I begin this blog with a call for help from you, lovely reader:
How do I get cigarette smell out of bookshelves?
I have acquired these fabulous, dirt-cheap bookshelves, and, as you may remember from earlier posts about my overcrowded bookshelves, you know I’m in desperate need of them.
However, they were apparently once the happy property of a smoker. And they reek. (I didn’t realized how bad they smelled until they’d been inside my apartment for two hours, but now, ti’s all I smell.) And the longer they are in my apartment, the more my apartment smells like an ashtray. Sailor Boy has decreed that if they do not stop smelling in two days, they’re out of here. But I’d really like to keep them.
They’re painted particle board. Any suggestions?
Should I spray them with Febreeze? Or does that only work on fabrics? I think I read somewhere that I should wash them with vinegar solution. I know to get smells out of carpet you dust coffee or baking soda around, then vacuum it up, but does that work on wood surfaces? I can’t imagine how it could.
Yay. Figured out how to get screenshots. Probably going to be torturing you all with them for a while. So last night, Sailor Boy and I hit level 36 on our adorable draenei couple. Four more ’til elephant, as I have been saying.
We also made a brilliant discovery. Every race in WOW has their own way of lying down. Undead, for instance, lie on their backs with their arms crossed over their chest in classic “corpse” pose.
Draenei… spoon. Don’t believe me? Check it out: They’re even holding their little purple hands.
Yeah, we’re nauseating. But I couldn’t resist. especially since I know you all want to see what Sailor Boy really looks like. Well, here you have it. He has purple skin, and goat legs, and a long tail, and tentacles growing out of his face.
Awwww…
Okay, back to the serious genre discussion going on below.
Pursuant to yesterday’s post (is this the proper usage of pursuant? If not, it so should be! I’ll have to ask SB when he’s around):
Anonymous said:
Get out your wet noodles and what have you. I’m ready for my lashes.
I started writing a middle grade novel. I’ve read plenty of MG and besides, this is more tween-y and I am a YA-oholic. So no problems there, right?
But then I AM READING a science fiction novel. I do not love SF. That’s not why I picked up the book. I am reading it because it is kind of YA SF, has been recommended to me a gazillion times and is touted as one of the best in the whole SF genre. I am surprised that I don’t love it so much.
I talk to my writing partner about my expectations and how they’ve been dashed. It’s the words, mostly. They just aren’t beautiful. The prose doesn’t sing to me. On top of that, though the main plot is very good, I feel like I can tell when the writer came up with some of the new twists. To me, they feel like they were spackled into place.
I propose to my partner that I might like SF better if the story was written first, then the SF elements worked into it. As a joke, I take the first chapter of my sweet MG relationship story and move it two centuries ahead.
Amazingly, it makes the story come alive. I research SF a little, just for fun, and find: A. I’ve already read 20 of the top 100 SF stories of all time but B. It’s not SF unless the science part is crucial to the story.
I give up the idea of writing a SF MG. Until I take a shower and Boing! the What If bomb goes off in my head and I see how the science really could affect the plot.
My questions to you Oh Wise One: 1. Am I crazy? Pathetic? Misguided to think I can pull this off?
What a great question, Anonymous! (Seriously, though, don’t be a stranger.)
And then Patrick (being Patrick) said:
I am assuming “Oh Wise One” is me.
Worrying about the ‘definition’ of SF is a waste of time. There’s a bunch of ninnies who make *those* rules.
YA SF the rules are different than the ninnies who make silly SF rules.
Call it Futuristic Fantasy rather than SF if you are worried about that SF label.
Yes, you are crazy, but that has nothing to do with your writing or your ability to pull your story off.
Patrick is probably much better equipped to discuss what exactly science fiction is than I am. I was always a little hazy with the details. Like, officially, something like Star Wars isn’t “science fiction” because it has nothing to do with science? It’s space opera or space fantasy or whatever? I’m not in SFWA, so I don’t know all the rules of what’s SF and what spec fiction and what’s fantasy and what all.
And of course, Justine is in Texas right now, and probably not checking email/reading blogs, and she’s the actual science fiction expert around here — PhD, lots of lovely science fiction history books with her name on them, etc.
And then I started getting curious, so I decided to look up these “top 100 science fiction stories.” I found two lists near the top of the Google results: A statistical survey of sci-fi literary awards, noted critics and popular polls (of which I’ve read 23), and David Pringle’s (of which I’ve read 7). They are decidedly different. (I think I like the first one better, though I may be biased by my own results.)
