scheme of things a B is a good grade), but no one else is going to be able to see that until they’ve read all three, which is one of the many problems with trilogies: you don’t know the whole story until you’ve read all the books. Things that may seem one way in the first book could well be totally transformed by the last book.

The review is on Refracted Light: A Christian perspective on fantasy. I was impressed by the site. The reviews are thoughtful and include warnings about content Christians might find offensive (Phillip Pullman’s His Dark Materials, for example, gets an F for morality, but an A- for writing). I think people should be warned about books they might be offended by (I can think of a tonne of books I wish I’d been warned about!), but like the other members of AS IF! I don’t believe books should be banned. Sites like this are a smart alternative to the book-banning strategy; rather than trying to suppress information they’re trying to provide it. Yay them!

Update: Coalescent posts about the site and there’s much discussion. Though, not enough people seem to be noticing that most of the reviews are pretty smart.

A Lack of Musings

A friend just asked if I’m ever going to write another musing again. She wonders if this blog has destroyed them for all time.

Tis true that I didn’t write a single one in September or October, but then I hardly wrote an email in that time either. But just as I will write emails again, so too will I muse again. I’ve even got a bunch of half-written ones: about podcasts, the artist who’s back to being known as prince again, about city hatred, being Australian, travelling, and about the nightmare of writing a mathematically gifted character (Reason in the Magic or Madness books when I am so not and how it gets harder with each book—not doing that again!).

It’s mostly not the blog what ate them. It’s trying to write two novels a year, plus Daughters of Earth, plus the various other ideas I’m turning into proposals and like that. I’m crap at multi-tasking. To be honest, I’m not even that good at single-tasking. Working on five different writing projects at once breaks my brain.

But blogging ain’t like that. It’s easy, relaxing, instant-gratification writing. I don’t slave over my posts the way I do over my musings, I don’t try to make them structured or particulary coherent. Thus they never take much time to write. And I love the response I get from the people what reads me posts. I was particuarly thrilled by the really cool discussion of translating in response to this post. (I’ve been meaning to ask David Moles for ages about his suggestion that the Australian and USian sections of Magic or Madness could be translated into Mexican and Argentinian Spanish, which way he was suggesting. Mexican=Australian; Argentinia=USian? On account of Mexicans are known for being laid back as are Australians—yeah, yeah, I’m an exception, okay?—and Argentinians like USians are known for, um, how do I put this delicately? their confidence.)

The conversations are the coolest part of blogging. I’m much less interested in blogs that don’t have a comments section.

And, er, um, to sum up: there’ll be more musings when I finish another one. In the future.

Writers are the Best Whingers

Just read and giggled all over this post by Diana Peterfreund in which she wittily whinges about all the work she has to do (and skewers Star Wars). It struck a chord cause I was just about to whinge about the pageproofs of Daughters of Earth which just landed in my life with a very heavy thunk.

Aaaaaaaaaaaarrrrrrrrrggggggggghhhhhhhhhhhhh!!!!!!!!!

Diana (I’m taking liberties referring to her by first name, I don’t actually know her, but I read her fabbie blog, so I feel like I know her) starts by referring to a harder working writer who has family on top of it all, whereas Diana just has her sailor boy and a full-time job. I’m going to lower the bar still further: I have neither children nor pets nor a job (other than writing).

And yet I feel my case is worse than either of theirs because I am suffering (horribly) from post-paradise-adjustment syndrome (or ppas). Just days ago I was in Mexico living an admin-free existence: no shopping, no housecleaning, no dishwashing, no cooking, no laundry, no paying bills, no nothing—except writing. Luz Barron did all that for me, not to mention telling me excellent stories, mending my clothes (!), and taking me out to all the best fun bars in San Miguel. Luz made me food like this:


Mushroom-stuffed chillies on tomatoes & onions served with plantain & pomegranate & garlic rice.

Now I’m back in reality, but where is the counselling and social services team to help me through my ppas? No where! How am I supposed to cope without Luz? How am I supposed to live in the real world where I have to finish Magic! Magic! Magic! Oi! Oi! Oi, the third Magic or Madness book, go through the staggeringly long Daughters proofs, finish the great Australian mangosteen cricket Elvis fairy book, write the proposal for this jaw-droppingly brilliant idea I just had and do all that adminy stuff!? How is that possible?!

