lizard levels of flatoutness

That sound? Is me running by fast with my wings asingin’

Silence is because I been:

  • working, working, working on the making good of book,
  • seeing Bill Clinton walk down 50th street to the sound of a hundred school kids letting out I-am-near-a-rock-star squeals,
  • plotting out my liar book,
  • attending the launch of Catherine Gilbert Murdoch’s Dairy Queen. How good is this new young adult book? Very very very. It has cows, gridiron, dentistry and true love and the most wonderful first person protag I’ve come across in an age. I heart DJ.

In the meantime here are some intermanet webby things of great interest:

  • and, lastly, while I’ve been away the prime minister of Australia appears to have gone completely barking mad and appointed a horse as a member of the board of the Australian Broadcasting Commission. I shudder to think what else will happen during my six month absence. Maybe I should hurry home right now?

Okay, back to work for me. One last thing in advance of tomorrow’s 9am (NYC time) match against Brazil: AUSSIE! AUSSIE! AUSSIE! OI! OI! OI!

Or, in other words, please, please, please let us not give away too many goals against them . . .

More on M!M!M!O!O!O!

Wow, I’m so pleased by the overwhelmingly positive response to the cover of Magic’s Child both here and in emails. Yay! Nice to not be alone in the liking.

A bunch of quessie were asked in that comment thread. Here are the answers:

  • Magic’s Child will be out in March 2007 at the same time as the paperback of Magic Lessons.

  • Magic! Magic! Magic! Oi! Oi! Oi! was never going to be the title. It was a placeholder name until we came up with a title that fits the book (so glad you all agree that Magic’s Child is that title). Magic Lessons was also known as M!M!M!O!O!O! until the real title came along.
  • If one day I write a book that’s set in Oz and is funny and about magic I will definitely call it Magic! Magic! Magic! Oi! Oi! Oi!. I promise! So maybe one day there will be M!M!M!O!O!O! fridge magnets and bumper stickers. Though in the meantime dastardly Jonathan Strahan will prolly steal it for an anthology of Australian fantasy. That rotter!
  • I have no plans for further books in the Magic or Madness universe. The next four books that are (sort of) planned out, or at least beginning to coalesce in my head (yes, it’s kind of painful) are completely different from MorM. One’s the great Australian Elvis mangosteen cricket fairy YA novel, another’s about a runaway, the third’s about cricket, and one’s about a liar. They could all turn out to be the same book or maybe I’ll come up with some other idea. Who knows?

That is all. Except that I love the butterflies. Love them! They’re campy and silly and plus there are actual butterflies in the book. Honest!

Happy?

Okay, I shouldn’t be writing this I have way too much work, but I’ve been getting quite a few emails this morning asking if I’m happy about Australia’s 3-1 defeat of Japan in their first match of the World Cup. Dunno if “happy” is the word. Let’s just say there has been much dancing and chanting of Aussie! Aussie! Aussie! Oi! Oi! Oi! all over the flat.

One more time: AUSSIE! AUSSIE! AUSSIE! OI! OI! OI!

And now I go work.

The ups and the downs

A while back Sean Williams made this comment about my post on whether you have to write every day to be a “real” writer:

    the really creepy thing, the thing that freaks me out the *most* about this crazy job, is that what works for me one year is in no way guaranteed to work the year after, or the year after that, or ever again in fact. i feel like i’m running on a treadmill that’s constantly changing speed and angle. as charles brown likes to say: “writing is the only job that gets harder the longer you do it.” but maybe he’s been hanging out with writers too long. that’s definitely the impression you’d get, from the way we carry on about it :-)

Sing it brother! I know heaps of writers who say they hate rewriting; I know stacks who hate first drafts. But for me it’s back and forth, back and forth. The first draft of Magic or Madness went like a dream, but then so did the rewrites (mostly). The first draft of Magic Lessons was part dream, part nightmare. The rewrites were wonderful, the best writing experience of my life. So fabulous that I just wanted to keep rewriting it forever. What larks! The first 50 thou words of M!M!M!O!O!O! was fabulous, the last 15 thou—the worst writing experience of my life. And the rewrites have continued in that vein. Fun? No. Not even a little bit.

I worried that my experience of writing each book would show on the pages, and so asked my writer friends if they’d noticed a correlation between their experience of writing a book and its reception out in the world. The unanimous response was a resounding “Nope, none.”

Scott’s biggest selling book is Uglies. Yet, it was by far his most unhappy writing experience. His mother died shortly before he began the book and he was in deep mourning throughout the writing process. Yet nothing in the book would ever lead you to suspect how miserable he was while writing it.

Sean Williams has published a gazillion million books so he knows what he’s talking about. I gotta confess it was a shock to me. I honestly thought once I’d written a novel I’d have the whole novel-writing caper all sewn up. Nope. All I learned was how to write that particular novel, which ain’t that useful unless you’re writing the same novel over and over again. And how boring would that be?

As I struggle to get M!M!M!O!O!O! to be the book I want it to be—and damn it, I ain’t quitting until it’s there—I keep reminding myself that in five, ten, fifteen years I won’t remember the writing process. I won’t remember which bits came easy, which came hard. I’ll be too busy writing whatever new book challenge I’ve set myself. It’s one of the many cool things about being a writer: as a job it’s a moveable feast. You never know how it’s going to go. The rewards are enormous and the punishment huge. And every single day of writing I learn something new.

I love it.

Names & titles

Over at Miss Snark’s some folks get all snooty when agents address them by first name. I find their crankiness weird and am wondering if it’s a generational thing or because (as another commenter says) I’m Australian and we’re less uptight more relaxed than USians.

Personally, I’m more squicked when people insist on using a title with my name. My name is Justine Larbalestier, it’s not Ms Justine Larbalestier, certainly not Miss or Mrs Justine Larbalestier and you’re risking life and limb if you ever use Mrs Scott Westerfeld, though FYI Scott adores being called Mr Justine Larbalestier.

If you must use a title the correct one’s actually Dr, which I’m not wild about either, but at least I earned that one after almost four years of blood, sweat and tears (oh, yes, tears, lots and lots and lots of tears).

But how to negotiate this web of correct name/title useage? Even though I think it’s fusty and weird to want to be addressed by a title I also don’t want to offend anyone (not unintentionally anyways). So what are you supposed to do when some folks will spit the dummy if you don’t use a title, and others if you do?!

Here’s my cunning solution: echo how they sign off. If they sign off Dr Massively Stuckup, then you respond thus:

    Dear Dr Massively Stuckup

And sign off how you would prefer to be addressed:

    Cheers,

    Notuptightatall

Simple, eh?

But what to do if you’re the one writing the first letter? If you have a mutual acquaintance ask them. Otherwise play it safe. In the US of A I would use title plus full name (unless I can’t figure out whether they’re a sheila or a bloke or whether they have a phd or not in which case I’d use full name). In Australia I use full name sans title. Then I wait for the reply and adjust my salutation accordingly.

Aren’t you lucky to have me here to solve all etiquette problems?

Another list!

I just found out, via the lovely Elise Broach, that Magic or Madness is on the Bank Street best teen books of 2005 list. The list also includes Laurie Halse Anderson’s Prom, E. Lockhart‘s The Boyfriend List and Laura Whitcomb’s A Certain Slant of Light all of which I adored. There are quite a few books on it I haven’t heard of which is always cool. More books to read!

If I wasn’t lazy I’d go through all the various best of lists and see if there’s any book that’s on every list. Maybe Prom, maybe Mary E. Pearson’s A Room on Lorelei Street? Has anyone else figured it out?

MorM has now been on five best books of 2005 list. Not bad, eh? I always welcome champagne-drinking excuses! Afterall that’s why I became a writer in the first place . . .

Many people make book

Today Scott and me went into the Penguin offices to meet some of the people who sell, market and publicise our books. We ate yummy cheese, humus, tabouli, dolmades, grapes and strawberries, drank good (Aussie) wine and talked publishing.

We writers mostly work on our lonesome but we’re actually part of a team. A really big team. I have a lot of contact with my editors, Eloise Flood and Liesa Abrams, and some with the rest of the Razorbill team (especially Andy Ball and Margaret Wright), but much less with the other people who work on my books. Frankly, I’m not always sure what the folks in the other departments do. So it’s fabulous to meet the people from online marketing and discover that they’re starting to work on author podcasts. Would the two of us be interested in doing one? Would we be interested? Is the Australian men’s cricket team going to destroy England in the next Ashes? Yes, they are, and yes we’d love to do a podcast.

I was fascinated to hear just how much work goes into wrangling authors for big events like BEA (Book Expo America) and the big ALA (American Library Association) conferences. Wow, are we authors a pain! Collectively, I mean. Imagine trying to get many different authors to various different places in the space of eight or so hours. Not fun, eh? And even before we get to an event they’ve logged hours and hours making sure we’re available, organising us to get there, and setting up our schedules. A publicist’s (for BEA) and marketer’s (for ALA) work is never done.