So now, being the curious sort, I’m wondering what YA our Anonymous buddy is talking about that is supposedly one of the best SFs of all time. I’m thinking it’s likely we’re talking about Ender’s Game. My favorite Ender book, Speaker for the Dead, does in fact appear on that first list. We can’t be talking about Wrinkle in Time, here, right? That’s a YA classic which is also, arguably, SF.
(SB just walked in and goes: “Ender’s Game, right?” Too funny. Please note, we are basing our guesses here on the description “famous YA SF novel,” and not on any value judgment about the prose.)
Alternately, we could be looking at a LeGuin, though I think she tends to write her fantasy for kids and her SF for adults. Or, we could be looking at the type of classic SF that people tend to read as teens in school: Bradbury/Asimov/Orwell/Huxley (or even Shelley/Wells!) . All of which I read in English class in high school. Or, you know, Heinlein/Herbert/Vonnegut/Dick/Clarke are also teen favorites. (Hee hee. Dick/Clarke.)
Well, all this is besides the point, anyway. I just like playing guessing games. Anonymous is under no pressure to tell us which book he or she is talking about. (Let’s just say it’s a she, to make my typing easier.) She is also under no pressure to like a book, even if it’s been recommended to her a gazillion times and is very popular. (Justine will agree with me on this one.) There is a much-beloved bestselling novel out there that I can’t wrap my around at all. Yay for opinions!
Patrick’s suggestion is a good one, regarding not thinking of it as SF if there’s no science involved. Futuristic is a perfectly cromulent genre all on its own (cf. Nalini Singh’s bestselling series). And the poster does say she’s very well read in MG/YA. I wouldn’t worry about the SF too much. After all, I consider myself a fan, and by one count, I’ve only read 7 of the top 100 SF novels. The poster has read 20. And, of course, the poster is doing the important thing — looking into it, reading it, exploring, etc.
And, I may get lashed for making this argument, but classics, though all well and good, aren’t necessarily going to help too much if you don’t know what’s being written on the topic NOW.
If you want to read more YA futuristics/SF, here’s a list of recent titles to get you started:
-I Was A Teenage Popsicle and Beyond Cool*, by Bev Katz Rosenbaum -Uglies, Pretties, Specials, and Extras* by Scott Westerfeld -Life As We Knew It by Susan Beth Pfeffer (yes, I know you can argue that it’s not futuristic, but it’s at least ahead of “now.”) -Feed by M.T. Anderson -Rash by Pete Hautman
*forthcoming
I’m sure that the comments section will bring more suggestions as well. (Sara?)
And, if you want to read a classic YA SF, I’ve always been a huge fan of Heinlein’s Starman Jones. It’s really old school, kind of Horatio-Alger-in-space.
The part of Anonymous’s post that makes little alarms go off for me the most though, is the idea of:
“I might like SF better if the story was written first, then the SF elements worked into it.”
All those books that I listed up there would not exist without the SF element. It’s integral to the storyline. And this doesn’t just go for SF, or futuristic — it goes for everything. Story elements must exist for a reason, otherwise they are, as the poster said, “just spackled on.” The science fiction element of any story is Chekov’s gun on the wall. It must come into play at some point in the story.
The thing about science fiction is that, really, it can be any genre it wants to be — thriller, cozy mystery, romance — but the science fiction element needs to be there for a reason. For example, take one of my favorite science fiction movies: Alien.
Alien is a haunted house story. It’s a classic haunted house story, with all the genre elements: a group of people are trapped in a structure with an evil “magical” entity that kills them one by one.
Now, the problem with all haunted house stories is that, in a perfect world, people would just leave the house. Open the door and walk away. (As I yell at the screen in every horror movie.) So every haunted house story needs to have a REASON that people are staying in that house: in The House on Haunted Hill (and remakes), the residents are being offered a huge amount of money to stick it out. In Poltergeist, their daughter is missing and they have to save her (why they stay in there afterwards is beyond me). In Alien, the filmmakers have hit on the perfect reason to trap people inside the “haunted house”: It’s a spaceship, and they can’t leave, or they’ll die in space. BRILLIANT.
