Aspiring: Notes From an Unqualified Amateur

I know SOPA's over, but I'm still thinking through the siller consequences

2012-01-24T15:30:00.000-08:00

So! All the SOPA andPIPA stuff has died down, to everyone's relief, although now ACTA furor is inthe air. I'm sure I agree with mostInternet users in seeing these pieces of legislation as incredibly dangerous,both in my capacity as an almost-author and an almost-librarian. My mind goes strange places in trying tovisualize the outcomes of these events, though: in addition to penalties for file sharers, I wonder about fans who doproduce creative works based on copyrighted materials, and whether eventuallythe government will bother to target them, too.

I do enjoy looking at pretty fanart, but I've never beenmuch of a fanfiction reader (and never a writer). In theory, though, I don't mind it as long asnobody is making money from it. Ifpeople were to write fanfic of my work someday, I wouldn't read any of it (so Icould keep it from influencing my own ideas, especially if I were writing aseries, and prevent any allegations that I stole an idea from someone writing astory based on my own ideas!), but I wouldn't mind its existence. Some professional authors got their startwriting fanfic, and I'm generally of the attitude that anything that promotesreading and writing and literacy isgood.

It's been a while since I've seen fanfic wank floatingaround the Internet, so I don't know why my mind went there, but I think it'dbe a bit silly if laws went into effect that allowed the prosecution of fansexpressing themselves in innocuous ways (save for perhaps to some writers' egos).

Perhaps it's because, like I said, I like fanart. If these kinds of creators were scared ofjail, we'd never get that Chewbacca on a squirrel vs. Nazis picture I posted anentry or two ago. And that would be ashame.

Ehh, next time I'll write about something more concrete, or at least useful to the present. Perhaps constructed languages, since those have also been on my mind and I've got a background in linguistics. In the meantime, I start my final semester of grad school tomorrow, so please pray for my sanity. Whoosh~

Stop SOPA and PIPA

2012-01-18T13:29:00.000-08:00

As an aspiring writer, librarian, American citizen, and human being, I'm concerned.

If nothing else, do this, or pretty soon you won't be able to do much of anything.
https://www.google.com/landing/takeaction/

Wheels within wheels and stories within stories

2012-01-17T17:01:00.000-08:00

I love the story within a story format, but using it in my current WIP has caused me to reevaluate it more than I expected. Perhaps it's because the characters and plot in my supposed-to-be-short internal story kept threatening to expand and burst and become their own novel, making me think the relationship between the internal story and the larger, framing story. If those two stories aren't connected, putting them in one novel seems pointless. They need to work in tandem to create a larger, better picture for the reader.

Of course, there are many ways they can do that. In Patrick Rothfuss' THE NAME OF THE WIND, the internal story is the main portion of the book, and transpires as a first-person flashback within a larger, third-person frame. (The flashback seems a popular form of encompassing dual storylines, as does the use of many POV characters in epic fantasy, now that I think about it.) In VORTEX, the conclusion of Robert Charles Wilson's SPIN saga, there are two parallel storylines happening billions of years apart, and it isn't until near the end of the book that you find out how the two are connected. Writers have to be very careful with this, though, as it can frustrate the reader to switch back and forth between seemingly unrelated storylines, especially if they like one more than the other. Wilson is a masterful writer and the last ten percent of that book, which brought the storylines together and showed not only how they were connected to each other, but to everything earlier in the trilogy, was moving and powerful. In the hands of someone less skilled, though, that payoff isn't guaranteed, and one storyline could conclude seeming pointless or even annoying.

Relevance is the cause of my hesitancy at the moment. As much as I like my internal story, the longer I wrote it the more I questioned whether it was truly necessary for the narrative as a whole. This might just be first draft doubts, but I'm questioning whether the information I planned to bring to light through the internal story, the world-building and set-up, is vital for understanding the main narrative. And it's probably good to question. I'll either strengthen that storyline and use it to set up later events in the main story (though it's not a strict flashback, per se), strengthen and draw parallels between characters, and build up the themes of memory that are already making themselves known in the outline, or I'll realize it doesn't enhance the main storyline enough and cut it. Of course, I could then build it into its own novel, or use it as a tie-in novella, or something; in the worst case, it's a story I like that will help strengthen my writing skills. But I'm going to try to make it work!

What do you guys think of multiple storylines or stories within stories? Read any unique, interesting, or memorable examples recently?

