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The Smart Bitches recently waded into the fray of the “rape in romance” conversation. It was the same-old dead horse arguments trotted out again, i.e., 1) some people don’t differentiate between rape and forced seduction, 2) some people won’t read books about it at all, 3) it was the 70s!, 4) it makes the men more alpha, 5) it’s a fantasy, what does it matter? and a lot of permutations of the above.
I really don’t care to get into the discussion here. It’s done much better elsewhere. If you want to talk about that, go to the Smart Bitches or AAR or whatever. What REALLY interested me about the discussion was posted in the comments:
Dee said:
Well, women fantasise about this but if it were a reality it would disturbing and quite unpleasant. This is because the fantasy is striped of its unpleasantness and instead taps into our desires. Kids enjoy stories about children who have to go on grand adventures because they have no one who cares about them. In reality children without caring gaurdians live pretty unhappy lives. Yet children’s lit is filled with this fantasy – the fantasy of ridding oneself of adult supervision and control.
Wow. What a light bulb moment. I applaud you Dee, where ever you are (is this Dee Tonorio? Does anyone know?) The thing about most children’s adventure books is that they very skillfully divorce children from adults, or pit children against adults. When I read them as a child, I had no problem with them (much as I had no problem with Johanna Lindsay’s rape-romances as a teen). But when I read Harry Potter for the first time, I was already in college. And I remember very vividly thinking to myself: “Why in the world aren’t they telling the teachers what’s going on? Think about it. Harry and company (even the goody-two-shoes Hermione) spend much of the first book plotting against their teacher, Professor Snape. But of course, if they did approach the teachers with their problems (as Dumbledore asks Harry to do point blank in book 2), there would *be* no problem. By the time the children have grown enough to approach the adults, the problems have progressed to the point that even the adults can’t handle it (later books).
But aside from me questioning this point, I went along with it, because that “no authority to stop us, no authority to help us” fantasy in children’s literature was strongly ingrained in my psyche.
However, in real life, this would hardly be acceptable. Children are supposed to tell parents or other authority figures when something isn’t right, and adults are supposed to help them. I heard this is why, at long last, Sunffleupagus was made visible to the other denizens of Sesame Street, because the writers didn’t want children thinking that there was something there that Big Bird couldn’t make the grown-ups believe was real.
(I had a lot of imaginary friends as a kid. It never occurred to me to think that Snuffleupagus was not of the same ilk. There’s real and there’s *real*, you know? But hey, who am I to judge what hte learned child psychology people say?)
I’ve been on a YA kick recently, and in every book, you get this same divorce from authority. It makes sense. Without it, there’d be no book, because children/teens need to be autonomous to be protagonists.
In UGLIES, they live in a society mostly devoid of grownups. Later, certain grownups are depicted as the enemy.
In MIDNIGHTERS, they live in a time of day that only they can access. No grownups (which is interesting in and of itself, but I think we’ve got later books to answer why it’s just them).
In SO YESTERDAY, they actually do approach the grownups (cops), but there’s nothing they can do.
Okay, enough Scott Westerfeld (I’ve been glomming). Other books:
In AFTER, you have another situation where grownups are depicted as the enemy, as well as one in which the child protag is unwilling to approach his authority figure (father) for help. When he finally does, his father does save the day, and the book is over.
In THE GOSPEL ACCORDING TO LARRY, Josh has a very loose relationship with his stepfather. This is a kid with his own stock portfolio, etc., and already has one foot out the door. His relationship with his stepfather does cause him some anguish, but mostly because he cares about him, not because of some parental-type issue. This kid is basically emancipated already. I think this books more than the others (perhaps because the character here is the most mature) is the one that treats adults less like “others” from which they must be emancipated.
Maybe that’s the difference between children’s literature and YA? Children’s lit is about a fantasy of autonomy, YA is about creating autonomy. The younger the YA audience skews, the more fantasy the story must be. Because children really “ought not” to be doing those sorts of things. Teens need to start thinking about it, because the time for independence is coming soon.
Like in college? 
I think where my own book bats up against YA the most is in a scene where my protagonist, Amy, actually considers the fact that she has never had the type of relationships with adults as she is having now. I think that’s a real turning point for kids in college, when they go from being “kids” to being “peers” in the eyes of adults, and in the eyes of themselves. I remember speaking to my childhood friend’s father and having him tell me that I don’t have to call him “Mr.” anymore, that I could just use his first name. I remember a friend instructing her children to call me “Miss Diana.” Both of those instances definitely took me aback and I wanted to explore similar moments with Amy. As I said in an earlier post, I think the characters in my story have been adults for a while. They’ve just been shut up in their ivory tower so they don’t all realize it yet. It’s a fun line to straddle.