But you see how Alien would not have worked in any other setting. Put it elsewhere –here, now–and you’d have The House on Haunted Hill. Or maybe 13 Ghosts, but no one wants to remember that crapola (right, Jana?)
So I’m having a tough time seeing a book that can be SF (or futuristic) without the SF (or futuristic) being an integral part of the storyline.
But then, near the bottom, Anonymous gives us her twist:
Until I take a shower and Boing! the What If bomb goes off in my head and I see how the science really could affect the plot.
Yeah, I love that. Showers are the best. And yeah, sometimes story pieces fall together at odd times, and they can fall together in any order — plot then character; character, then premise; setting, then character, then hook — whatever. That’s fine. If you’re still trying to piece the story together, then, in my opinion, you aren’t really “working the SF in afterward.” But if it helps you to think of it that way, then don’t let me stand in your way. (I’m sure that my way of putting story ideas together is anathema to lots of people.) Viva la difference, and all that jazz.
So no, to answer your question, Anonymous, I don’t think you are crazy or pathetic, or misguided.
And there is a point when I’m working on every story where I decide I’m crazy to think I can pull it off. Then I know that I’m on the right track, because the project that scares you is also the one that makes you grow. I say: GO FOR IT!
The only other piece of advice I have for you is that, if you are entering a genre as a professional in the genre, it behooves you to become familiar with it. Once you are published in this genre, you will meet a lot of other writers. Your fans will have read lots of books in the genre and will want to talk to you about them. They will want you to give them recommendations for what to read while they are waiting for your next book to come out, etc. It’s just a good thing. Even if you are writing “the X book for people who don’t like X books,” it’s a good thing to be part of the community.
Good luck and Godspeed!
PS: Sailor Boy says that he’s only read 20 of these books. I thought for sure his count would be higher than mine. He also says he hasn’t read Dune. I may have to call off the wedding.
PPS: Crisis averted. He’s seen the Lynch movie. The one with Sting.
I’ve been hearing variations on this theme quite a bit lately, and it strikes me as off.
Note: I’m not talking about the situation where someone is told that their voice may be suited to such-and-such, so they set off on a journey of discovery to see what such-and-such is all about. There’s nothing wrong with exploration.
No, I’m talking about those who start out by stating their disinterest in a given topic, then follow it up with their determination to write a story like that. They never read category romance, but they’re going to write it. Vampires leave them cold, but bloodsuckers are hot, so off they go. It’s an odd, almost boastful attitude of, “I have no interest in learning more about X, but I won’t let that stop me.”
And every time I hear it, my brain starts whirring like Robbie the Robot and I want to say, “Does Not Compute. Does Not Compute.” I don’t get it at all.
I got into a debate recently about this exact subject. (I was the con side.) The author representing pro made the argument that someone unfamiliar with a particular genre was also free from genre expectations and restraints. The newbie could bring to the table something truly fresh and different.
Okay, I conceded. I think there’s a chance that could happen. There’s also a chance of those three chimps typing Hamlet.
Isn’t it far more likely that an individual with no knowledge of or interest in a particular subject would come forward with something either totally unworkable or else, unconsciously cliched?
I saw the former mostly when I was a regular visitor to the eHarlequin web boards earlier this decade. Occasionally the newbie would visit the board, filled with their radical ideas to revolutionize the “formulaic” category romance novel industry (which, by the way, they’d read approximately two of) by writing — wait for it — category romances where the hero and heroine don’t end up together.
The latter is apparent whenever you start wading through slush piles (or, if you don’t work in the industry, check out writer display sites or those industry blogs that occasionally open themselves up for pitch practice).
When folks advise writers to know the market, they are saying that a writer should be aware of what else is out there. what has come before, what is big now? Read, stay on top of what the audience is reading, etc.
(Note: I know writers who say they can’t read in the genre they are writing while they are writing. Fine. I don’t like to do that either. But you better believe that they read plenty of books like theirs before they attempted to write their own!)
To me, the willfully ignorant stance smacks of the popular fairy tale of someone sitting down one day, banging out a book, and selling it for a gazillion dollars. Yes, there are prodigies, but you hear about them in a disproportionate amount because their story makes for better promo copy than the people who study and work and eventually get good enough to go pro. The whole model is out of whack.
