Well, that was a week. I was sitting at my computer, twittering, when the earthquake started. At first I thought it was a truck passing closely outside. Then I noticed my tomato trellises shaking away and as the vibrations grew stronger, I put it together. (Yes, that’s a B.A. in Geology, why do you ask?)
You know how they say animals feel these first? Rio didn’t even wake up.
We didn’t sustain any damage and we’re all fine, here.
A few days later, everyone started panicking about the hurricane. Where I come from, people prepare for hurricane season the same way people up north prepare for winter. It’s a given that when you hear a storm is coming, you make sure you have fresh batteries in all your flashlights, a bunch of grillable/ready-to-eat food, a full tank of gas, and a few gallons of water, just in case. The large-scale panic, I think, was entirely media-generated. Hurricanes are bad and dangerous and this one hurt a lot of people, don’t get me wrong, but the shelves empty of flashlights and batteries and red wine were a little shocking to me. Pick up some staples, and make sure you have flashlights and water. Thanks to the fact that Sailor Boy and I are part of the 9/11 Generation and we live in our nation’s capital, we’ve got a permanent “emergency cabinet” in our house (which reminds me, I need to add stuff for Queenie to my jump bag.)
Even my parents, who have lived in hurricane-central for over twenty-five years, called me to report whatever piece of yellow journalism they were hearing on the news. We were all set — but we were lucky. Our power didn’t even go out. (Compare to July 2010, when an unnamed storm knocked out power to our house for a week.) We stayed indoors all day Saturday, and now there are little leaves and twigs all over my yard, but Sunday was gorgeous. We even took Rio for a hike in the park (the creek was running way high).
The moral of the story is, respect the weather, respect natural disaster,s be prepared, and for goodness sake, Don’t Panic.
In other news, remember when I posted these stats of For Darkness Shows the Stars? Turns out they were a little premature. No, I haven’t suddenly decided to add zombies. But I did have to do a little rejiggering of the chapters during the last round of edits. so now the chapter count stands at 43 and the unchapter count at 21. To compare: There are 26 in Ascendant and 27 in Rampant. There are 21 chapters in Under the Rose, which is the longest secret society book, and the one whose length is most comparable to FDSTS (see sidebar).
That’s a significant difference, to me. I wonder if it will feel so different to readers.I think sometimes I get overly obsessed with things like chapter breaks and chapter headings and the titles of various internal parts of my novel that readers don’t really care about. I suspect a significant number of readers never read the “confessions” — let alone the chapter titles — of the secret society books.
But of course, there are all kinds of crazy ways that I’ve learned readers read books over the years. Some read all the dialogue first and then go back and read the narrative. Some read the first few pages and then the last few pages and use that as a barometer to decide whether or not to read the book. Some buy all the books in a series and then hold off reading them until the series is complete. Some always skip the prologues, or never read the chapter titles, or refuse to read anything set in italic, or only read chapters with numbers divisible by six.
Some of these reading habits make me wonder how the reader in question can ever make sense of a novel.
Me, I’m a straight through, don’t skip a word kind of reader. I would never dream of skipping a prologue or a text block or a sex scene — the author put them there for a reason, and if I skip it, I’m missing something they designed to be part of the whole. And because I read that way, I write that way, too. I mean for all the words in my books to come in a particular order, and to be read in that order. I think you’re missing something if you don’t, but that’s the way my brain works.
There are no chapter titles in FDSTS — a first for my original novels. I felt like between the parts, and the quotes, and the unchapters — well, it was starting to get a little busy in the header arena. I don’t miss them. They were right for my other series, but simple numbers are right in this case.
Enough of that. You guys are going to be SO SICK of hearing me talk about FDSTS before the book comes out next June.
Next. June. Ugh. Kidlit publishing moves at a glacial pace, y’all. When I wrote Secret Society Girl, I turned the draft in August 31, and it came out in May of the following year. At least this isn’t as bad as Rampant, though, which had a 12 month wait time after proofs. One day, maybe I’ll be patient enough to write a book and not announce it until the ARCs come out.
Hahahahahhahahahhaha. Good one.
Yes, there will be ARCs of FDSTS. Sometime this fall, I hear.
This is what I’m doing to distract myself until then:
reading a lot
writing a lot
I am very excited about my new project. I am jamming it full of all kinds of things I’ve been interested in recently. Pets. Frocks. Swimming. Banter. And of course, fabulous names.
There you are! Eight whole glorious days (except for this weekend, and next Tuesday, when I have Q-duty) in which to:
clean out my bedroom
write a short story
clean out my office
proof SS #1: F
write approximately 35,000 words for the conclusion of Camp NaNoWriMo
Just kidding about that last one. If I do finish everything else, I will go back to my NaNo draft, but I bear no illusions that I’ll finish it, or even get 50k on it.