I’m sick again. Dammit all to hell.
Those of you who know me (or who spend any time at all reading my blog) already know that of the things I do poorly, being sick is probably in the top ten. I am a REALLY bad sick person. I whine and moan and lie on the sofa making pitiful little “I’m sick. Why? Why me?” faces and in general wallow in it.
Then I resent the fact that I wallow in it and begin having very strong feelings about the little micro-fuckwad-organisms that got me in this situation in the first place. Nothing like placing the blame on someone else. (cf. June blog, the last time I was sick). Then I get really angry and make lists of all the things I could have been accomplishing had I not had my unfortunate little encounter with the micro-fuckwad-organism that i am *so* going to slam into dust as soon as I get this prescription filled. (Hear that, you thousands of squirmy, smarmy little bastards? I’m coming for you. Your apocalypse is nigh. Get praying.)
Let’s just put it this way. I only like active cultures in yogurt, penicillin, and anthropology. Everything else can just bugger off.
I read once that positive visualization is often very helpful for sick people. They imagine the medicine helping them and it actually helps more. Well, as a writer with an overactive imagination I am picturing a veritable ARMY of antibodies, white blood cells and antibiotics kicking the shit out of the interlopers. We’re talking D-Day. We’re talking scorched earth. We’re talking weapons of mass destruction.
Some people like to think of their bodies as a temple. I prefer to regard mine as a police state.
Step One: Get intoxicated. Done with assistance from Lawyer Girl and a bottle of superfine Cabernet she’s been saving to celebrate with me.Followed by retsina. Folowed by cupcakes which were *not* alcoholic.
Probably better if, during Step One, do not come trapsing home around midnight thoroughly foxed only to find one man holding down other man facedown in asphalt in some sort of involuntary circumstance directly in path between Metro and apartment. And sidle past, pretending not to see (or hear threats top man is making to bottom man). And then call 911. Kinda ruins the buzz.
Step Two: Sleep. Lots.
Probably better if not right through “getting-ready” stage prior to leaving for dinner party.
Step Three: Watch TV.
If you don’t have TV (which I don’t), watch Netflixed TV shows on DVD. For instance, Firefly. I was told Firefly was a brilliant show that did not get it’s rightful chance in the universe. Since thought Buffy was most brilliant show ever and Angel was kinda halfway decent, tried it when it was first on air. Was not impressed. Did not watch more. Now working my ways through DVD, and its slowly growing on me. Still like Buffy more. Think ::cough:: that Whedon might have recycled a few characters here and there. I keep thinking, “Well, *that’s* a Drusilla/Willow/Xander/Buffy/Giles moment.” But it’s pretty cool. Whedon’s great with the character development, no matter what characters he likes developing. Looking forward to the movie now.
Step Four: Read books.
I read a stack this weekend (they’d kind of backed up on me during deadline). Some were… okay. Some ripped holes in my brain and settled in for the duration. I read two that were simply amazing: AFTER, by Francine Prose, which is the story of a school that goes through… changes after a Columbine-like incident at a neighboring school. It starts off as a cautionary tale, then morphs into wacko disturbing dystopian territory, but manages to pull you along for the ride. Very well done. The other one is SO YESTERDAY, by Scott Westerfeld (Okay, I know, but I’ll stop writing about his books when they stop being so fabu). This one is *not* science fiction, but it’s so sharp and so funny and the voice is just… well, go read it. It’s about professional “cool hunters”.
Now, there are two things that happen when you read really cool books:
1) You get fired up to write one.
2) You close it and go, “Damn. I can never write something this good.”
Trying to decide where I am.
Step Five: Cuddle.
With a loved one. Whatever you’ve got handy: Kid. Puppy. Sailor Boy. Poor Sailor Boy had the sniffles this weekend, which made him oddly cuddlier.
Step Six: Cook and eat something soothing.
I always choose tomato sauce. ’cause I’m Italian like that.
What do you do?
Sorry to be MIA, folks. I’ve just been — out of sorts — all week and I can’t quite put a finger on why. Every day, when Sailor Boy asks what’s wrong, I don’t really have a good answer. (Of course, the answer he’s really looking for is a blinding smile and “Why, absolutely nothing, darling! Let’s go cuddle!”) So a few hypotheses I’ve put together:
1. Literary post-partum depression. I turned in my book, and the thing I’ve been solely focusing on for the past 7 months no longer occupies my mind (for another week, at least). It’s a post-adrenal crash.