We learned that at the last ALA meeeting they had put a two minute limit on kids giving testimonials about three particular authors cause they were so enthusiastic they’d have gone on for hours otherwise. One was Stephanie Meyer (author of Twilight and New Moon), the other one was someone really famous I’m ashamed to say I’ve forgotten, and the third one was—wait for it—Scott!! How cool is that?

It was also lovely to have people from non-editorial departments asking when they’ll get to see the third Magic or Madness book because they’d enjoyed the first two so much they were dying to read the final book in the trilogy. They work on many, many, many books every year, reading all them is impossible, so it’s a real compliment when they make an effort to read yours.

To recap: me author part of big team of editors, sellers, marketers, publicisers and others. (Though I’m still not entirely clear on the diff between selling and marketing. Anna explains how it works at Tor, but I get the feeling it works a bit differently at Penguin. One day I’ll understand, one day. . .)

My hero

Scott just hit his tenth anniversary as a freelance writer. Congratulations, Mr Hardest-Working-Writer-I-Know.

He shares some cool statistics. Here’s two:

  • in that time he’s published well over one million words (gulp!),
  • and it took him eight years—that’s right—eight years (!) before he was earning enough from writing under his own name to support himself.

Eight years is a loooong time and yet most writers don’t ever earn enough to (comfortably) quit their day job. Scott has done very good indeed. I’m so proud.

Oz cover of ML

Penguin Australia decided to go with their own cover for Magic Lessons because they found the USian cover a bit too dark. At first I was miffed by this because I love love love that cover (plus they’d used one of my photos on it). Then they showed me what they’d come up with:

All miffage vanished. Isn’t it beautiful? Plus the St Stephen’s cemetery photo is by Scott.

The USian cover was designed by Marc J. Cohen and the Australian one by Cathy Larsen.

Here they are side by side:

Whatcha reckon?

Writing tickets

For this year’s WisCon I figured that with such an overcrowded progam full of the likes of Samuel R. Delany, Nalo Hopkinson, Ursula Le Guin, Vonda McIntyre, Lois McMaster Bujold, Geoff Ryman, Kate Wilhelm, Jane Yolen and etc. etc. it would be a good idea for me to not do a reading. I’d step aside and make room for the lumies and the up-and-coming writers such as Meghan McCarron and Lauren McLaughlin (just to name two of my faves).

Plus, I really hate doing readings. Ugh! And there are enough occasions throughout the year when I can’t skip ’em. I’m glad I did. I’d’ve been so stressed about it . . . So phew.

I also decided to skip out on the sign out which is the massive signing held on the last day where all the published writers sit with pens poised ready to scribble their name on whatever their readers want. Again, I was thinking about making room, if only for Ursula Le Guin’s massive queue. And such a queue it was curling around and around the enormous ballroom!

But I was also having a fit of the Australians and thinking that putting my name down for it was kind of writing tickets. I mean I haven’t been publishing for that long—my pro fiction career’s only 14 months long—I’m not that well known, don’t have many books, who do I think I am anyway?

But on the second day someone asked me if I’d be at the sign out. I started to say, “Well, you know, I figured there was no need—”

“Really?” they responded. “Because it’s so convenient to just take my books along and get them signed all at once. Otherwise I’ll have to walk around with your book, hoping to run into you again.”

“Oh,” I said, not having thought of it like that. “Sure, I’ll do the sign out.”

In all the discussion about self-promotion and what’s appropriate we not-hugely-successful writers forget that we do, in fact, have readers. That there are people who really, really want our signatures on their copies of our books. Just like I’m extraordinarily glad that I have books signed by the likes of Octavia Butler, Angela Carter, Dorothy Dunnett, Karen Joy Fowler and Kelly Link. Those are all books that mean a huge amount to me. The signature of their authors makes them that extra bit special.

I don’t know why this is so, but it is. I guess it’s the idea that Butler or Carter or Dunnett once touched these books that I own that sends a thrill through me. No matter how daggy that sounds. And in the case of Link and Fowler, who I know personally, I read their inscriptions and am instantly reminded of our friendship, of times spent together talking and bitching about writing, love, life and etc.

So I did the sign out and despite a cold and fatigue, I enjoyed it. I sat between John Scalzi and Nalo Hopkinson and in the lulls between signing we gossiped and giggled together. I signed for a young Japanese PhD student, writing about James Tiptree, Jr. who was a big admirer of The Battle of the Sexes in Science Fiction, for the wonderful Deb Stone who spends her working hours battling the demons of censorship, and for a teenage girl who was maybe fourteen or fifteen years old—maybe younger—who came up to me just as I was putting my pen away, clutching a copy of Magic or Madness.

Was I still signing? she asked tentatively. Sure I was. So I did and then her father took a photograph of her beaming beside me, MorM still in hand and I was even more glad I decided to do the sign out after all. And that I’d finally gotten it through my thick head that sometimes this writing game isn’t about the author at all.

Fun! Fun! Fun!

Something not to do while you’re exhausted and have a head cold:

Atttempt to buy tickets for the 06/07 Ashes series.

The article does not exaggarate. I logged on just before 9AM (Sydney time) when the tickets were to go on sale. The server was busy and busy and busy and busy and busy and busy and aaargghh!!

It took me half an hour to get through to actually buying the tickets. At which point all the tickets I was interested in for days 2 & 3 were gone. I then went to buy tickets for the fourth day but just as I selected them a pop up box announced that my session had timed out.

Cue screaming and swearing.

I logged back in again. The cricket board’s server was busy and busy and busy. Finally it wasn’t I got through to the ticket sales part. Then the ticket seller’s server rejected my password despite the fact it was the exact same password I used to get in for my first session. How do I know? Because my browser bloody remembered it, didn’t it?

Cue more screaming and swearing.

Then it rejected it again and again. Fourth time lucky and I was in and able to—at last—buy the tickets I wanted. Time taken: over an hour.

So, yes, I will be at the Sydney test on the fourth day. If there is no fourth day, or if it is all over before lunch, I swear to you that I will kill the entire English cricket team or whoever else I hold responsible for said early finish.

That is all except to say that as of 12 noon Sydney time the first four days of the Sydney test were completely sold out.

WisCon is over; now I namedrop

The combination of jetlag and a cold meant that I did not get as much out of this year’s WisCon as I normally do. But everybody else seemed to be having an amazing time. There were a great many people there that I didn’t even get a chance to say hello to like Suzy McKee Charnas, Patrick Nielsen Hayden, Jay Lake, Kelly Link, Sharyn November, Nisi Shawl, Helen Pilinovsky and I hardly had a conversation of any length the whole weekend long.

But I did finally get to meet Cherie Priest and she was just as fabulous as expected. More, even. (Thank you Liz Gorinsky for arranging it—lovely to see you, too!). As well as the elegant and charming Geoff Ryman (apparently he has a blog but I can’t find it—feel free to hit me with the URL) and the amazing Deb Stone who fights the good fight against book censorship for the American Library Association and is my new hero.

I also had the pleasure of introducing my best friend in the whole world,1 Ron Serdiuk, to all my lovely WisCon friends. Naturally he is now many more people’s best friend in the entire world. Seriously, to know Ron is to love him. But I saw him first, okay?

I did manage to catch up properly with Krissy and John Scalzi, as well as Doselle and Janine Young, Ellen Kushner, Delia Sherman, Nalo Hopkinson, Charlotte Boynton, Lauren McLaughlin, Andrea Hairston, Pan Morrigan, Ama Patterson, Shana Cohen, Lawrence Schimel, Ellen Klages, Caroline Stevermer, Claire Light and Holly Black (who is such a darling that she visited me in my room while I was gathering strength to get past my dread lurgy and go out and face everyone). Not to mention Julie Phillips, whose superlatively brilliant biography of James Tiptree, Jr. will be out later this year. It’s one of the best biographies I’ve ever read and I read a pretty early draft. Imagine how gobsmackingly awesome the final version is going to be.

It was also fabulous to see great big piles of my first (and only) anthology, Daughters of Earth, selling like hotcakes. A number of people had already read it and were very enthusiastic. Yay! Josh Lukin’s and Andrea Hairston’s essays were both mentioned in terms of gushing praise. Their essays are indeed very fine as are all the essays in the collection. There’s no way I’m picking favourites!

The wonderful folks of Dreamhaven donated a copy to be sold at next year’s Tiptree auction. (I recommend them as an online purveyor of all fine sf and fantasy books. And yes they still have more copies of Daughters.) I managed to get Samuel R. Delany, Ursula Le Guin, Vonda McIntyre, and Pamela Sargent (!!!) to sign near mentions of them in the acknowledgments, as well as the signatures of contributors Brian Attebery, L. Timmel Duchamp, Karen Joy Fowler, Andrea Hairston, Joan Haran, Pat Murphy, Lisa Tuttle and Kate Wilhelm. Elvis wept, eh? It better go for a decent amount next year.