Let's make 2012 awesome

2012-01-10T14:00:00.000-08:00

Ahh, I am back! Actually, I've been back for about a week, but somehow blogging has slipped my mind! I took a break over the holidays and formed some bad habits, I guess. Nevertheless, it was a relaxing and much-needed excursion, and I hope you all got to take a break and have some fun, too.

I wasn't lazy in every regard, though! My current WIP novel has a story-within-a-story structure, because I love those, and I've been working consistently on the inner story for the last few weeks. As should be expected of me, it's turning out longer than I'd anticipated. I'm about 3/5 of the way through my outline and already passed my estimated word count for the whole thing! But I think it's because the second fifth needed to be more complex than I'd projected, and thus took more time to tell properly. Even now I can feel the story threatening to turn into its own novel, but I quite like it, even in first draft form. I'll just need to figure out a way to tighten it up while enhancing the characters, their relationships, and the plot revelations that come out as a result. Then once that's done, I have to start on the main storyline. Eesh.

Looking forward, it's going to be a busy year for me! Let's see, coming up I have my last semester of grad school, which will start in a few weeks and end in May. Pretty soon I should start keeping an eye open for job listings. I've got Literary Orange in April, so I need to read my panelists' latest books for that. My best friend is getting married in August and I'll have to fit in maid of honor duties there (which I'm excited about, though!). And on top of that and writing, I want to submit some short stories for publication and start querying agents this year!

All written out, it doesn't look that bad. I'm looking forward to it. And to prepare for this year to be awesome, I will share this masterpiece with you:My admiration of the person who drew, yes, Chewbacca riding a freaking squirrel into action against some Nazis knows no bounds.

Happy belated New Year! What do you hope to get done during this turn around the sun?

"Worst books ever" posts kind of make me sad

2011-12-15T16:23:00.000-08:00

Huffington Post has a short slideshow of teens Tweeting under the #worstbookever hashtag. Awww. Makes me a little sad to see them throwing shade at some of my favorite books, but I do remember being frustrated by a few during my own high school career. Mostly it was due to disliking the voice or theme or finding the plot resolution unsatisfying; occasionally I just didn't like the characters or the author's views. I still can't really stand Hemingway given how misogynistic I found his works. I think I was the only person in my class who liked SLAUGHTERHOUSE-FIVE, and in fact it's still one of my favorite books.

"Worst books ever" posts make me a bit sad, although I realize that in most of these cases, it's just students venting. Venting's a healthy thing. We all need to do it sometimes. I know I do, though I usually keep it private. But reading these reminds me that sometimes I really miss English and language arts classes, because I did get to read a lot of interesting stuff that I might never have exposed myself to otherwise. What are your thoughts?

A few life musings, and some writing progress

2011-12-13T15:44:00.000-08:00

Hark! I was a bit undecided about what to post today, but since many people's posting seems to be winding down as the holidays approaches, I figured I'd just do a little personal update.

I finished my semester up about a week ago, and though I only have one left and will need to plan for it in January, I am allowing my mind to not think about school at all now. It has been, as I hoped and expected, extremely refreshing. I have managed to make some decent progress in the novel-that-was-taking-forever-to-start as my creative energies have returned, much to my delight. Don't get me wrong; I've still had some false starts and parts of it feel very drafty. But it's quite a change that I've been able to stare at a computer monitor and relax enough to write instead of wanting to stab my eyeballs with pointy things.

It's funny in light of the fact that so much business elsewhere slows down in December. My school is done for the year, the school where I work just finished its own quarter, and everywhere people are prepping for vacations. I feel I must be crazy to start a new novel, but I find this time of the year invigorating and think I'll be more productive than I have in a while.

I'm taking the next week off, taking my sister to Disneyland since she's home from India this year!, and then driving up north to see my parents from the 20th through probably the New Year (or close to it). It leaves me with an odd feeling that this might be my last blog post of the year, with how busy I'll be up there. All my computer time may be reserved for writing, and even that can be difficult to squeeze in sometimes between obligations and celebrations! But I'm sure I'll squeeze out a post or two as the inspiration strikes.

Also, I will be traveling with the cat. In a carrier. For eight hours. I am not sure how this will go.

I am excited, though! And hope my strange, alien-filled tale will continue to flourish. There's a story-within-the-story, and I'm writing that first, but as I am wont to do, am wordier than is acceptable and getting very into the characters. I fear this will try to become its own novel. No!