2. Current events. It’s tough to be chipper with regular reports of cholera and homelessness and mass death a few states away. I think we’ve all felt the tug of worry for friends and family who have lost everything and general broken-heartedness at whatever faction of our society dropped the ball. And, if we neeed any more proof that Life Just Ain’t Fair, Larissa has returned home to Mississippi to find only death, destruction, and a rejection letter from Mills & Boon. Head over and give the girl a hug… and a shot of brandy. Also, if you have a chance, bid in the auction to help her out. There’s this hot young writer Diana Peterfreund who is offering a critique there, and she promises to be well out of her funk before she takes a pen to your manuscript.
3. It’s “that” time of the month.
4. Corollary to #1: Now that the book is done, I realize how much shit I’ve been putting off “until I finish the book” and I feel really guilty about that.
5. Not been getting enough sleep. Also, weird headaches. Sailor Boy says I’m just dehydrated. According to Sailor Boy, water is a cure-all. No matter what is ailing me, he prescribes water.
6. Four-day week. For some reason, a one-day holiday just makes the rest of the week seem even longer. I can’t even remember last weekend.
7. Maybe it’s something in the stars? I never can tell with these things, because I’m a Capricorn/Aquarius cusp (ten points for naming the famous fictional character who has my birthday). Anyway, cannot deduce what my horoscope may mean. Either of them.
8. My new project has hit a few snags. I’ve been letting it marinate, and I’m very afraid I may have bitten off more than I can chew. IT’s a great project, but, as Sailor Boy said, perhaps not soemthing I can write in five months. Or even fifteen. Which means maybe not something I should go for next. Which means back to the drawing board, and, even more difficult, shutting these people up while I develop the skills necessary to tell their story.
You can always tell I’m wiped when I resort to internet quizzes. However, here I think I have an excuse. You see, I adore this story. I say “story” because in this case, I adore both versions: the book version, by William Goldman, and the movie version, by Rob Reiner and — hey, gee, look at that — William Goldman. Of course, William Goldman is a screenwriter first and foremost. That whole novelist thing is a lark.
I first saw the movie when I was about… oh, eight, maybe? A family friend put it on for the “kids” during a visit, and not only I, but my two little brothers (8 and 3) at the time, were utterly hooked.
Grandpa: Fencing, fighting, torture, revenge, giants, monsters, chases, escapes, true love, miracles…
Grandson: Doesn’t sound too bad. I’ll try to stay awake.
I think this is where I first learned that at the beginning of a story, a storyteller makes a promise, and if he keeps it, you’re his forever. Grandpa ain’t just whistlin’ Dixie, here. This movie has everything a movie should have. The book has even more. Sailor Boy used to quote one of its more infuriating lovey-dovey lines every time he wished to endear himself to me. I think it was the mix of romance and adenture that lured me. The movie is unabashedly romantic and upbeat, where the book allowed Goldman to indulge in his more pessimistic whims (in the book version — SPOILER ALERT — there’s no guarantee that Westley’s cure will last out the night), but either way it’s a damn fine yarn.
Thirteen years later, when I first read The Count of Monte Cristo I had that same thrill, a thrill I think was first introduced to me upon watching The Priness Bride. The irony of course, is that Goldman owes so much of his story to Dumas — swashbucklers, disappearing lovers, pirates, Spaniards, revenge. There is a decided lack of treasure in Goldman, and not too many lesbians either, but aside from that he’s got it covered. And though TPB is meant as a satire of the adventure/fairy-tale/romance genre, it’s a loving satire, else it would never serve as such a glorious entry of so many into the genre.
In the book version (the premise of which is that Goldman is doing an abridgement of his favorite childhood book), Goldman writes in the opening that he is and always will be most famous for Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid, and the scene that everyone remembers from that film is Butch and the Kid jumping off the cliff. He writes that in his head, as he was writing that scene, he was imagining the Cliffs of Insanity his dad used to read to him about when he was a child. (Aside: oh, the meta!)
But the truth of the matter is, it *was* the Cliffs of Insanity, or whatever they stood for in Goldman’s head. Every storyteller has tattooed into their mind indelible images and ingrained lessons of storytelling they picked up from every story they have ever read, every story they have ever heard. Authors have themes, yes, and certain types of stories they like to explore, but they also tell stories that they would like to hear. They tell the kind of stories that made them love stories to begin with.