This isn’t how it works, guys. Writing is a profession, like any other. It takes research, practice, hard work, and a knowledge of others in the industry. I can’t imagine an actor who isn’t interested in seeing another actor’s work, a doctor who has no curiosity about the kind of surgeries someone else is performing, an architect who doesn’t care about the building going up across the street.
No, I didn’t write on Saturday. Ah, well. No one is perfect. Plus, it’s the weekend, right? (Ah, excuses excuses.) All I can do is write extra hard every day this week.
Found a cool review of Secret Society Girl at a future librarian’s blog: Sara’s Holds Shelf.
Can’t wait to read Under the Rose? An excerpt from the first chapter is now available at the Random House website. Check it out!
My friend Heather Davis has started a fascinating discussion about the necessity of a happy-ever-after on Books, Boys, Buzz.
I’ll be back with an update later on. Right now, I’m exhausted and I know I have a long day ahead of me.
So I type up my little manifesto yesterday, and post it to my blog, and then I get distracted by a whole bunch of things — my new contracts, which have arrived, my best friend who I haven’t spoken to in four months coming home from South America, my tax forms, and this really awful headache (Marley and Maureen, if you have given me your cold, you are so off my Xmas card list) and… I almost didn’t write!
Talk about a hypocrite, right? So last night around 10 I started to think about how awful it would be if I had to come onto the blog today and be all, “Hey, guys, thanks for sticking with me, but you know what, I’m such a flake, I already forgot.”
So I sat down and wrote three pages. Not a record by any means, but yeah, I did it. Whew. I’m still in. How about you all? Did you write yesterday?
It’s going to be a busy weekend for me. Being out of town so much in March really messed me up in terms of staying on top of the business end of my life. Robin may be into showing you pictures of her desk, but I can’t humiliate myself like that in public yet. And I have about 75 unanswered emails. And don’t even ask me about how many blog giveaway winners books are still sitting here, waiting to get shipped out. I think it’s at least four, not counting Patrick’s, which is almost a joke at this point.
I have to: 1) Go to Easter dinner (but not until Sunday). 2) Write. Write Write Write. 3) Finish going over my new contracts and get them back. 4) Finish all my taxes. 5) Get caught up on email and snail mail owed. 6) Clean. Dear lord, clean this place.
So, Sayonara.
PS: Is anyone else a huge fan of this song, “Orange Sky” by Alexi Murdoch? I heard it the other day over the end of the latest episode of Ugly Betty, and I bought it on iTunes and I’ve been obsessed ever since. It is so going on my playlist for SSG3. Great lyrics, great syncopation… “In your love, my salvation lies, in your love, my salvation lies…”
PPS: Oh, I forgot! The Magic’s Child Giveaway! The winner is: DAWN. Dawn, email me at the address listed in the About Me box on the top right of this blog with you snail mail address to receive your prize.
Last weekend at the NEC conference, I attended a workshop on writing YA with Mari Mancusi. It was all good info for those who wish to write for the YA market, but I’m not really here to talk about that right now. (Sorry!)
I tend to think that when I go away to a conference, if I can come back with at least one good piece of information, one potentially career-changing bit of advice, then it was worth the price of admission. At this conference, one came from Marianne. (Go on, Mari, feel smug.) It was nothing I hadn’t heard before, nothing I didn’t already know on a certain level, but it was something I needed to hear now.
She said she wrote every day. She said you have to, even a little bit. “Writing is like a muscle,” said Marianne. “You have to use it or lose it.”
I know this. I’ve said it before to people. I’m a card-carrying member of the Sacred Order of “Writers Write.”
Or maybe I’m a lapsed member. Because I hadn’t written for a month. Not a word. Blog posts, sure, and some revisions, and some faffing around with brainstorming/plot boards/synopses, etc. But not actually sitting down and putting new words on new pages that moved the story forward. And I can say it’s because I’ve been dealing with some pretty rotten personal stuff, or because I was doing first and second page proofs for Under the Rose, or because I went out of town FOUR times in March… but that’s all bullshit.
Because Writers Write.
On one of my writing loops, the members challenged themselves to something called 100 for 100. They promised to write at least 100 words every day for 100 days. 100 words is NOTHING. You can do 100 words of crap even on your busiest, worst, blocky day. And at the end of 100 days, you’ll have 10k, which is almost a complete proposal. And I was all gung-ho: “Great idea! I’m so in!” And then I totally wussed out.