You know I used to have no sympathy for rich folk like Paris Hilton et al, what with their silver spoons wedged firmly down their throats. Rich bastards, I used to think, but now I know the truth: without their staff they’re helpless. Look what happens when someone like Paris takes dressing into her own hands. Not pretty, is it? Imagine her trying to get it together to make her own coffee. Or figure out how a washing machine works. Wow. Her life is really, really hard. Not quite as hard as mine given that she’s still in paradise and not in the land of ppas. But how much worse will it be for poor old Paris when her fall comes? How hideous will her ppas be?

Makes ya think, don’t it?

Wow

So, last night we got to hang out with the smartest group of folks I’ve hung out with in an age (and I hang with much smartness, let me tell you). At the Teen section of Elizabeth Library, New Jersey, we read a little bit, we told anecdotes, got asked very smart and very funny questions, I got to talk Spanish, and afterwards we got to eat great pasta and drink good wine and enjoy more ace conversation.

I read from my great Australian cricket mangosteen Elvis fairy novel, which I feared would tank with the seventeen-year-olds, but they laughed harder than the Brooklyn audience. Yay! I finally wrote something that cracks people up. And some of them knew about cricket. One guy plays it with his Pakistani neighbours. How cool is that? And many loved basketball and knew about the WNBA, not just the NBA! Heaven.

Scott read from Pretties which kind of tanked, and then from Peeps, which went over huge guns. He read about toxoplasma and there was much speculation about who has the parasite and who doesn’t. (Don’t know what I’m talking about? Then you’ll have to read the book, won’t you?) So many of them had read at least one of Scott’s books. One had read all of them and was full of smart questions. I made Scott do his Donald Duck voice and it slayed them best of all (he can harmonise with himself—next time you see him, just ask—he loves to perform on command). There was a queue of people wanting to have their photo taken with Scott. How fab is that?

And at the end, the library gave everyone a copy of one of my books (they had a choice of Magic or Madness or Magic Lessons—yup, Penguin genorously gave them a whole stack of galleys) and one of Scott’s many books. Though some tried sneakily to take two of Scott’s books. The competition over copies of Peeps was intense. We signed for all of them and thus got to talk one on one to everyone. Great idea, no? It was fabulous fun and I want to do it again.

Have I ever mentioned how much I love libraries? And librarians? And people who love libraries and librarians? No? Well, I really, really, really do.

Atlantic City? No, thanks. (updated)

I don’t want to rubbish a whole city, especially when I was only there for a few hours, but Atlantic City is an erky perky bleah of a place. Friends warned me it was a shithole—I had no idea they were being kind. It’s ugly, full of the most hideous buildings ever built and populated by zombie gamblers, who are served by an army of twelve-year-old incompetent staff. Once you’re inside one of the casinos it’s almost impossible to get out again. All signs lead to more gambling areas. I’m convinced that hell will be nothing but Atlantic City casinos.

This is heresy for an Australian, but, I hate gambling. I love cards and I’ll bet on them, but not with money. Never for money. Betting with money turns people into glassy-eyed zombies, and call me old-fasthioned, but I prefer my zombies in Romero films, thank you very much.

So why were we in Atlantic City? To attend the New Atlantic Independent Booksellers book fair, which other than its location in a hellspawn casino, was a lot of fun. We met the fabulous Penguin reps, Holly and Todd, who looked after us excellently well and told great publishing stories; we hung out with fellow YA writers, Maureen Johnson and Melissa Kantor; we both signed a bunch of our books, Peeps and Magic or Madness, and we snaffled up many free books. The gems of my pile—other than Maureen’s and Melissa’s books—were:

Small Steps by Louis Sachar, which is the sequel to Holes! Woo hoo! I have the sequel to Holes and you don’t! Ha! Ha! Ha!

The Weather Makers by Tim Flannery. I adore Flannery. He’s frequently interviewed back home about science and enviromental issues and is the smartest, most interesting, and clearest explainers of such issues I’ve ever heard. He also writes really, really well. I can’t wait to read this one, not least because I know it’s going to help me understand what happened with hurricane Katrina.

Today, we go back to New Jersey:

7:00-8:30PM
Elizabeth Main Library
11 S. Broad St., Elizabeth
New Jersey

We’ll probably read and we’ll definitely chat and generally be our entertaining selves. We’ve only done one library event before but it was fabulous, so I’m really looking forward to this.

Oh, and if you’re from Atlantic City? My condolences.

Update: I am very stupid. I wrote a blog entry about casinos, but my spam filter is set to nuke any comments that contain the word “casino”. I apologise to anyone who had their comment nuked. You can post now. Though given the vast tide of casino spam I get your comment will go through to moderation, which I truly rooly honestly will check. Rooly soon.