Still, I feel like I’ve really gotten into the swing of work this month. I feel like Q is finally on a regular schedule, and I’ve been productive and proud of my writing.For the last little-over-a-week, I’ve been doing the copyedits for For Darkness Shows the Stars, and reading it over again and making all those little this-is-the-last-time-I-swear adjustments just have me giddy all over again. I love this book so much. It makes me thrill, it makes me cry*, it makes me be totally unbearable with teasing you poor people since it won’t come out for another nine-plus months.
Nine. Months. Kill me now, y’all.
And the news does not get better from here, sadly. The anthology** I thought was coming out this summer, and then this winter? I just got a release date of March 2012 for the U.S. MARCH.
And I thought the Zombies vs. Unicorns paperback would be out soon, but Amazon is telling me April. And then I learned that the Ascendant paperback won’t be out until then either. And so I have absolutely nothing on the docket for 2011 (except for the “Best of” reprint) at all. Which makes me feel very sad, and dull, and thumb-twiddly. I know I shouldn’t be, since I do have a new novel and like five other things coming out in 2012, and I know this is my “just had a baby, things are still a bit topsy turvy” building year, but this is the first time in five years that I haven’t celebrated the summer with a new book release, so what I know and what I feel are not occupying the same space in my head right now.
The best method I’ve found to combat that, btw, is to work harder. So hopefully I can look back in December and go, “Yeah, I didn’t have a book out. But look, I wrote like three of them!”
Need to get on that.***
I leave you with this painting, shamelessly stolen from Lauren Dane’s tumblr, even though I’m almost positive this “Persuasion” has nothing to do with my Jane’s Persuasion:
Weirdly hot, right?
_________________
* I hope it makes you cry, too, but I have a sneaking suspicion I’m an easy mark in this case because frickin’ Persuasion makes me cry every single time I read it. So there are already all these strong Pavlovian Persuasion-crying associations in my brain.
** On the upside, I also just found out that William Sleator is going to be in it. WIlliam Sleator (rest in peace). Wiliam. Sleator! You guys. You guys. My mom recognized that name. Sailor Boy went, “You’re in an antho with William Sleator? He’s what got me into reading SF.” Which means William Sleator is responsible for me and Sailor Boy getting together, because when we met in college, it was bonding over SF. Which means WIlliam Sleator is also responsible for Queenie. And now I’m in an anthology with him, even though I will sadly never be able to meet him in person.
*** I have, however, written over 80,000 words this year on various works of fiction. I know. I didn’t believe it either until I looked at my word count meters. That’s like a whole book (But in my case, it’s half a book, then part of another book, then four short stories.)
I’m copyediting, which is both a very intense and at times a very tedious job. So in lieu of an exciting and long-winded blog post (that no one reads) this morning, I’m giving you a short excerptlet from For Darkness Shows the Stars.
____________
At last she was alone, and of course she returned to the barn. The sky had turned the colors of Post overcoats as the sun set, and now stars winked at the edge of the jagged black horizon. The barn was dark, and the familiar sound of lowing cattle had been replaced with the soft shuffling and snorts of the new horses. Elliot leaned her head against the door and sighed. The darkness was another relief. He hadn’t come here.
Elliot lit a lantern. As always, her eyes went first to the knot of wood near the floor by the entrance. It was a habit she’d been unable to break in four years. And, just like every other time in the past four years, the knothole remained empty.
As I’m copyediting FOR DARKNESS SHOWS THE STARS, I’ve found cause to think about one of my favorite character roles: the nemesis.
Who is the nemesis? Well, if comic book superheroes are to be believed, they are the villain. The Joker. Lex Luthor. Magneto. And yes, sometimes a nemesis is the same character as a villain. But it doesn’t have to be that way.
A nemesis is someone who opposes the protagonist. That’s all. A nemesis can fulfill this role over the course of hte whole story or even in a single scene (a lot of romance novels are premised on the concept that the main characters are each other’s nemeses.) The Greek goddess Nemesis was the spirit of divine retribution, specifically against those who succumb to the sin of hubris. I like to keep that in mind whenever I’m tempted to say that the nemesis has to be a villainous character. Sometimes, the nemesis is just the person keeping the protagonist from becoming too big for her britches.
A great example of a non-villainous nemesis is Cordelia Chase from Buffy the Vampire Slayer. Cordelia almost never agrees with Buffy or the yes-men in the Scooby gang. Much comic mileage is made of the fact that she generally finds Buffy to be full of crap. (One of my favorite scenes in that show is the one where Buffy can read everyone’s thoughts and they are ALL thinking about poor, poor Buffy except Cordelia, who’s all “Bored now*, can I go?”) But she is not a bad person and is a great asset to Buffy’s team. Later, after Cordelia’s exodus from the show, the ex-demon Anya fills a similar purpose. (Spike, too.)