I only managed to hear Gwenda Bond, Karen Meisner, Lauren McLaughlin, Claire Light, Scott Westerfeld, Christopher Rowe, Richard Butner and Gavin Grant read, which is to say I attended two different reading sessions. They were all fantastic and funny and weird. What more can you ask for? Well . . . I would’ve loved to have heard Carol Emshwiller or Samuel R. Delany or Ursula Le Guin or Vonda McIntyre or Jane Yolen or Kate Wilhelm or Karen Joy Fowler or Ama Patterson or Geoff Ryman read as well. I hear they were all incredible.

And it would have been nice to go to some of the panels people were raving about like the shapeshifting one and the one on enjoyable trash. I hear Micole Sudberg stunned everyone with her stupendous intellect, humour and wit. Mental note: must not get sick and spend way too much time napping in my room. At least I wasn’t alone in my illness.

Most moving moment: When Susan Vaught signed over her $1,000 cheque for winning a Carl Brandon Award to the Carl Brandon society. So generous! Such a classy gesture! I’m buying her book, Stormwitch as soon as. I hear it’s as wonderful as she is.

Now I go to bed.

P.S. I have no idea how any of my panels went. Sigh.
P.P.S. Too tired to paste in links to all the abovementioned folks.
P.P.P.S. I am massively behind with email. Sorry!

  1. I have a number of best friends in the whole world. [↩]

And now Italy!

Even while I’m away at a convention good news arrives: Magic or Madness and Magic Lessons just sold to Mondadori, the biggest publisher in Italy. Woo hoo!

I’m especially excited because I met the editor, Fiammetta Giorgi, in Bologna and she was not only elegant, cool and fun, but also had great taste. We talked for ages about our favourite young adult writers such as Holly Black and Diana Wynne Jones. And now I’m going to be part of her Dark Magic series. Yay!

Mondadori also publishes Scott, so we’re now published by the same company in the US of A (Razorbill/Penguin), Australia (Penguin), France (Editions du Panama), Brazil (Editora Record) and now Italy. How cool is that?

Magic or Madness has now sold in eight different countries and Magic Lessons in six.

The goddesses of the CCBC

Scott and me were taken out for lunch by the lovely women of the CCBC, Hollis, Katy, Megan and Merri. We talked graphic novels, manga, YA books and censorship and much fun was had.

My favourite moment was Megan or Merri’s (I’m jetlagged and can’t remember which) anecdote about a twelve-year old asking to borrow a newly arrived library book because the cover so appealed to her. The book was M. E. Kerr’s Deliver Us From Evie. Evie of the title is a seventeen-year old lesbian; the girl wanting to borrow the book was from a very conservative rural family. So the school librarian looked at the girl desperately keen to read the book and imagined the outrage that would result when her parents found she had read such a book and hesitated. Is this worth my job? she wondered. But she gave the girl the book because it’s not her job to say what the girl can and can’t read. If the girl’s parents didn’t like it and raised a fuss the librarian would deal with it then.

Sure enough next morning when she got to work there was the girl waiting for her. “I have to talk to you about that book.”

Oh no, thought the librarian. “Well,” she said. “What did you think?”

“It was the best book about farming I’ve read in my entire life. Thank you so much!”

It’s a lovely example of what is so often forgotten in debates about what children and teenagers should and shouldn’t be allowed to read: people don’t always read books in the same way.1 Sometimes kids (and adults) don’t even notice the stuff that is outraging others. Me, I still can’t figure out how Harry Potter encourages Satan worship . . .

I left lunch with many other ace anecdotes about being on the frontlines in the battle against censorship (which I will ruthlessly exploit for Saturday’s panel on Banned & Censored books) as well as lots and lots of reading recommendations. It was very inspiring. Thank you, all. You’re goddesses!

  1. When I was still in primary school I read The Alexandrian Quartet by Alexander Lawrence [I’m jetlagged, okay?] Durrell. One of the the books is called Justine. I loved it, but whoooosh did a lot of it go soaring over my head. I certainly didn’t notice any of the sex. [↩]

Feminist Utopia panel

As me, Nalo Hopkinson, Scott and Ellen Klages walked from our hotel to the Wisconsin Historical Society Auditorium the heavens opened up. Best. Storm. Ever.

Well, except for the little detail that we were on our way to give a panel and wound up soaked through and knowing that our audience had been at least halved. Thank you so much to the eighty or so brave, brave souls who made it.

I think it went well, but I was wet, jet-lagged and concentrating hard on moderating so I can’t be sure. Go read Sarah Monette’s excellent account.

I can say that I was dead pleased that we didn’t just pat ourselves on the back and talk about how fabulous WisCon is (which it is), but also addressed some of the tensions around race and class that aren’t talked about nearly enough. And, indeed, once again we managed to raise the issue of class and then back the hell away from it. Cause, you know, scary!

And now on with the rest of WisCon!

Happy Birthday, dear blog, happy birthday dear blog!

Yup on this day a year ago at this exact time I blogged for the very first time. And, yea verily, it were good! So good that back then I posted three times on the same day. Such profligence! Such joi de blog!

The blogging has been so wonderfully addictive that it ate my musings and possibly several novels I might otherise have written. Bummer. And yet, it’s so ace! So easy. So instantaneous! Why did I not start doing this years ago?

My first post, lo those many months ago, revealed the cover of Magic Lesson. So it seems appropriate that exactly a year later I reveal the cover of the third book in the trilogy. But it ain’t ready. Sorry.

Instead I’ll tell you what I’ve learned over the past year:

Here’s to another year of bloggery.

Out of here (again)

In less than twenty-four hours we’ll be on a plane to NYC. And while I think NYC is a bloody excellent city, and I have many wonderful friends there I can’t wait to see, I’m sad about it. For the last few years I haven’t been anywhere for more than three months straight. And that place was San Miguel de Allende, not Sydney. And while San Miguel is also completely ace I’m dying to spend an uninterrupted LONG stretch of time in my hometown.

Scott says I always get like this just before we leave anywhere (San Miguel, Dunedin, Buenos Aires, NYC). He says I always say that I want to stay. Maybe. But I feel it even worse when it’s Sydney cause there’s no where I love as much in the world. For some photographic reasons why pop over to Scott’s blog (he’ll also explain my silence of the past few days, which I can’t go into without frothing at the mouth).

Right now the thought of being anywhere but Sydney is just too much. Even though we have a year of travel to many wonderful (or at least interesting) places ahead of us: Madison, NYC, New Orleans, Seattle, London and Bangkok (and I’m sure I’m missing some). So to soothe my aching heart I’ll share my new favouritest Sydney places.

Two Good Eggs: A cafe in Surry Hills that makes some of the best omelettes I’ve ever had. I’m particularly besotted with the corn, leek, basil & ricotta. Divine. Their other food is also amazing (especially the porridge with rhubarb) and Scott loves the coffee. Service is friendly and fun and they don’t stress if you sit there for hours reading the paper.

Forbes & Burton: It opened just about the same time we moved into Surry Hills and the food was amazing from the word go. The breakfasts (the salmon on potato cakes might make Mr Atkins cry, but it makes me very very happy) and lunches are fab, but it’s dinner that sends me into ecstasy. Every single dish is near perfect. I especially loved the tomato consomme with vegetables and goat’s cheese raviolo (that’s right just the one). The clear liquid was the very essence of summer.

The Hollywood Hotel: The best pub in Surry Hills, if not the world. I did have a plan to get to every pub in Surry Hills, but after our first beer at the Hollywood we never left. The place is gorgeous curvy art deco, they have James Squire on tap, the publican, Doris Goddard, used to be an actor (there are fab photos of her with Bob Hope on the walls), and the staff are all smart, witty and pour perfect beers. Sometimes they even have salt & vinegar chips. Tis the perfect place to hide from the dazzling sun. I can’t believe I don’t get to hang out there again till November! Where’s the justice?

If you’re ever in Sydney check ’em out. Say hi from me!

Now I resume packing. How come no matter how many times I pack and unpack I never get spectacularly good at it? Same with jetlag. Grrr.

Do you really have to write every single day?

Over on liveournal Deb Biancotti muses on whether it’s really necessary to write every single day in order to be a writer. Surely she asks, citing Jeff Vandermeer and Terri Windling, fallow times can be good for your writing too?

Now because I’m in admin hell and it’s eating my brain (zombie apocalypse admin hell) I am moved to point out the obvious: different methods work for different people. There are some writers who need extended time off; others who don’t.

If I don’t write for a month then I find it very very very difficult to get back into it. And the longer I’m not writing the harder it becomes. My writing muscles atrophy. I need to write—not every day, but at least three times a week—to stay limber.

Obviously, that’s not what works for Deb. Or Terri Windling. But I imagine I’m not the only one who needs to use it or lose it. (Tee hee. Those Americans have a handy motivational phrase ready whenever you need one. Bless!)

When reading advice on writing (or anything else for that matter) you’ve got to remember that the writer is sharing what works for them. Too often people think it’s a command from God on what thou shalt do in order to become a writer. And the thou-shalt-write-every-day command is one frequently handed down. So I can understand the annoyance if it don’t work for you.