Another late night post

On account of tomorrow we is off to Atlantic City for the book fair and then to Philadelphia to stay with the fabulous Liz Gilbert this is another hasty late night post. Not that it’s so very late, it just feels like it on account of Scott and me did our debut Brooklyn readings tonight at the Barbes Bar. Many of our friends came (yay them!) and there were actual total strangers (yay them, too!). Twas a blast. For the first time ever I actually enjoyed reading. How bout that? Scott read great in his Texan accent and Bennett Madison was most funny, too.

Highlight of the night: the youngest member of the audience coming up to me to tell me that she loved the bit I read from my as-yet-unfinished great Australian YA cricket fairy mangosteen novel. She told me what her fairy is and those of various members of her family. Then when I said I didn’t have a fairy, she said, “Yes, you do! You have the good-story fairy.” Isn’t that lovely? I was so touched I almost got teary. Sadly, I was too over-energised from reading to remember her name, but if you’re reading this: thank you! It meant a lot to me.

Back in the US of A (briefly)

After a month of no motorised transport there was a vast deal today. Cars, planes, taxis. We went from San Miguel to Mexico City to New York City. We are tired. Tomorrow there will be trains: to Brooklyn and back (see previous post). The day after that buses to Atlantic City. It’ll be broom broom broom all the time. I will pine for walks on cobble-stoned streets.

Since I promised Cherie that I’d blog every day once I left Mexico. I’m blogging at this late hour despite fatigue. How good am I? Say thank you, Cherie. Also tomorrow seems to be too chockers for blogging so I thought I’d sneak it in early.

Things that i achieved in San Miguel:

photos of hummingbirds
grew actual fingernails
50 thousand words of final Magic or Madness book
Scott and me arranged mercy killing of one tiny, tiny, very hungry, very lame kitten (I’d tell you more but I’d start crying)

Things that have happened in the world in my absence that aren’t horrible and tear-inducing:

Australia thrashed the World XI in one-day fixtures and look well placed in one-off six-day test, mostly on account of the glories of the spin twins Warne and MacGill

My sister had her time working on King Kong extended—Yay!!!

I’m sure there were other things but I’m too tired to think.

Sleep now.

Teen Read Week

Next week is Teen Read Week and me and Scott will be doing a bunch of readings and signings around the traps.

First up, the very day after we get back from Mexico, so expect us to be full of Mexican cheer (I plan to wear my Mexican cowboy hat and may do the entire reading in Spanish):

Sunday 16 October, 6:00PM
Justine Larbalestier
Bennett Madison
Scott Westerfeld
Barbès Reading Series
376 Ninth Street (at 6th Ave.)
Barbès Bar
Park Slope, Brooklyn
New York

I’ll be reading from Magic Lessons the sequel to Magic or Madness in a way that gives absolutely nothing away if you haven’t read the first book. I’ll also read a wee bit from a brand-new novel I’ve been working on. Scott will read from Peeps in his authentic Texan accent.

Monday 17 October
New Atlantic Independent Bookseller Association Trade Show
The Tropicana Resort & Casino
Brighton & The Boardwalk
Atlantic City
2:30-3:00: Scott signs 75 copies of Peeps in the author autographing area table #3.
They’ll also be giving away copies of Magic or Madness at the Penguin booth #204. Yay! Free books! I plan to snaffle up many (though not my own book, obviously).

Tuesday 18 October, 5:30-7:30PM
Scott reads at Books of Wonder
18 West 18th St
Manhattan
New York

Wednesday 19 October, 7:00–8:30 p.m.
Author Event:
Meet Scott Westerfeld and Justine Larbalestier
Elizabeth Main Library
11 S. Broad St., Elizabeth
New Jersey

So, it’s quite the busy week for us. Hope we get to see some of you.

Little Gift

This morning a hummingbird hovered outside the window directly in front of me for more than ten seconds. I got to see the tiny bits of green mixed in with its grey and brown. I got to see just how fast its wings vibrate. How much slower the tail feathers move. How long and thin its beak. How tiny it is: smaller than the palm of my hand.

Patrick O’Leary is right, you cannot think ill of a hummingbird. I withdraw my earlier comments.

Everything here in San Miguel continues good and well. We continue to eat way too many pastries, particularly the ones with pecans. We continue to write many, many words. I think Scott’s book is his best YA yet. And I remain happy with my own.

I shall be sad to leave.