Veronica Mars is simply chock full of non-villainous (mostly**) nemeses — people who oppose Veronica’s goals for motivations that even Veronica agrees are totally valid. Weevil, Logan, Duncan, Mac, and even Keith Mars all regularly do battle with our heroine, and they are also the people she loves best in the world.
I love to write non-villainous nemeses, because, let’s face it — even good people don’t always agree, and you can’t have everyone around your heroine being a boring old yes-man all the time. Characters who are “good” simply because they like your protag and “bad” if they don’t are boring. (I even like to write villains who love and agree with my heroines.)
Perhaps my most popular nemesis is Poe. (“Perhaps,” she says!) There are other hunters in the Cloisters who play the role of nemesis to Astrid and Phil and Cory. The nemesis in For Darkness Shows the Stars is one of my very favorite characters of all time.
Who is your favorite nemesis character and why do you like him or her?
_______
* Yes, I know “bored now” is not her line but rather Evil!Willow’s several seasons later, but I can’t be bothered to look up what it is she actually says right at this moment.
** There can be a fluidity on the nemesis/villain divide, especially in long running series, where they can skip back and forth over the line. Logan is occasionally a villain. Spike, certainly. Magneto basically lives on the line, leaning one way or another depending on the plot requirements and Dr. Xavier’s mood.
Perhaps you have heard about the current internet hub-bub surrounding the Monstromology series by Rick Yancey. If not, go here for an interview with him to see what the current state of the series (and the drama) is.
In short: Rick thought he was writing more books in the series, his publisher said no, he mentioned it online, and there was a huge write-in campaign (like they do for TV shows) and now there is some chatter about the publisher being upset. (which is probably just chatter, Rick. Keep up the good writing.)
I have gotten in several conversations recently with writers who are in Rick’s boat — their series have been canceled, or are in a state of limbo, or whatever. People often want to cast the publishers as the bad guy. People have written me to ask why I’m “protecting” Harper in the matter of killer unicorns… I think it’s easy to see from Rick’s example how quickly half-understood bits of information can go haywire and get people all riled up.
I can’t speak for Rick or the Monstrumologist series. I hope that he does find a new publisher and a way to conclude the books, because he clearly feels there is more to that story in that form. In my case, I don’t feel “cut off at the knees” in the same manner. I have never been told by my publisher that I can’t do what I want to do with the series. The truth is, we don’t know the answer to this yet. There are various options being floated and considered, but I’m not going to talk about them on my blog yet. (Last week, my editor and I discussed one possibility that has me totally giddy with excitement.) In the meantime, killer unicorns are very much alive. In fact, I’m writing a short story about them right now. The paperback of ZvU comes out next month. The paperback of Ascendant is out next spring. There’s a new unicorn short story coming out in an anthology this winter. It’s wall to wall killer unicorns around here.
And what makes that hilarious to me is that despite all that, my own personal focus as a writer is on another world completely, an austere future world where a young girl tries desperately to eke a living out of an unforgiving earth while the boy she loves has his eyes set upon the stars…
First, an update: Had a marvelous time at a family wedding this weekend in Buffalo, NY. Q did too — and aside from the gorgeous bride (my lovely cousin, Kelly), I think Q might have been the belle of the ball. Fortuitously, she was already dressed in the wedding colors of black, white, and hot pink; she crawled all over the dance floor before the music started and — judging from my family’s online picture albums, she had approximate seventeen thousand photographs taken of her. All that and she went to the Buffalo zoo, rode a merry-go-round for the first time (not a fan yet), met a baby gorilla exactly the same age she is, ate a pickle (SO a fan), had peanut butter toast, and very clearly and distinctly said “Da-dee” for the first time in reference to Sailor Boy (Sailor Boy disagrees with me on this one).
All in all, an excellent adventure.
In other news, I think I may be dropping out of Camp NaNoWriMo. My word count tracker thingy says at my current rate (which averages out to 662 words a day) I’m on pace to finish in mid-October. Actually, mid-October is a great pace for me to draft a novel. But I haven’t written anything in five days, AND I will not be writing anything for ht next week, as I’m busy with copyedits for FOR DARKNESS SHOWS THE STARS. Still, I’m glad I was able to “go to camp” for a week, because I got nearly 10k done on a new proposal.
But good luck to all the rest of you. I’m cheering you on from the sidelines!