It’s also important to make a distinction between writing as a vocation and writing as a profession which are two very different things. I imagine quite a few of the writers giving the write-every-day advice are people who make a living writing. In which case it’s good advice. For the vast majority of working writers a fallow season is a luxury they can’t afford. It would be more in the order of all the crops are lost! I must now go back to the day job.

All of which is spurring me to grab a few hours writing before the next wave of packing horror descends. Bloody zombie admin apocalypse.

Plot disturbances

I should so not be writing this post. Too much to get done before we leave Monday. No time! Aaarggh.

However, Gwenda’s writing a quest novel and thinking out loud about whether she can skip the whole boring refusing-to-take-up-the-call part. Also known as “but I don’t want to be a vampire Slayer!”

In a fantasy novel the odds of the protagonist not taking up the call to destroy the one true ring or whatever are pretty non-existent. If they say “no” then book is over, or it becomes something else which is most definitely not a quest novel. So why should the writer spend too much time on that part?

I equate refusing the call with the passage of disbelief. And, indeed, the two often go together: the protag is told, “You were created to destroy this one true ring and in doing so you will save the world!” Protag’s response: “There’s a one-true ring? I’m the chosen one? What now?”

Passages of disbelief can also be really tedious. I pick up a book called, let’s say, Zombie Apocalypse from Hell and am faced with endless setup chapters where the character blithely go about their day squabbling with spouse/children/boss, engaging in other banal and boring activities just so the reader can get to know them. Meanwhile all signs point to the undead walking the streets and eating brains. But the stupid characters don’t recognise said signs, oh no, they keep coming up with lame so-called rational explanations. Yawn. Have they not seen the cover of the book? It’s called Zombie Apocalypse from Hell for Elvis’s sake! Wake up and smell the putrefying flesh! Can we get to the apocalypse already?

One of the things I loved about Buffy the Vampire Slayer was how quickly and wittily they got through the different characters’ disbelief, culminating with Oz discovering the true nature of Sunnydale and saying, “Actually it explains a lot.”

Do I think writers can skip the refusal of the quest/passage of disbelief? Absolutely! I love books that start media res. Whoosh—straight into the action. Good writers can build character and action at the same time. Funny that. They convey their protag’s ambivalence about the role they’ve been thrust into whilst the character is busying saving the world. Two birds, one stone.

On the other hand, sometimes the passage of disbelief/refusal of the quest is the best part. Shaun of the Dead becomes a lot less interesting after they realise that zombies are real. The opening where the two ambitionless, slacker Londoners get on with their stultifying everyday lives (drool in front of tellie, slouch off to work, buy crisps, fight with girlfriend and/or flatmate) in the midst of the spreading zombie apocalypse is the best pisstake of and homage to zombie movies I’ve ever seen. I laughed so hard I wept.

In Magic or Madness I set up the passage of disbelief scenario a little differently by giving the protag a mother who’s always specifically denied magic’s existence. Reason’s been brought up knowing about magic, but negatively. And although it’s almost a hundred pages before Reason is hit with solid evidence that magic is real, it’s only thirty pages later that she accepts the existence of magic.

I guess that adds up to 130 pages of disbelief, which should make any hardened fantasy reader completely ropeable (sorry!). Fortunately she’s the only deluded point-of-view character. I guess I’m saying it’s cool to take a long time with a disbelief pasage if there’s other stuff going on.

To tie this more closely to what Gwenda’s talking about: one of the main things the writer has to balance is the gap between the reader’s knowledge and that of the characters. Afterall, the protag can’t actually look up at the top of the page to the title of the book (Zombie Apocalypse from Hell ) or chapter (Eat more brains!). Unlike the reader they’re not privvy to the back-of-the-book blurb (“In this scintilating debut all hell breaks loose as Chandler Hammer does battle with hordes of zombies with only her pet dog, Misty, and son, Dopey, by her side”)—they have to figure stuff out for themselves, but in a way that doesn’t bore either writer or reader into a coma.

Nothing easier . . .

Con artists

You know how in Hollywood movies con artists are usually sexy, or interesting, or secretly kind of good guys, or all of those things (think The Grifters, Paper Moon, The Sting etc. etc.) and most of the people they scam are greedy bad people anyways, so it doesn’t really matter? When I watch those movies I’m completely sucked in, and on their side, and want them to win.

In real life, not so much. Cause, you see, scam agents and publishers are also con artists. They prey on people who are ignorant of the publishing industry and desperately want to have their work published and read. I was once ignorant of publishing and desperate to become a real author with a real published book. If I’d come across one of these scams back then I bet I would’ve fallen for it. Many otherwise smart people have.

Falling for a con isn’t about how smart you are. It’s about how much you know. It’s many years now since I’ve known enough about publishing to be immune to the kinds of scams that are regularly exposed by Writers Beware and Predators & Editors.

But on many things I’m easy to fool. If someone tells me something my instinct (like most people’s) is to believe it. I’m endlessly tricked by my friends and relatives—curse them. And April’s Fool’s Day? Gah. For starters, I’m a freelancer, so I never notice what day it is, besides most April Fool’s day gags consist of telling people something that could be plausible. What’s so dumb in believing them? There’s so many implausible things in the world that are true. You know, like Tom Cruise being a sex symbol, and people actually believing that American Beauty and The English Patient are good movies, and that Bring It On and Resident Evil 2 are bad. Excuse me?

I’ve almost been conned in NYC, but fortunately I was with a more knowledgeable person who recognised a scam (whatever it was—I still don’t know) coming.

I even understand the impulse to trick people—there’s an element of the trickster in every fiction writer. I’m just saying it ain’t that hard, nor if you’re doing it to trick money out of folks is it glamorous, noble, sexy or any of the other things that Hollywood likes to make it seem. You don’t even have to be especially smart to do it. That particular scam consists of the scammer advertising for unpublished writers and then when they send their writing the scammer says it’s fabulous and for a fee will represent the writer. Easy. All the scammer needs is for the unpub’d writer to be ignorant of the fact that good agents don’t charge fees and especially not in the multiples of a thousand.

Of course, it’s not just Hollywood that glamorises scammers. There are lots of really excellent crime books out there from the point of view of grifters. I just read Lawrence Block’s The Girl With the Long Green Heart (thanks, Naomi) and I really enjoyed it. But something happened as I read it, I started thinking about things from the griftee’s point of view. Even though—as is usual with these stories—he was a thoroughly nasty piece of work because he was greedy and thought he was gaming those who were gaming him. At which point it’s hard to see which way’s up ethically speaking. Who’re worse the people who make a living gaming people illigetimately? Or real estate speculators etc who game people legally? The grifters point at the griftees and say it wouldn’t happen to them if they weren’t so greedy. But isn’t greed for money one of the key motiviating factors of the grifter?

My head hurts.

There are lots of movies and books I enjoy whose ethics are beyond questionable. Gross Point Blank anyone? In which the hero is a guilt-free paid killer. And yet the audience is expected to be barracking for him to wind up with the girl. Which I always do even though I’m sure that were it real life and not a perverse fairy tale the first time his girl annoys him he’d off her without thinking twice.

And my point would be?

Dunno. Oh, hang on, yes I do. My point is that fiction ain’t life and that Writer’s Beware and Predator’s & Editors are doing stellar work and I salute them.

In praise of WisCon

In less than two weeks (gulp) me and Scott will be attending WisCon the feminist science fiction convention in Madison, Wisconsin. I’ve been attending since 1996, I’ve read there, been on panels, been a part of the auction (mostly as a spender of money, but once as one of Ellen Klages’ lovely assistants) and have worked as part of the organising committee— I’m biased.

And yet strangely I’ve come to take it for granted. So much so that my not being able to attend next year (prior engagement to be part of something awesome in Australia) didn’t really phase me. Then I read Sheree Thomas’s eloquent explanation of why she loves WisCon and all of a sudden I’m miserable that I’m going to be missing next year’s WisCon even as I get ready for this year’s.

Sheree loves it so much she’s urging people to attend:

    What I really want to do is encourage you to check out WISCON, because if you don’t never go to but ONE science fiction conference in your big, beautiful life, then let it be, let it be WISCON 30, because this year is going to be amazing.WisCon takes place annually in downtown Madison, WI over Memorial Day weekend (May 25-30) at the Concourse Hotel. It’s considered “The World’s Leading Feminist Science Fiction Convention,” and is attended by a lot of cool and interesting women and yes, men (got to say that because some folk see ‘feminist’ and read ‘man hata’ and ‘crazy’) . Now, I ain’t saying there ain’t no crazy folk there (LOL!), I’m just saying that all kinda folk flow through and it is a celebration of science fiction work. This year, they invited back their previous Guest of Honors, including Samuel R. Delany, Ursula K. Le Guin, Nalo Hopkinson, Jane Yolen, Pat Murphy, Pamela Sargent, Vonda McIntyre, chile, I could go on and on.

    And they got damned good child care, too! For real, with Legos and robots n’ shit! I mean really, what kinda feminist gathering would it be without an excellent program track for young readers?

The bad news is that this year’s WisCon is sold out. That’s right, you can put your name on the waiting list, but unless there’s a whole slew of last-minute dropouts you won’t be attending. But don’t let that stop you from going to next year’s. I’ve heard a little rumour about who the guests of honour will be and, well, let me tell you, stellar is the word.