Cake, Champagne, Pamplonada

Still having fun, still writing up a storm. I believe I’m now a third of the way into Magic or Madness III (and, yes, I have my fingers crossed that, finally, one of the trilogy will have the preferred title: Magic! Magic! Magic! Oi! Oi! Oi!). Being a third in works out well as we’re now a third of the way into our stay here. How bout that?

Was me birthday last week and Luz’s lovely sister baked me a cake:

It was dead good. Champagne was drunk. Poker was played. Excellent presents were received. Not to mention all the wonderful birthday calls. And I wrote a bunch of words. Yay, me.

Also, just to add to the birthday celebrations ’twas the week of Pamplonada, the Mexican running of the bulls. This meant even more rockets going off than usual as well as lots of wealthy (and a few not so wealthy) folk from all over Mexico descending on San Miguel for three or four days of drinking, fornicating, bull taunting, and, in some cases, broken bones and concussions. Imagine a slightly older schoolies week with bulls (for you Usian-types think spring break, Fort Lauderdale and bulls). The average age seemed to be early twenties.

Many of the newcomers were from Mexico City, invoking a mixture of awe and disgust in the locals as only wealthy, young, glossy folk from the big city can. I overheard one young local lass, saying to her friends,

“I do, too, have friends from Mexico [City]! Lots of them. You’ll see.”

“Who cares?” replied her friend. “They’re all [rough translation] unpleasant people.”

The uniform for the girls was tight jeans, high heel boots, shirt and cowboy hat. For the boys: jeans, boots, white shirt/T-shirt with red kerchief and cowboy hat. It’s amazing how such a simple look can speaks volumes as to class and wealth.

The Pamplonada, itself, was not at all what I was expecting. I’d been imagining a large amount of bulls let out at once and blokes in front running like buggery. In San Miguel they let one bull out at a time, the huge crowd parts, while all the bravest, cockiest and stupidest blokes do their best to provoke the bull into going them, waving tiny red kerchiefs, or big, full-on matador cape thingies, or pulling the bull’s tale. The bull, increasingly irritated by this behaviour, will then oblige by tossing one or more of them into the air, or kicking the fool standing behind him. One of the bulls was so annoyed by one particular bloke he threw him in the air, then tried to pick him up again several times, finally trampling him. Score many for the bull.

Eventually the bull will get bored or start to run off around the circuit. They then release the second bull and so on, until there are eight bulls being provoked, getting shitty and sending the occasional bloke into the nearby ambulances. Most of the bulls emerged fulling prepared to go anyone remotely near them. This usually turned out to be the blokes who’d let them out of their enclosure.

It was impossible not to barrack for the bulls. Fortunately, they seemed to aquit themselves well. Yay, bulls!

P.S. Thanks everyone for all the wonderful birthday messages! Touched me heart, it did. When I’m online for more than a few hours every three or four days I’ll reply.

San Miguel: End of Day 6

Word count: 15,000

Average word count: 2,500 a day1

We arrived in the middle of the anniversary of the first Mexican revolution. Many days of holidays in a row. We arrived to cars being shut out from the Jardin and centre of town (bliss!), to fireworks and rockets going off every night (pretty!), to so many mariachis we could hear them all the way out to our place (besame mucho!), to people dancing in the streets in period costume (pretty!). To quiet mornings and days (except for the occasional rocket blasts) and melodiously noisy nights. ¡Viva Mexico!

Until Monday morning 7AM, holidays over and the the builders go back to work next door. Eighteen months ago when we first rented this house, they were laying the foundations. They’re still not finished. They work on and off from 7AM until around 5PM. Sometimes there are many of them, sometimes just one forlorn guy with a hammer. The best thing is they use no jackhammers, no pneumatic drills, no nothing powered by electricity. The bad thing is if they had they might be finished by now . . . I just stick headphones on and turn the music up a little louder (right now, listening to songs with the word “don’t”; in the title—I’m psyching the builders out).

So far I’ve heard the first four chapters of Scott’s new novel. It rocks. Out loud! And, yes, it is set in the Peeps universe. Cool, eh?

Have I mentioned that I love San Miguel? So green, so many flowers, butterflies, hummingbirds—hummingbirds! I think they’re my favourite birds in all the world. We don’t have them back home, but here I see several every day, just outside the window. So little, so powerful, so elegant. Ahhh . . . Don’t think I ever want to leave.


The view from where I sit to write. Look close and see the wicker couch I rest my feet on and the top of my laptop.


The other view from where I write. Flowers! Pretty!