Since posting the summary of my upcoming book, FOR DARKNESS SHOWS THE STARS, last week, my inbox has been filling with questions from readers. I really appreciate your enthusiasm, guys! I can’t wait for next summer. But for now, a little Q&A will have to do:
When can we see a cover?
I ask that same question all the time. I’ve seen a comp and it’s purty. When I have a final cover, believe me, I’ll be posting it all over (and talking about the crazy crazy story behind it.)
Is this a series?
No, it’s a standalone. I know, bucking the trend. But I’ve published two series so far (in fact, in my writing career, the ONLY original novels I’ve published have been series) so I needed a break.
Persuasion is one of Jane Austen’s most mature works. How did you write it as a YA?
There are a lot of questions that are variations on the theme of “how did you handle XYZ aspect of Persuasion“? The sort answer to all of them is: read the book to find out. To answer this one, specifically: the main character in For Darkness Shows the Stars is eighteen years old, which is on the “upper” end of the teenage years. As noted in the summary, she’s been separated from her sweetheart for four years. As to how everything else works out — sorry, you’ll have to read the book.
The summary says “inspired by Jane Austen” but you say it’s a retelling. Which is it?
Potato-potahto. I’m not exactly sure what the legal line is between “inspired by” and “retelling” when it comes to fiction. Maybe the nice people at Balzer & Bray, who wrote that part, do. “Inspired” has a nice ring to it. If I was going to compare it to something, I’d compare it to West Side Story or Clueless. These stories have the same basic plot and most of the characters map to characters in the original work, but there are a few adjustments (sexy Anita who is the girlfriend of Maria’s brother, instead of the old staid nurse from Romeo and Juliet; or the fact that Josh is Cher’s former stepbrother instead of her brother-in-law, as Knightley is in Emma). For instance, you can tell in the summary that the Captain is not a military man, but an explorer. There’s a change right there.
If that kind of thing annoys the purists, then they will, alas, be annoyed by my book. But honestly, if everything was exactly the same, just in post-apocalyptic costumes, then what’s the point? I can totally see doing that in a stage production, but not a novel.
Can you just tell me if you left my favorite part in?
No. Please believe that as in love with the source material as I am, I tried to remain as faithful to it as humanly possible. And in places that I did deviate, I hope I remained true to the spirit of Jane Austen.
I heard a rumor that this is an epistolary novel. Is that true?
Kind of. There are letters. But it’s not all in letters. Partially epistolary is fair.
Our house features a long living room — so long, in fact, that we actually made it into both a living room and dining room, divided visually by furniture arrangement, rugs and lighting.
But now we’re running into an unforeseen babyproofing dilemma. It looks like this:
This floor lamp has been with me since my college days (Yes, I know it’s time to cowboy up and get real live adult furniture), and it’s 1) precariously top heavy and 2) the glass shade makes a very satisfying clinky-clink sound when you’re a ten-month old adrenaline junkie hanging on to the pole and shaking it with your preternaturally strong little baby arms.
The clinky-clink sound scares the crap out of your mommy, by the way, Q.
But what to do? We NEED a light in that area of the room, since the only other lights are the interior lights of the china cabinet near the dining table, and the “mood lights” of the gorgeous antique deco amber mica sconces on either side of the fireplace (which is immediately opposite — i.e., I was standing in the fireplace when I took this picture) that were literally the very first piece of furniture we ever bought for our house. Neither of which work as “reading” lights, and that spot is definitely the reading couch.
Sailor Boy’s suggestion — tying the pole to the banister spindles — was nixed by me, both because of its aesthetic ickiness and because I don’t think that would preclude Q’s mission of making sure the light is earthquake-ready.
She looks so sweet and innocent when unconscious. Do not be fooled.
I considered a wall sconce, but the problem is, we don’t have much wall. The banister/staircase takes up a lot of space, and most of the wall over the couch is occupied by this:
You can’t really tell from this picture, but this painting is four feet long.
I considered replacing the floor lamp with a sturdy (yet small) side table topped by a table lamp, but that seems like it might crowd the open banister and make that area very heavy. Since it’s pretty much the first thing you see when you come into the front door of my house (ah, the joy of center-hall colonials), I don’t want it too crowded. I feel like the only thing that would be unobtrusive enough would be a spindly table and a spindly table lamp which would be just as precarious (and attractive) to Q.
I also considered a ceiling light dangling down (maybe an amber moroccan lantern that would tie in with the deco sconces) but I’m afraid that, although it would look good from the living room direction, it would compete with the entryway light and look odd and off balanced from the front door.
So…. this is my dilemma. I don’t want to lose the light source (really the only major one in the room, and it works on the switch you see in the picture) but I don’t want Q swinging on this thing anymore.