This year’s is going to be unbelievablely fabulous. I was at WisCon 20 and I’ll never forget it. That weekend changed my life. But even the worst WisCon is a million times better than any other convention or conference I’ve ever been to. If you have any interest in genre or feminism or exploring new and old ideas WisCon is the place for you.

Flying foxes at dusk

I’m sitting at my desk watching the flying foxes make their nightly voyage out from the Botanical Gardens. Hundreds of bat silhouettes against the darker-by-the-second sky.

Have I mentioned how much I love this flat? How sad I am that we’re leaving?

Well, bugger that! I refuse to give into melancholy. Here’s the view I’ll be enjoying soon:


© good friend, brand-new father, and all round artistic genius Robin Cave

That view’s not so bad as all that, is it? Even if there are no flying foxes, or rainbow lorikeets, or ibis, or cockatoos . . .

Scott’s Listing

I am now the wife of a New York Times bestselling author! Oh my Elvis! Specials is number six and we here in the Larbalestier/Westerfeld household are over the moon. The congrats are flooding in from all over and champagne will be drunk in large quantities tonight. Woo hoo!

But what does this actually mean? Don’t worry you’re not alone asking. Several of my non-publishing friends—yes, I do have them—have also asked why it’s such a big deal.

The New York Times bestsellers list is one of the oldest lists going and definitely the most prestigious. It doesn’t matter that there’s a whiff of dodginess about how it’s compiled. As Scott points out, there ain’t a bestseller list in the world that reflects the true number of books sales out there in the real world. The real world is too messy, too big, and too unquantifiable. Bless the real world! In the meantime what we have is the New York Times list.

Whatever the reality of actual numbers, being on that list mean a book is selling more than somewhat and it is doing that in the shops that report to the New York Times.

Becoming a New York Times bestselling author means having those words appear on the front cover of all that writer’s books for the rest of their life. From now on it won’t be Scott Westerfeld making appearances—it’ll be New York Times bestselling author Scott Westerfeld visiting your library or school.

In most publishing houses the amount of money spent promoting the New York Times bestselling author’s books will escalate. Some writers have contracts with a clause giving them a bonus should their book make the NYT list. Many are convinced it also increases the chances of actually being reviewed in the New York Times.

Rumours abound that Hollywood executives (or at least their scouts) automatically option every book that makes it on to the NYT list no matter how unfilmable. I know the Jane Austen Book Club was so optioned and while it’s one of my favourite books of all time I really can’t imagine it making a good film. But then I thought The Hours was unfilmable. (The Uglies trilogy on the other hand . . . )

It also means that the agent of the NYT bestselling author (NYTBA) gets to ask for more money for their next book and a better contract with less joint accounting and more rights retained. I believe they can also insist that gold petals descend from the ceiling whenever the NYTBA visits their publisher’s offices and that they only take the NYTBA (+ spouse!) to the very best restaurants and ply them with Krug champagne.

But way better than all of that is knowing that lots and lots of people are reading and loving Scott’s books. We’ve known that for awhile from the quantity of fanmail he gets and all the effusive comments on his blog. Listing in the Times is a big ole confirmation of that love.

I know exactly how all those Scott Westerfeld fans feel because I’m one, too. Go Specials!

Plagiarism

I adore Meg Cabot, not only is she a fine writer who’s as witty and brilliant as Dorothy Parker, but she also has a heart as big as the ocean, and is wiser than any owl you care to name. I only read her books for the first time last year. I confess that I’d thought she wouldn’t be much chop because I was underwhelmed by the Princess Diaries movie. How stupid was I?

Anyway, on Lili‘s advice, I read her two All-American Girl books and loved them! Very smart, wryly funny, and subversive. My three favourite things. Then I discovered her blog and became even more obsessed. Meg Cabot is a genius. Case in point is a recent post that has been linked to all over the place because it is such a sensible response to some of the insanity that has been written about the recent plagiarism case.

All you need to know is that Meg Cabot is one of the writers that the author of How Opal Mehta Got Kissed, Got Wild, and Got a Life has been accused of stealing from.

Here’s my favourite bit:

    After I got over being mad at Carol—and her parents, and the art show committee, and the art teacher, and all the other Carol types and THEIR parents and promoters that I’ve encountered since—all I felt (and still feel, to this day) was sad.

    Not just because I’d lost a friend (which, of course, I had. When I got back to Bloomington, even though I felt super, duper sorry for Carol, on account of her being such a lost soul, I found I just couldn’t be friends with her anymore).

    No, I felt sad because none of those people—but most importantly, Carol–were ever going to understand that the coolest part of creating something–like a picture, or a story, or a song–isn’t how fast you do it, or how young you are when you created it, or how many art shows it’s put into, or how much money someone eventually pays for it.

    Because the truth is, if you’re patient, all of that–the art shows, and the money, and everything else–will come along eventually. Those things aren’t really what’s important.

    What’s important is that when you create something original (i.e. NOT TRACED), it’s something YOU made, that speaks from YOUR heart, and no one else’s. Even if it’s just a dumb drawing of a princess, it’s YOUR dumb drawing of a princess, NOT ANYONE ELSE’S.

    And there’s something totally great about that—way better than art shows. Even better than money.

    And what makes me sad is that that’s something Carol and everyone like her will never, ever understand.

How classy is that?

A couple of my writer friends (one in Australia and one in the US) have been deeply freaked by the plagiarism scandal because the writer’s defence is that she has a photographic memory and both of them have photographic memories. I don’t think either of them has a thing to worry about simply because

    1) they’re both really good writers who work at their craft
    2) they’re aware of the issue

Number one is key. As Meg Cabot says the way you get good at drawing princesses is by drawing lots and lots of princesses. Unsurprisingly that’s the way you get good at anything. You do it over and over and over again. When you’re a beginning writer your influences are right there on the surface; as you mature they sink deeper down and become harder to identify.

Any writer who is working at their craft is not going to wind up plagiarising. Only a small percentage of any good published book remains the same as the first draft. Any unconscious borrowings by those photographic memories will have been reworked so much that very little resemblance remains in the final product. She’ll be right. Honest.

In my experience the folks who are most worried about committing a writing and/or publishing sin are the ones least likely to do so. Whenever there’s a discussion about the need to discourage bad writers a whole slew of really good ones get discouraged.

The plagiarisers of this world, like the princess drawing tracers, are going to continue blithely on their path creating nothing new and so getting none of the rewards of creativity. My two friends may needlessly worry about plagiarism, but you know what? They create something new and delicious almost every day. I’m with Meg Cabot on who we should be feeling sorry for.

Not to distract

from the excellent convo going on below, but Cassandra Clare has posted a fascinating response to the animal violence thread.

Also Mely points to this fascinating discusson of romance in a Jennifer Crusie novel.

Philip Stanton has put up two pages of his sketches from Bologna. The folks who read this blog might recognise Barry Goldblatt and Lawrence Schimel among others.

Here’s one of me and Scott I posted awhile back:


©Philip Stantion

What is it about romance?

For months now Scott’s been getting stacks and stacks of queries from fans all desperate for the final book in the Uglies trilogy so that they can find out which boy the protag, Tally, ends up with: David or Zane? (Check out the “reviews” here for an idea of what I’m talking about.) I’m starting to get my own trickle of mail asking about who Reason winds up with. (Satan! She winds up with Satan!—Just kidding.1)

How did we get so obsessed with relationships? With who’s zooming who? What gives?

Is it possible to write a popular novel series that’s romance free? I’m trying to think of one and I’m failing. It’s hard to even think of romance-free standalones.

Is romance the genre that arches over all others? I think it is. More than any other genre it’s the one that works its tendrils into everything. Way back when, I remember reading an article that argued that scientific papers about conception frequently get taken over by romance motifs with the damsel-in-distress egg being rescued by the valiant knight-in-shining-armour sperm, which you’ll all be shocked to hear is not actually how conception works.

Is the dominance of romance a bad thing? Should I worry that my trilogy is now being shipped? (Mostly Reason & Tom.) I certainly didn’t conceive of the trilogy that way. I thought the question of who would survive the magic-or-madness conundrum was the driving force, but judging from letters and convos with folks that ain’t foremost in their minds.

Yet as a reader I’m a total shipper. I’m still cranky Rhett told Scarlett to bugger off. (Hey, did you ever notice that they both have a double t? How surreal is that?) I kind of want Rebecca and Bois-Guilbert to wind up together (whenever I re-read Ivanhoe I skip all the bits without them.) I totally bought into all the Buffy shipping, despite my favourite relationship—Cordelia & Xander—not lasting long.

So why was I not thinking romance when I started writing my trilogy? What is this weird writer v reader split I seem to have going?

What do you lot reckon? Any response to any of these questions is most welcome.

PS Many thanks for all the thoughtful responses to my quessies about violence to animals in books.

  1. Or maybe I’m not kidding . . .

    No, really, I’m totally kidding.