  1. Look, I know word counts are spectacularly boring to everyone accept the person counting the words, but, mate, I’m bloody screaming along! Normally, when I’m starting a book I can barely scrape a thousand words a day together. I can’t believe how the words are pouring out of me! I mean, it’s the final book of me trilogy, I thought it was going to be horrible agony. I thought I had no idea what was going to happen. And here the book is practically writing itself! Maaate! Fingers crossed that I have not spoken too soon. Not superstitious, me. [↩]

San Miguel: End of Day 3

Thus far 10,000 words have been writ of the third Magic or Madness book.

Everything here is more beautiful than I remember on account of it being September the very best month of all.

The food is still excellent. Hibiscus quesadillas rule!

Brain unable to produce more words.

Thanks for all good wishes.

How long does it take to write a novel?

I was asked that question (sort of) by “annonymous” when I mentioned that I have only four months to write the final Magic or Madness book. “A fan” also asked if writing a book in such a short time meant that it would suck.

Good questions.

Obviously novels can take any amount of time to write. I wrote the first draft of Magic or Madness in about eight weeks. The first draft of my as-yet-unpublished epic Cambodian novel took eleven years. Writing the third book in the morm trilogy in four months is not that fast, especially as the first two books were only 65 thousand words long. (Most adult novels are around 80-100 thousand words long.)

What’s due on 30 December is not the polished, perfect, every-word-glistening final draft of MorM 3. It’s the first draft. That first draft bit is important. Because there will be months of rewriting after I first hand it over to my editors, Liesa Abrams and Eloise Flood. For me that’s when the real writing begins.

I write novels (or, at least, I wrote the first two MorM books) like this:

Every day (or there abouts) I try to write at least a thousand words. At the beginning of the draft getting to a thousand words is a struggle by the time I’m about three quarters done and finally know where the book is going it (usually) becomes dead easy. I start each day by editing the previous day’s words and then moving forward. Every few days I read a chapter or two out loud to Scott and then begin the next day by incorporating the changes that come out of his criticisms.

Once I have a finished draft I read through the whole thing and rewrite it. When that’s done I’m so over the whole thing I can’t stand to look at it. That’s when I send it out to my faithful crew of first readers. Because I’m usually on a deadline I ask them to get back to me with their response asap, which around 70% of them do. Yay first readers! I then fume at the injustice of their stupid comments rewrite based on their comments and then send it off to my editors.

They then get back to me with notes, which if the first two books are anything to go by, boil down to this:

Make it less subtle. Less implying; more showing.

I ratchet everything up so that it’s horrendously over the top and send the manuscript back to them. They send back more notes:

Make it less subtle.

I fume. How could it possibly be less subtle than it already is!? I show Scott so that he can confirm the injustice of my editors’ comments. He agrees with them. I consider divorce. Then I do what I can to make everything horribly obvious. They respond with more demands for less subtlety. And repeat until my editors declare themselves satisfied.

At which point I realise they were right all along: the novel had been a bit undercooked. I decide that there are still too many anaemic threads. I go through the novel thickening each one. I continue this process obsessively all the way up to, and including, the proofreading stage.

The whole process takes about ten months.

So, to answer “a fan”. Yup, often that first draft is very sucky indeed. Fortunately I’ll have heaps of time to unsuck it.

Silences

It’s been quiet around here for several reasons. Mostly Hurricane Katrina and the aftermath. Despite reading John M. Ford’s excellent advice, I’ve been following all the news and like everyone else getting angry and upset. I really hope the disaster will lead to everything being done that needs to be done: rebuilding the wetlands, rebuilding New Orleans as a place for all her now former residents, and making sure that the response to any future hurricanes or anything else will never be so slow ever again.

Then all my tedious deadlines. The proofs of Magic Lessons and the paperback version of Magic or Madness need checking, and, of course, the third and final book in the trilogy needs writing, given that it’s due 30 December and I haven’t started yet. I was six months early with the first book. I really hope my editors remember that.

That’s why next Tuesday we’re off to San Miguel de Allende in Mexico for a month. Where we hope to get lots and lots of writing done in a house that is free of the distractions of the internet and television.

In the meantime I’ve gotten to see Cassie type the last words of her very first novel. Very impressive given that some of us were doing more gossiping than writing that day. Okay, that would’ve been me gossiping with myself. Scott and Holly were typing almost as furiously as Cassie. I wish they were both coming to Mexico too. Surely their diligence will rub off on me eventually . . .