But sitting there, in a conference room in Natick, MA last week, I listened when Marianne said that you need to write every day, even if it’s just a little bit.
And I went home, and I started to write. The first day was awful, a lot of crap and deletions and “my lord, when did I stop being funny?” But at the end, I had three pages. The next day, I had five more. Then eight more. Today, I’m going for ten. Because it is like a muscle. The more I use it, the better I get.
Will there be backslides? Sure. I already see parts of the plot ahead of me that I know I’m going to wrestle with. I don’t expect my daily output to keep going up. I know this about my writing. In the past, I’ve been a feast-or-famine writer. I’ll go months where I write like a fiend, followed by months of no writing at all. And every time I “reboot” it starts slow, and then I get better and better, until I top out at a maximum daily output. (I know what this is because I chart it, because I’m a big dork and if it works for people training for a marathon, why can’t it work for me?)
And every time I get into a good groove, I say, like anyone who has been exercising, “Wow, this feels good. I should do this every day. I’m going to make an effort not to stop, because starting again sucks.” And then I do stop, and I have to start over again.
I’m not a disciplined writer. So here I am, making a public promise to become more so. I’m not Rachel Vincent, who can actually set a per day word count that she wants to reach. Any word count will do for me right now. Marianne can do it with a full time job. I should be able to do it without one.
I read a great quote the other day, from Somerset Maugham (Of Human Bondage):
“I write only when inspiration strikes. Fortunately, it strikes every morning at nine o’clock sharp.”
I’m going to take those words to heart. I’m going to write every day this month: the days that are Easter, the days I’m away at a writing retreat, the days when I have nothing good to say, the days when I’m so incredibly busy that I can’t think straight, the day my taxes are due. I’m going to write. (It may mean I won’t blog, but we all have to make concessions.) It’s April, and I’m writing.
Ooooooh, pretty! It’s so very green and flexible. It’s the most flexible edition of Secret Society Girl yet! And it’s guaranteed, one-hundred percent excitement. I know how it ends, and even I was riveted:And, in case that doesn’t grab you, each and every copy has something extra — a preview of Under the Rose! Look:
Hmmmm… can’t seem to figure out how to make that picture on the right rotate. Anyway, you get the idea. This puppy will be in stores May first, but… starting next week, win ‘em before you can buy ‘em right here on the blog. In the meanwhile, I shall be enjoying some Q.T. with my lovely, flexible, ten-dollar paperback and it’s new spring-ready color scheme.
My roommate from the NEC Conference, Marley Gibson, has some pictures up on the blog Books, Boys, and Buzz today, so if you want to see more costume party snaps, click here.
Here’s the picture of Jennifer O’Connell and me, in all of it’s grainy, blurry goodness (thanks, Marianne).
It was a little bit awesome to be at the NEC Conference, since that’s where the whole SSG ball got rolling. There, Marley pitched my book to an editor sitting at her dinner table. By the end of the conference, I had a bunch of requests and didn’t even know it. Within a week and a half, I had an agent, and within two more, I had a book deal. (Four years, four manuscripts, and three weeks, huh?) All weekend long, I kept hearing, “Oh, you’re the one.” Too funny.
On the plane flight home, I read Lauren Baratz-Logsted’s new YA release, Angel’s Choice, in one sitting. It was riveting. I actually sat on the plane while people were getting off because I wanted to finish it before I moved. Highly recommended. (Weird, though — Amazon shows it with a different cover than the one I have.)
Also recommended is this week’s book giveaway, Magic’s Child. This novel is the thrilling conclusion of Justine Larbalestier’s debut trilogy, Magic or Madness. It’s the story of Reason Cansino, an Australian girl born with magic in her blood who has to make a terrible choice: use her magic, and die young, or refuse to do so, and go insane. Justine’s books have won a ton of awards, which you can read about here and when I got my hands on an advanced review copy of this book, here’s what I said:
“The Magic or Madness trilogy is a rare treat: a naturalistic glimpse of a world in which magic is a dark gift indeed. Magic’s Child concludes the series with Larbalestier’s signature style of bewitching images, heartbreaking choices, and of course, the beauty of math. (Or, as Reason would put it, maths.)”
You can also download a free Magic’s Child screensaver on the Penguin website.
And now, you can win a SIGNED copy of Magic’s Child right here on the blog. Simply leave a comment and I’ll draw a winner on Friday. Good luck!