    Maybe. [↩]

Off to the mountains

This year has been full on for me and Scott thus far. Oodles of work travel (Brisbane, San Francisco, New York City, Bologna, Brisbane), lots of new sales—Brazil (me), Denmark (Scott), Sweden (Scott)—and I just heard news that MorM and ML have sold in yet another market. Hopefully I’ll be able to tell you about it soon. We’re both on the shortlists for some pretty awesome awards—the Ethel Turner (me), the MLA’s Thumps Up (me, Scott), and the Locus Awards (Scott)—and Scott’s book Specials came out this week and has been ranked very high1 up on Amazon. The best any book of his has ever managed. And something else gobsmackingly amazing has happened to Scott that we’re hoping we’ll be able to tell you about next week. We’re dead happy!

So to celebrate we’re leaving our laptops behind and going on a mini holiday to the glorious Blue Mountains where we will go on long walks, play billiards on a real billiards table, eat scrumptious food, and drink divine wine and not check Specials‘ ranking on Amazon even once. Bliss!

Catch you in a few days.

PS Yes, I am massively behind with email. Sorry! I plan to catch up when I get back.

  1. As high as 232 overall and no. 5 on the bestselling teen books list. No. 2 if you just look at the teen sf/fantasy list. Does any of that mean anything you ask? Prolly not a huge amount given that Amazon’s only 10% of the US book market. But those numbers make us happy and give us the illusion that Specials is selling in vast numbers everywhere! [↩]

Die, puppy, die! (not)

Why is violence towards animals a deal breaker for so many readers? Miss Snark won’t represent writers who kill off animals in their books. More to the point she won’t even read such books. No matter how good. I’ve heard the same sentiments from many others.

Now, don’t get me wrong—despite the subject header—I don’t want any puppies to die. Big or small, I like dogs. And even if I didn’t, I am against people being horrible to any animals. Even really annoying ones. (Though, yeah, I do eat them from time to time. Not dogs. I have never knowingly eaten a dog.)

Back to my question: Why is violence against animals in books a deal breaker when violence against humans is not?

Someone told me recently (hi, Harriet) that it’s because animals have no choice. I pointed out that many people who are murdered in books have no choice either. But I do think the choice thing has something to do with it. Because it’s definitely not that people don’t care about other people being murdered, or otherwise having violence inflicted upon them. Perhaps it’s that we’ve read much more of that kind of violence. Crime is a whole genre where you can depend on violence being visited upon at least one person in the course of a book.

And it’s not like these same readers aren’t upset when a character they’ve bonded with gets offed or is harmed in some way, but it’s not a deal breaker. It’s not something that means they will put the book down and back away. Why is that?

Violence towards animals in books is not the only deal breaker. I know several parents who can no longer read books about missing children. I’m not sure I have any deal breakers. I’ve read books where the depiction of sexual violence really really upset me. But if it’s a necessary part of the plot and the book doesn’t suck, I’ll read it.

What are your deal breakers? What are the things in books that you find too upsetting to read?

Aaargh!!! (updated)

Sometimes I read an article so relentlessly stupid that the only thing I can do is rant.

Today Cassandra Clare sent me a link to such an article. Let me quote the most enraging part:

    What this unfortunately driven young woman’s rather sad little story suggests is that one of the major reasons other young people don’t read books is that most of the stuff published for children and adolescents is abysmal, self-regarding trash. Part of the fault rests with the packagers such as Alloy and in the way they do business. A larger part of the problem stems from publishers’ misguided belief that kids want to read about people just like themselves, living lives just like their lives. Dead wrong.

    If these publishers looked to their own childhood memories rather than a spreadsheet, they’d recall that young readers, more than any others, want to be transported and shown not just other lives but whole worlds utterly different from their own. Witness the wild popularity of fantasy and science fiction among the very same kids who display the very same sensibility in their choice of video games. What could be more dispiriting than going into your room in search of escape, solace or pleasure, opening a book and reading a story about someone just like you hemmed in by the same four walls?

    The conditions that have alienated so many young people from reading are hardly unique to publishing. They’re common to other forms of entertainment and news media, where the creativity and idealism of the founding personalities have been subsumed by corporate ownership. It happened long ago in the film industry, and the tormented director or abused screenwriter is now virtually a cultural archetype. It has happened to all but a handful of the country’s broadcasters and newspapers.

I call bullshit. Lots of teenagers want to read about people like them, lots don’t, and some of them want to be transported as well as read about teenagers like them. It”s not an either/or. Very few things are. Some of those transporting books also happen to be about teenagers like them. And for your information, Mr LA Times know-nothing-about-YA reporter man, many of the bestselling books (and manga and graphic novels) for teens are fantasy or science fiction. The very genres whose reason for existing is to impart that good ole sense of wonder.

There are many, many, many wonderful books of all sorts being published for, and read by, teenagers. Cassandra, who sent me the article, writes some of it, so does Margaret Mahy, Ursula K. Le Guin,, Diana Wynne Jones, Holly Black, Scott Westerfeld, Elizabeth Knox, John Green, Libba Bray, Cecil Castellucci, Jonathan Stroud, Sonya Hartnett, E. Lockhart, Audrey Couloumbis, Laura Whitcomb and too many more to name. I cannot keep up with all the amazing YA being published each year.

And this may surprise you, Mr LA Times reporter man, but some of the books published through packaging houses are really good. Scott Westerfeld’s Midnighters series is a good example, as is pretty much anything written by Maureen Johnson, not to mention the very amusing Raisin Rodriquez books by Judy Goldschmidt.

When I compare the quality of the adult bestselling fiction to the kids and teen bestselling fiction it’s the adult fiction that loses out. I feel sorry for the adults who are still reading some of the dreck on that list when they could be reading bestselling books by Libba Bray or Jonathan Stroud.

Okay, I’m going to go read a Jaclyn Moriarty book to remove the stain on my eyeballs from that stupid article.

P.S. Yes, I have conflated YA and children’s, but so did Mr Smelly Reporter Man.

Update: Of course, Cassandra said it all more succinctly and way more wittily here. If only I’d noticed that first I coulda just directed you there. And somehow I managed to miss Cecil’s post as well. Gah.

Dans Les Griffes reviewed + what I’ve been reading & seeing

Blandine Longre, the editor of the French literary magazine, sitartmag.com, just sent me the link to a lovely review of Dans les griffes de la sorcière, the French version of Magic or Madness. From what I can tell from babelfish it looks like Anne-Judith Descombey’s translation is a very good one indeed. Thank you! This is the first review of any of the translated versions of MorM. Colour me excited!

To reward myself for sending off the first rewrites of MorM 3 on Friday I’ve been reading whatever I want to read! Woo hoo! And seeing some movies. Namely V for Vendetta—most entertaining, though what accent was Natalie Portman doing?—and last night Night Watch. Wow. Oh my Elvis. It’s gotta be one of the coolest looking films I’ve seen in ages. (Well, aside from this more-beautiful-than-a-mangosteen Hong Kong film I saw chunks of on Singapore Airlines: The Promise. That was brain breakingly gorgeous—can’t wait to see the whole thing.) Not only is Night Watch beautiful it’s also fabulous. A kind of grungy, well-acted and written Russian Ghostbusters crossed with Ludmilla & Russalka and Buffy the Vampire Slayer. It made me so very happy.

I also finished reading the first volume of Jonathan Stroud’s Bartimaeus Trilogy. Loved it. I especially loved that it’s completely standalone. That’s right: first volume of a trilogy and yet the story comes to a conclusion. There are no loose ends, no cliffhanger, just lots of story conclusioney goodness. Good on ya, Mr Stroud. (And, yes, I know I left the first volume of my own trilogy a bit up in the air. I’m writing about Stroud as a reader, not a writer, okay? In other words: do as I say, not as I do.)

I also love the ethical wobbliness of the two protags, Batrimaeus and Nathaniel. And the excellently done world building, especially the footnotes. Have I mentioned that I love footnotes? And it’s a cracking, hard-to-put-down read. My only complaint is that there coulda been a few more explosions. Wouldn’t have to be heaps more, just two or three . . .

Yesterday I read five novels. Graphic ones. Y’know what I like most about ’em? That I can read five in a day without breaking into a sweat. Blissful. I’m kind of new to graphic novels and manga and shall report in a later post. But so far I’m having fun. Feel free to hit me with more recommendations. So far I’ve liked Fables and Scott Pilgrim best. But The Runaways is fun, too. More to the point I haven’t disliked anything yet, though I confess I haven’t started on the manga yet. But I will! (Thank you Holly, Rachel, Mely, and Will.)

The fabulous Lili Wilkinson now blogs

Lili Wilkinson is one of the funniest people I know. Whenever I receive mail from her I make sure I’m not eating or drinking anything. You know, just in case. (This laptop’s already on its last legs . . . ) So I’m stoked that she’s finally started blogging. Yay!

Among many other talents, Lili’s one of the masterminds behind the insideadog website and has just published her very first book: Joan of Arc: The story of Jehanne Darc.

Go make her welcome to the blogsphere!