Thinking about something else, anything else

Margo Lanagan reminds us all to be careful of the words we use. Just so! For me ’twas a timely reminder as I am perusing the proofreader’s pass of Magic Lessons and making more changes (mostly deleting “just”. Aaargh!)

Jim McDonald made me laugh with his lessons learned from British folk ballads. I’ve been a tad obsessed with ’em since I was a wee lass.

Gwenda points to this incredible exhibition of spirit photography currently on in NYC. Given our deadlines and imminent trip out of town, the odds of my seeing it are not good. Hell, we don’t seem to be able to get it together to see our friends here . . . Must not sign up for more than one book a year!

Translating Magic or Madness (updated)

Israeli editor, Didi Canoch, just read Magic or Madness, and while he enjoyed it, thinks it’s untranslatable into Hebrew. Colour me disappointed, but I found his reasons why, and the enusing discussion in the comments fascinating.

So far, the book has sold to Taiwan, France and Thailand. I confess I have been wondering how those translations were going to get around the linguistic play in the book between Australian and USian English. Especially as I don’t speak any of those languages and don’t know much about them. Didi reckons a French translation could make use of Quebecois French.

Which got me wondering: wouldn’t using Quebecois French or, say, Mexican Spanish—were Magic or Madness ever to be translated into Spanish (fingers crossed)—raise different questions? There’s a particular set of relations between France and Quebec; between Spain and Mexico. Weird, mixed up colonial/motherland questions. But Australia and the US of A don’t have that kind of relationship. Neither country colonised the other, I mean, not in the way that England colonised them both. Am I overthinking this?

Obviously, translation is always about approximation, so you go for the best solution available. I’m dead curious about how they’ll deal with these problems. Or whether they’ll even bother. I can see a possible translation that would simply leave out the differences in the way the characters speak. Though I do think the translation would lose something if they went that way. But then most people reading it wouldn’t know the difference, would they?

The whole thing reminds me of Rome which just started on HBO in which everyone talks with an English accent so that it’s easy to figure out what class they are: toffee English accents for the upper classes etc. Yet it’s a USian production. US English has a huge variety of accents, many of which are marked for class. I wonder why they didn’t have posh Romans talking like Boston Brahmins (think Katherine Hepburn) and the lower classes talking like working class New Jerseyites (think Tony Soprano). Too close to home, maybe?

Rome, by the way, is a hoot. I, Claudius updated and with a bigger budget. Much camp fun. I can’t wait for the second episode. Maybe they picked English accents because they’re so much camper than the accents of any other English speaking nation?

Update: for those not familiar with the book, Magic or Madness is told from three different points of view. The two Australian characters have their chapters in Australian spelling and grammar, and the one US character has her chapters in US spelling and grammar.

Some Questions for Those Who Have Read Magic or Madness (Updated)

I am about to start writing the third and final book of the Magic or Madness series. But before I open up that brand new document and put fingers to keyboard—gulp—I’m re-reading the first book as well as the sequel, Magic Lessons, (out next March) and taking notes about what questions need to be answered, what events must happen—all of that. Obviously, I have some ideas already (and, you know, a plot), but I’ll be reading for all the bits and pieces, themes, characters, character traits, ideas, memes etc., that I’ve forgotten about—Tom has a sister? Ooops!—and thinking about how (or whether) to weave them back in.

I was wondering if any of you have suggestions. What questions do you reckon absolutely must be answered in the final book? Are there any threads that if I leave them unresolved you will become ropeable and then hunt me down to wreak vengance? I’ve already had this conversation with my wonderful editors, Eloise and Liesa, and they had many definite ideas. Some of them startling. I’d love to hear yours too.

I’m not saying I’ll do what you ask, mind, but it will be excellent grist to the mill. Thanks!

Oh, and if you’ve already read Magic Lessons could you not mention any of the events from that book so as not to spoil those who’ve only read Magic or Madness? Feel free to email me with any ML inspired comments jl—@—justinelarbalestier.com (without the dashes, obviously).

Update: If you haven’t read Magic or Madness do not read the comments below. They are loaded with much spoilage.

This an’ that

Read this article in the New York Times about art by the stolen generation. Gorgeous, gorgeous work produced under the most appalling circumstances.


The Picker Art Gallery
“Down to Drink,” by Parnell Dempster.

Australian young adult writers are conquering the entire universe. I was dead proud that Magic or Madness had already sold in five countries (USA, Australia, Taiwan, France, and Thailand), now I see that I’m underachieving. This article by Rosemary Neill is also startling because it’s so well-researched. It’s refreshing to read something in a mainstream news source about publishing and actually learn something. Via Yoof Literature (thanks, Lili!).