I was talking with my editor last night about my book, and because I’m overeducated in the realm of lit theory, I fell into the trap of likening every scene in my book to something that a) happened in real life or b) happened in a book I really love. I’m half afraid my editor thinks I don’t have an original thought in my head. But, thinking about this after our conversation, it occurred to me that this is in some sense my own analysis, not what is really going into my story. I am lit-critting my own book, witht eh added benefit of living in my head, so that I know precisely what the authro’s inspiration was, rather than just hypothesizing based on her biography. I didn’t invent the things I put in my book, just as Goldman never invented cliffs. But we plucked these ingredients out of our mental storytelling storehouses and simmered them into our books, because we know — have known since childhood — that they make the stories nice and rich.
This is why The Princess Bride is such a loving satire. Because it’s Goldman et al. getting the chance to tell the type of story they always loved to hear. Adventure and swashbuckling and death and revenge and princesses and giants and monsters and true love conquering all…
I think I’d better put a giant in my next book. And a swordfight.
Thanks to Julie, a fellow TPB aficionado, for the quiz:
Which Princess Bride Character are You?
this quiz was made by mysti
Borrowed from Robyn Schneider:
The Cover Game:
Go to Google Images and type in the title of your book. Use quotation marks. Whatever the first image that comes up is the new (often nightmare) cover of your book.
Here’s what I got for (Secret) Society Girl. I don’t think it *quite* captures the spirit of the story.
Okay, now you guys play. Post the link to the image your title conjures through the magic of google.
I am floored by the stories of Katrina’s devastation. Tales of abandoned and drowned people and animals, of corpses in the streets and dying children, of animals drowned in their cages as veternarian offices flooded, of people still stuck in the rafters of their homes, now without food and water for days.
Please donate to the Red Cross. Donate to the Louisiana SPCA or to Noah’s Wish, an organization devoted to (as the name implies) rescuing animals in the wake of natural disasters.
This blog is a supporter of the TTLB ecosystem Hurricane Relief Weekend, and encourages visitors to give to Noah’s Wish. Even $5 can help. Funnel your Starbucks and “going out to dinner” money to people in Mississippi and Louisiana and Alabama who would kill for a glass of water.
Growing up on the Gulf Coast, I always understood there was a possibility of a hurricane or a flood destroying my house. I lived near the water, on a bluff about 25 feet above sea level. It was one of the highest points in the county. These people were on the same sea, just a different coast. They’re my neighbors. Their houses could be my houses, their families my family, their dead my dead.
Even last fall when I worked hurricane relief on the east coast of Florida and saw the devastation of hundreds of buildings on the barrier island, the utter destruction of the orange groves and a way of life lost forever, I did not see anything approaching the level of the disaster in Louisiana. I would not have considered it possible in our country. These pictures remind me of the tsunami, of the destruction visited upon tiny fishing vilages in undeveloped countries. Not my own coast. Not my own nation.
My heart is broken. What else can I do?
flood aid
hurricane katrina
Glenn on Katrina
So, hardly has my editor had a chance to thumb through my completed manuscript (which, despite the stormy multiple re-routings to and from Memphis, did arrive), and dear Amy Haskell et al. have retired from my frontal lobes for a relaxing vacation in my hypothalamus (at least, until I start on the sequel!), then the next set of people I’ve been sublimating decide that they’ve had quite enough waiting and start clamoring for their story.
You see, back in July, when I was about half-way through CONFESSIONS OF A (SECRET) SOCIETY GIRL, I got another one of those ephemeral new ideas. However, this one was slightly less ephemeral than SSG, which began as a dinner conversation with Sailor Boy that went like this:
Me: You know, I hate THE SKULLS. Someone should really do a book about how secret societies really are.
Him: That wouldn’t be interesting.
Well, contrary as I am, I knew it would, and set about convincing him. (He is at last, he admits, convinced.)
This book was a little bit different. I was getting ready for work and walking from the bathroom of my apartment to the kitchen, when the narrator started talking to me. Actually, she wasn’t talking to me, she was talking to someone else. But, she was talking. A lot. And the other person was arguing back. They proceeded to do this for the next half an hour, as I left my apartment, walked to the Metro, traveled to Dupont Circle, and headed to work. Eventually, I wrote down 300 words of the premise, and they shut up.
For a day and a half. (During which I met Sailor Boy for dinner and told him about this idea. He thought it sounded cool. Wonder if that’s the death knell.)
At last, frustrated I gave them an ultimatum: leave me alone while I finish this book, and I’ll do you as soon as I’m done.
They, um, took it literally. So yesterday I wrote three pages.
Somebody stop me!
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