New YA website

Inside a dog is a brand new website promoting young adult literature. It launched today and has Nick Earls as its first writer-in-residence.

On top of the writer-in-residence blog, there are reviews, recommended booklists—I love the categories: such as pink books, bring the funny, things that go bump. Some of the recommended books are faves of mine, like Cecil Castellucci’s The Queen of Cool, Scott’s Peeps and Michael Wagner’s Dog Wars. There are lots of other goodies, including a contest to win an ipod.

Go check it out!

Alain de Botton on the writing life

    “The job clearly makes no sense from any practical point of view. It only intermittently satisfies ordinary longings for security and status. Trying to tie writing talent to a mortgage is like trying to connect a bicycle to the national power grid. And the financial anxiety is aggravated by the element of chance that lurks behind the birth of masterpieces—you never know when your luck will be in and when it will be out. It is one thing to be poor and convinced of the worth of one’s work; quite another to combine poverty with the sinking sensation of a book not going well.”—Alain de Botton in the SMH Magazine, Issue 37, May 06

Scott and me signing

This Thursday Scott and me will be at Galaxy Books signing our latest books. For me that’s Magic Lessons (US import) and the paperback of Magic or Madness. For Scott it’ll be the Oz edition of Peeps, plus the UK Uglies and I’m sure all the rest of his extensive oeuvre. I really hope those of you what are in the vicinity of Sydney’s CBD can make it.

Details as follows:

Thursday, 27 April, 6PM
Signing at Galaxy Bookshop
Justine Larbalestier & Scott Westerfeld
143 York Street
Sydney, New South Wales

Stay tuned to Scott’s blog cause it looks like there might be news of unsurpassed bigness in the next few days.

Meanwhile I continue to write many many many hours every day whipping M! M! M! O! O! O! into shape so that it’s fit for my editor’s eyes come Friday. I’m more optimistic than I’ve been in ages. Yay! I’ve been buoyed by sight of the new Oz cover for Magic Lessons—gorgeous. As well as the early versions of the US M! M! M! O! O! O!—very, very promising. When I’m allowed to share I will.

All About Me (Bugger Eve!)

There’s a fun profile I did up on Norm Geras’s blog (a blog I discovered via Rjurik. Thank you, Rjurik!). I went to read Norm’s words of wisdom on cricket and stayed cause it’s most excellent.

I’ve already been asked what I mean by giving the answer “passion” to the question of what’s a person’s worst fault as well as their best quality. I’m with W. B. Yeats on “passionate intensity”: every day someone somewhere is killed because of someone else’s passion. On the other hand every day someone somewhere is creating something beautiful because of that passion.

Marrije enjoys Magic Lessons and has many many questions for the final book in the trilogy, which although smart and interesting frankly filled this writer’s heart with dread. How am I going to please all the people waiting for Magic! Magic! Magic! Oi! Oi! Oi!? I’ve already seen the anguish that a not completely happy ending to a trilogy can bring. Aaarggh! No more trilogies for me!

Okay, better get back to rewriting the ending so that the heavens open and fairy dust is sprinkled over the land and everyone’s magic becomes happy fairy magic and all the badness melts away and everyone is happy forever and ever and ever. That, or have them all die on the bus.

Very quick

Anna Genoese explains P&Ls. I am eternally grateful to her. I have never understood these before. They were just this mysterious thing my editors would groan about. Anna Genoese is a goddess.

Thanks for all comments in previous post. You are all goddesses. My problem has been solved by reading Anna’s post: the thought of P&Ls has killed smelly monkey brain creativity and now I can focuss on task at hand.

Shana: cricket helmets are heavy!

Friday week is Oz speak for the Friday after next Friday. I.e. rewrites due next Friday not today.

Has anyone seen Daughters out in the wild yet?

Yay Jason Gillespie. Double century. Strewth.

Write now.

Stupid Smelly Brain

Magic! Magic! Magic! Oi! Oi! Oi! must be rewritten and the send button pressed by midnight Friday week. The writing is going just fine and dandy. However, my brain will not stop coming up with other ideas for the bestest, most brilliantest, most amazingest novels eva!

It’s driving me mad. There I am finally nailing a scene that has been allluding me for months and brain starts whispering sweet nothings about snowboarding werewolves, zombie cowboys, Australian ex-ballerina underwater police. If you don’t write them now, brain tells me, they will run away, never to return. They will die of starvation! In a gutter! It will be all your fault!

Aaaarrrggghhhhh!!!!!

What do you lot do when this happens? How do you make the brain shut up and focus on the urgent urgent urgent task at hand? Do I have to threaten it with the withdrawal of gold koala bear stamps? Make it stand in the corner on the naughty mat?

Help!

My WisCon schedule

Here is where you’ll find me at WisCon (and just before):

“A Feminist Utopia in Madison? Global Communities, Science Fiction and Women”
Wednesday 24 May, 2006, 7:30 pm
Wisconsin Historical Society Auditorium, 816 State Street.
Madison, Wisconsin, USA
Open to the public, free of charge
Panelists: Elizabeth Bear, Karen Joy Fowler, Nalo Hopkinson, Justine Larbalestier (moderator), Meghan McCarron

Food in SF&F (Reading SF&F)
Saturday, 1:00-2:15 p.m. Saturday, 1:00-2:15 p.m.
Melissa Scott, Justine Larbalestier, Janet Lafler, Mary Kay Kare, Nora Jemison

Literary History of Women in Science Fiction. (Feminism, Sex, and Gender)
Saturday, 2:30-3:45 p.m. Saturday, 2:30-3:45 p.m.
Pamela Sargent, Justine Larbalestier, Andrea D. Hairston, Janice Marie Bogstad, Brian Attebery

Banned & Challenged Books (Reading SF&F)
Saturday, 9:00-10:15 p.m. Saturday, 9:00-10:15 p.m.
Deborah Stone, Veronica L. Schanoes, Anne Marie Redalen Fraser, Justine Larbalestier, Kira Franz

The Death of the Panel (Reading SF&F)
Sunday, 2:30-3:45 p.m. Sunday, 2:30-3:45 p.m.
Scott Westerfeld, Justine Larbalestier, Paul Kincaid, Gwenda Bond, Christopher “i just sold my first novel” Barzak, Lenny Bailes

I think these all look fabulous—I get to talk about feminism, food, Young Adult lit, and death—what could be better? I can’t wait.

I’m especially excited cause Daughters of Earth will definitely be out. In fact I’m hearing rumours it may already be available. Has anyone seen it in shops in the US of A yet?

See you all in Madison! It’s going to be the best WisCon yet. Samuel R. Delany! Ursula K. Le Guin! Jane Yolen! Kate Wilhelm! Oh my Elvis! I must lie down now to recover.

Newtown is, indeed, twelve kinds of awesome

Came across this completely randomly *cough* *cough*. (I mean would I waste time with the likes of google, blogpulse, technorati, ljseek, icerocket or feedster? Please!) It gave me twelve kinds of pleasure.

First up someone getting into the Magic or Madness trilogy enough to want to figure out their Sydney setting—Newtown—and look at maps and photos. How cool is that? And then linking me to the Whitlams, who are an ace Sydney band. Even cooler. (Though I don’t know them and I very much doubt whether they know me. So no cahoots at all.) The Newtown photos Purple Primate links to are fabulous. If I wasn’t already home I’d be so homesick. And they’re making me regret having shifted from Newtown to Surry Hills. What was I thinking?

Here are some of my faves:

    The cemetery as taken from the park that Tom piggybacks Reason across in the first book. The trees are in the cemetery. By the way that’s not an evil tower: it’s the spire of St Stephen’s Church.Here’s another view of the Moreton Bay fig tree on the front cover of Magic Lessons. It’s taken from the street so you can see the wrought iron gate and fencing.

    When we lived on Chelmsford St we used to walk through this tunnel all the time. Sadly, “Piss Tunnel” is a pretty accurate name. It’s very eerie and every time I walk through I’m not entirely sure what I’ll find on the other side.

I couldn’t find any photos that gave a sense of how narrow the streets are or of what Esmeralda’s house looks like. Maybe I’ll have to take ’em myself.

The other pleasure of this post was the speculation in the comments about who would wind up with Tom, Reason and Jay-Tee. That’s right they were shipping my book! Colour me very happy. But I’m not saying a word about what happens, except that one of those comments might possibly be right. Or not. I’ll never tell!

My Conjure Schedule

Heh hem. Tis a bit late given that the con has already started, but here’s where you can find me at Conjure in Brissie:

    Sat 1 pm: Once More With Feeling (Joss Whedon panel)
    Chair: Ron Serduik. Justine Larbalestier, Lucy Zinkiewicz, Nicky StricklandSun 4 pm: The 16-year-old Writing Drill Sergeant
    Chair: Jenny Blackford. Ian Irvine, Anita Bell, Simon Higgins, Justine Larbalestier

    Mon 1 pm: Those were the young years: Juvenilia Readings
    Chair: Rob Hoge. Kim Wilkins, Sean Williams, Justine Larbalestier, Scott Westerfeld

I’m most looking forward to the last panel. I have stuff going back to when I was eleven, but unbeknownst to me my lovely mother has a whole folder of my writings going back to when I was seven or so. She dropped it over last night. And oh my Elvis—it’s hilarious! Seriously, Scott and me was reading it out loud to each other and weeping we laughed so hard.