Speaking of research . . . Did anyone else watch the NBC so-called “news” report on the shocking new content of teen novels which aired Monday night? I watched it because R. A. Nelson who wrote Teach Me was interviewed. He spoke for about six seconds. The report consisted of people saying, “Look at the cover of this YA book!” Cut to cover of Gossip Girl or the like. “This book has shocking content! Should we let our children read books with shocking content?” Cut to a parent. “I’m shocked that my children are reading books with shocking content!” Cut to some random other person who is also “Shocked! Shocked by teen books with shocking content!” The 2 minute report ended with an admonition to parents to be wary of the shocking, shocking, shocking content of teen books.

I hadn’t watched “news” on television for ages and I gotta tell you I was shocked, shocked, shocked by the “content” of that report too!

A Few Words about the unique-to-the-Australian-edition afterword

I’ve had some inquiries from folk who want to know what they’re missing out on by not having the Australian edition of Magic or Madness with its unique-to-the-Australian-edition afterword. One person was convinced that the Oz afterword contains the answers to all the questions left unanswered at the end of the book.

Not so.

It’s just this wee little thing that you wouldn’t understand if you aren’t Australian. Nothing to bother your non-Australian heads about. So you can just relax and get on with your day.

If it makes you feel the better the USian edition has a glossary and the Oz edition doesn’t. So it’s special too. As are you!

Magic or Madness in Australia

Two copies of the Australian edition of Magic or Madness just arrived. They’re beautiful. All tradepaperbacky and shiny and lovely and Australian, complete with the unique-to-the-Australian-edition afterword. It’ll be available in book stores there next month. My birthday month. Yay! Only sad thing is I won’t be there to see ’em till November. Sob. Why am I never in the country in which my books are coming out when they come out?

Here’s what it looks like being read by Marlowe, one of our Aussie house guests:

Marlowe thought the book was okay, but a bit lacking in train engines and explosions. I shall attempt to correct that in the sequel.

My World Science Fiction Convention Schedule

Yes, like everyone else in the entire sf world, I will be jetting over to Glasgow to partake of science fictiony thingies for several days at the World Science Fiction Convention. I’ll hang out with me mates, meet new people, and spend a lot of time in the bar watching England being destroyed by Australia in the second test at Edgbaston. Can’t wait. (I’m just sad that it won’t be in an English bar. Fortunately there’ll be enough English sf fans around that my gloating enjoyment of their team’s destruction will have an audience. In fact I’m going to greet every new person by asking if they’re English or not. And if they are, I’ll say, “Cricket. Ashes. Ha ha ha!”)

Friday 2:30pm Reading

I’ll read some stuff. Maybe from Magic or Madness, or Magic Lessons (the sequel to Magic or Madness—the reading will contain no spoilers), or I could read from my brand new novel which no one knows nuthink about and I’ve never read out loud to anyone but me spousal. Dunno. I’ve got half an hour, but that’s ridiculously long. I don’t like to read for more than 15 minutes, that way me and me audience (both of us) can go to the bar and watch England being destroyed in the second test.

Saturday 12:00 noon Feminism as Setting

Trudi Canavan
Anne K. Gay (M)
Jon Courtenay Grimwood
Mari Kotani
Justine Larbalestier
Ruth Nestvold

Description: Feminism is no longer the story, instead it’s the setting—what has this meant for feminist writers?

My take: Huh? I don’t agree with the premise. Feminism can be both setting and story, these are not contradictory terms. Plus it will be tricky to work a discussion of the cricket in.

Sunday 11:00am The 1950s, 50 Years On

Gail Dana
Irma HirsjSrvi
Justine Larbalestier
Greg Pickersgill
Mark Rich (M)

Description: The 1950s saw the Golden Era of Science Fiction film and the blossoming of writers such as Asimov, Sturgeon, Dick, Farmer, Walter M. Miller and Poul Anderson. What do we think of them now?

My Take: How could you list the best of the 1950s sf writers and not include Alfred Bester? Or Theodore Sturgeon? Or Margaret St. Clair? I’ll argue that sf writing in the 1950s was indeed a golden age, the period when sf turned its attention to the social sciences and examined social issues more than ever before. It’s often argued that that didn’t start happening until the 1960s which is crap. Also the 1950s saw some of Keith Miller‘s finest batting and bowling.

See you in Glasgow.