His juvenilia doesn’t go back so far, but fortunately is also excellent for the making of laughter. Especially the bits that are cleverly coded so his mum couldn’t figure out what he was talking about. I bet Sean and Kim will also have some splutterers. What larks we’ll have!

Writer’s Block

There’s an article in the SMH about writer’s block by Catherine Keenan—which draws a lot from Zachary Leader’s Writer’s Block, which I will superstitiously never read. I mean what if it’s contagious? Anyway the article is full of lots of ace anecdotes, but what I liked best about it was the accompanying illustration:


Simon Letch (Click through on the link and you’ll learn just how dangerous a life illustrators in Australia lead.)

How cool is that?

Now I must get back to my own writing bouyed by yesterday’s excellent news, and last night’s fabulous food and champagne (thank you, Jan & John—you are the best!) and with my ears stoppered against any hint of writerly blockage . . .

Unembargoed News

I am now free to tell you the news of which I have not been able to speak:

Magic or Madness is on the shortlist for the 2006 New South Wales Premier’s Literary Awards. Specifically for the Ethel Turner Award.

This is huge! I’m being recognised in my home state! I’m up for an award named after the author of one of my fave childhood books: Seven Little Australians!1


Ethel Turner (bit of a spunk, eh?)

Here’s the full shortlist:

    Taghred Chandab & Nadia Jamal The Glory Garage Allen & Unwin
    Bill Condon No Worries University of Queensland Press (excellent book—made me cry!)
    Ursula Dubosarsky Theodora’s Gift Penguin Australia (which I hear is the red hot favourite)
    Justine Larbalestier Magic or Madness Penguin Australia
    James Moloney Lost Property Penguin Australia
    Nicole Plüss Hope Bay Penguin Australia

I’m really looking forward to reading all the other books on the shortlist. And it was a pleasure to get to chat to some of the other nominees at the official announcements today at Gleebooks. (Gleebooks has been one of my favouritest bookshops since I was kneehigh to a grasshopper.) I am giddy.

Now I must get back to work, but tonight I am so drinking champagne. Everyone always says it’s an honour to be shortlisted and they’re dead right. I’m still pinching myself!

  1. Even though the ending made me so ropeable that every time I finished it I’d have to throw the book across the room again. [↩]

How Bout that Bangladesh?

In the few moments that I’m not banging MorM 3 into shape, I’ve been taking a squiz at the first test in Bangledesh and, wow. Turns out my sister was right and I—like many other commentators (most notably, our noble captain, Ricky Ponting who said they weren’t worthy of test status)—was talking out my arse. And ain’t that fabulous?


Matthew Hayden batting (briefly); Shahadat Hossain appealing (unsuccesfully)
Getty Images

Bangladesh are the worst ranked team in the world; Australia are the best (by a considerable margin) and right now Bangladesh are pounding us. Excellent stuff. Not just because it’s been an incredibly entertaining test match, but because of what it means for the future, for the raising of the level of test cricket world wide. Colour me very happy indeed.

Though it ain’t over yet. We can still win!

Questions about publishing (Updated)

Look at me! I have worked so hard that I’ve managed to get myself back on target for my Friday deadline! Yay me! And as a reward my tyrant husband is letting me have internet access this evening. How kind and good you are, dear sir.

There’s been some lively debate over this way. I confess that I was surprised by the force of Garth (author and ex agent), Patrick (editor) and Sharyn‘s (editor) response to what I thought was an innocuous post (stupid me). Fortunately Teresa (editor) explained the reaction (thank you).

In the end we all agreed: the writing is the most important part, as well as the second most important part, the third most, and so on. It is the day, the night, the morning, the evening; the dove, the crow, the sulphur-crested cockatoo, and every other bird in the sky, even the annoying myena bird.

It’s almost exactly three years since I became a full-time freelance writer. April Fool’s Day 2003 was the glorious first day of this new career. Ever since I’ve been trying to make sense of it and of the publishing industry generally. My post on a writer’s job was one such attempt. I’ve learned an awful lot in those three years. I’ve sold four books, published two, written four and a half, and edited one. I’ve found answers to many of my questions on various blogs around the interwebby. Patrick and Teresa’s Making Light is a fabulous resource (Slush Killer is probably my favourite post on any blog eva) and Anna Genoese‘s livejournal is fab as well. And there are many other excellent publishing blogs. And yet, I still have lots of questions about this industry:

  • Why is the returns system still in place?
  • Why does the wasteful stripping of paperbacks continue?
  • Is the fantasy middle grade market really about to implode?
  • Why is adult science fiction in such doldrums? Is it really?
  • Why don’t short story collections sell? (We learned that this is also true in Italy, Brazil, Sweden and France. Are short story collections hot anywhere in the world?)
  • Why do UK publishers consider it natural for Australian & New Zealand rights to be tucked in with UK rights? Are they unaware that the British Empire is over?
  • Do men really not read as much as women? Is this true everywhere? Or just in Australia and the USA?
  • Why do so many people who don’t actually read want to be writers?
  • Why does the best selling genre—romance—have the lowest average advances for its writers?

I could go on. If you have any questions of your own add them to the comments thread. And if you have any answers, please, please, please tell all!

stiff and stoof

I’m having such “discipline” issues (i.e. current book is flouting my authorial command and to punish it I go hang out with other novels and all the cool folks online) that my evil husband is going to change the airport password, burn all the books, and lock me in my study with nothing but a chamber pot and a bottle of water until I finish said book. This may be my last post for awhile . . .

Beloved google led me to this review:

    Justine Larbalestier’s Magic Lessons is the second in her YA Magic or Madness fantasy trilogy. Like the first, Magic or Madness, this has a freshness and vitality that made me inhale it and get anxious for the concluding volume—not that this didn’t feel like a complete volume in itself, because unlike the middle books in so many trilogies it did, but more that Larbalestier is so creative with her ideas about magic that I’m really looking forward to the experience of reading more of this story. I love the combination of New York and Australia, of young teens having to deal with adult situations, of the choices they keep having to make. And they’re nicely written as well. Recommended.—Neile Graham

And icerocket.com led me to these fascinating thoughts on the same. I’m especially pleased that Innle’s secret name for my book is Magic or Chunder. Tee hee. And, yes, Magic Lessons was a bugger to plot (except for when it wasn’t), but not as hard as the third book! Thanks for noticing all the stuff I worked hard to do!

Andrew Lang has excellent advice on how to completely stuff up a career in writing, via Literaticat. A particularly choice bit:

    If your book does, in spite of all, get itself published, send it with your compliments to critics and ask them for favourable reviews. It is the publisher’s business to send out books to the editors of critical papers, but never mind that. Go on telling critics that you know praise is only given by favour, that they are all more or less venal and corrupt and members of the Something Club, add that you are no member of a côterie nor clique, but that you hope an exception will be made, and that your volume will be applauded on its merits. You will thus have done what in you lies to secure silence from reviewers, and to make them request that your story may be sent to some other critic. This, again, gives trouble, and makes people detest you and your performance, and contributes to the end which you have steadily in view.

But really the whole thing is wonderful: Check it out! Ain’t nothing new since Homer . . .

Holly Black is insane and wants to try what could possibly be the most noxious liquid on the planet.

Me & Scott in Bologna

Philip Stanton, one of the illustrators we met in Bologna, drew me and Scott while I delivered my keynote about “Regional Voice” for The Society of Children’s Book Writers & Illustrators Before Bologna conference. (Scott was up front with me to do the American and Scottish readings; I don’t do accents.)

It’s lovely to have this keepsake of the SCBWI conference (thanks, Philip!). It was my first time teaching creative writing (we taught a workshop on writing synopses) and it turns out that I really enjoy it. I had my doubts because I had to teach back when I was an academic and, well, there are things I have loved more in this life (like fourteen-hour flights in cattle class, for example). Turns out that teaching a roomfull of people who are keen, interested and really want to be there is an enjoyable and inspiring experience. I swear I learned new stuff about writing synopses from all the smart questions we were asked. Thanks for inviting us, Lawrence and Erzsi!

Giving the keynote was also fun. I’d already been thinking a lot about how you write different accents because my Magic or Madness trilogy has Australian and USian characters, but giving the lecture forced me to put my thoughts in some kind of order. It also gave me an excuse to mess about with writing stuff phoenetically. I started by writing how I think I pronounce “can’t”:

    carn’t

How Scott thinks I pronounce it:

    cahn’t

And how I reckon many USians (particularly Midwesterners and Californians) say it:

    caaaaaaaaaaaaan’t

The lecture also gave me an excuse to phoenetically render the Queen of England speaking of her spouse and herself:

    Mah hoosbahnd ahnd Ah

I have always wanted to share that with the world at large. I can die happy now.