And No. 2 Wins

There were many responses—thanks everyone—to my which-form-of-acknowledgments-should-I-go-with question, so rather than respond in the comments I’ll do it here. It’s my blog I can do it any way I want to. So, nyer.

I’m so thankful to the respondees that I’m thinking of adding an extra line to the acks:

And finally I’d like to thank Scott, Jeremyt, Claire, Barry, Gwenda, Ray Davis, Marrije, Richard b, Jonathan, Stephanie Burgis, the eagle-eyed and amazing Micole, David Moles, Shelly Rae, John Scalzi and Parker for telling me what form these acks should take, Janni for sitting on the fence, and Patrick Nielsen Hayden, Lauren and Jenny D for writing the dangerous minority opinion.

(For those of you wondering, nope, I have no idea who any of these people are. Honest.)

So, yes, being someone who always goes with popular opinion, I reckon it’ll be number two, and sand in the face to the dissenters Patrick, Lauren and Jenny D. Cause, you know, that’s what victorious marauding mobs do: they kick sand in dissenters’ faces. (Just close your eyes tight and you’ll be fine.)

Like Parker, I want both. The author’s acks for their gossip value, and also a credits page so you can figure out who designed the really cool dingbats, as well as who the coypeditor was (to either avoid or demand they copyedit all your future work). You do sometimes see editors and interior designers credited, but never copyeditors or publicists or proofreaders.

Jonathan writes: i’ve not written a novel, but there are a bugger of a lot of people who help with an anthology.

Speaking as someone who’s done both—there are a shitload more people you have to thank putting together an anthology than a novel. Relatively speaking writing a novel is a piece of cake.

In response to Patrick’s suggestion that I should: late in life, publish a tell-all memoir of such flamboyant magnificence that it eclipses all your work thus far.

I so don’t think so. Memoirs are hard work. You have to remember stuff and inadvertantly and advertantly (is that a word?) offend people, and get sued, hire lawyers, and, argh, no bloody way. I figure I’ll just keep my acks and dedications as fulsome as ever and if anyone feels like writing my memoir for me they can piece it together from aforesaid acks and deds. Piece of cake.

Gwenda wrote: What I loved best about Emily G’s column was the idea of critiquing acknowledgements and I must, sort of shamefully, admit that it was one of my favorite catty reviews ever. I’d far rather read catty reviews of acknowledgements than books.

You’re not saying that you’d rather read a catty review of acks than read a book, right? Cause that, Gwenda, is troubling. If you’re saying you enjoy catty reviews of acks over catty reviews of books, I’m with you. Unless the catty review is of a book I really really hated, or by an author I really hate, or by an ex (friend or lover) who was particularly mean to me, or by an English person (though not, Andrew, one from Nothern England), or someone who was once mean to any friend of mine ever, or by someone whose name is Rupert, Randy or Violet (I hate those names).

Those aside, reading a good vivisection of the acks page is indeed much more gratifying (except for the vague horror that perhaps you yourself have offended in just that way and could one day be on the receiving end of such an ack review). I very much enjoy a good mock of acceptance speeches and award ceremonies. “You love me! You love me! You really love me!” or how about, “I’d like to thank my agent, and God . . . ” You just have to adore the hierarchy in that little speech. Agent always comes first.

I confess that I have been obsessively reading, and yes, sometimes mocking, writer’s acks and deds for years. Ray Davis points to a wonderful dedication, Kyle Baker’s “This book is dedicated to whoever I’m going out with now.” I love it. I very much enjoy the good old “this book has been published despite the complete lack of support and obstacles put in my way by my family.” I’m paraphrasing several I’ve seen over the years. I giggle at certain over the top professions of love in the ack page. One stays with me. It appeared in an English language book, but is in a romance language and reads, “And to [name of beloved] I love you, so much, so much, so much!” And no the book was not a romance, it wasn’t even fiction, rather it was non-fiction of the driest kind.

Kathryn Cramer writers: I feel so naive. I thought acknowledgments were for finding out who really wrote ghost-written books.

Ah yes, all those books with this effusive ack: “This book would not exist without the research, editorial and all round amazing skills of [insert name]. Without you I’m nothing!”

Claire writes: of course, i’ve already received an offer of marriage from you, so i feel i’m already in the in crowd. so if you went with #1, i’d expect you to list me under “offers of marriage conditionally refused during editing process.”

Claire, sweetie darling angel, if I thanked every single person who refused my offers of marriage while writing and editing my books, the acks would be longer than the damn book. So won’t happen. Sorry.