2012 is going to bring a lot of events. Aside from finishing up grad school, I'll be working on the novel, probably trying to get some short stories written and published and/or get an agent, eventually searching for a new job (as a librarian for reals this time), maybe traveling, playing maid of honor in the best friend's wedding, and who knows what else. Ack! No, I expect it to be fine for the most part. I hope, for the sake of my sanity. This past semester was stressful enough. Let's look forward with optimism, yes?

Alright, I'll wrap up this short ramble of a blog post and devote myself to thinking of better, and more universally applicable, topics for next time. Happy Holidays and God bless you all! Let me know if you're going to do anything fun, interesting, or unusual.

Playlists post

2011-12-07T12:17:00.000-08:00

I'm late with my blog post this week because I've been suffering a bad cold the last few days that has knocked me on my butt and kept me from accomplishing much of...well, anything. So, since my brain and sinuses are fighting me and I always think it's fun when I see other blogs do this, I thought I'd do a playlists post!

I'm not the type of writer who can listen to music when I write (at least not music with lyrics). I like having noise around me, but if there are words, I'll focus too much on them to write my own. Even if those words are in a language I don't know! But I do have mental playlists that help me with inspiration and planning.

Of course, none of you have ever read these books because I'm not published (yet), but oh well.

The first book
The first book I wrote with any seriousness centered on the relationship between a genetically-modified human weapon (who had X-Men-style powers, if we're being honest) and a pacifist revolutionary/war orphan who befriends him after he escapes his facility. It was inspired a lot by Lostprophets and my favorite band ever, Blindside, especially the following songs:

The second and third books
These were both trunk novels that didn't have a mental playlist. Correlation...or causation?

The fourth book
I like to say the fourth book is Trinity Blood meets The Road. A disillusioned mercenary escorts a sick nun to a group of scientists in a world afflicted with a disease that basically turns them into demons or Reavers. Lots of grappling with the beast within for both characters. I listened to a lot of symphonic metal as inspiration, especially E Nomine's "Wolfen (Das Tir in Mir)", which pretty much means "Wolves (The Animal in Me)".

Also of great import were songs like "Mysteria", "Deine Welt", and, since I mentioned Trinity Blood, the theme from that, Buck-Tick's "Dress".

The fifth book
i.e. the barely-in-progress one. This one doesn't have a soundtrack yet, so I'm hoping there is no correlation between lack of that and quality! I think one will come to me as I get more into it, though.

The sixth book
Funny enough, I already have a few mental songs for the book I plan to write next, which is the "What if they were robots?" one I laughed about a post or two back. I don't really watch much anime anymore, but Fullmetal Alchemist is one of my favorite stories ever. I was watching the Brotherhood series and remembered this song from the first series:

And then this song started playing automatically, and some of the imagery starting around 4:50 really struck me:

(No idea what the song is about, though.)

Wow, this post makes it seem like I listen a lot more J-pop than I actually do! I know very little about it, to be honest, but some of it's pretty cool.

Do you create mental playlists for your writing? What are some of the songs you use?

Ideas from weird places

2011-11-29T16:26:00.001-08:00

Over most of the holiday weekend, and the week before, and probably for another day or two still, I've been busting my hump working on final projects for grad school. Though most of my projects aren't due for another 1.5-2 weeks, I am ready to be done! As interesting as my classes are, this has been the most stressful semester I've had so far and it has impacted every area of my life in more ways than I had anticipated. (Including my writing...but I did get a lot of revision done this semester...) Once I've got those final projects out of the way, I will be able to devote much more attention to drafting things as well as relaxing and sewing and enjoying the holidays...

Already the stress is starting to lift a bit. I had been perturbed by the relative slowness with which new ideas were coming to me, but in the middle of my massive study-cramming last weekend, a peculiar one struck me out of nowhere: BUT WHAT IF THEY WERE ROBOTS?

Go ahead. Laugh. I did. And after I said "pffft", I kept coming back to the thought. What if they weren't robots per se, but it was some sort of weird post-Singularity thing? Maybe one that went terribly wrong? And the ideas kept flowing from there.

I always go on about seeing China Miéville at Comic-Con in 2010, and how he urged the audience not to dismiss their ideas, no matter how weird. And one of my favorite quotes from C.S. Lewis is, "Even in literature and art, no man who bothers about originality will ever be original: whereas if you simply try to tell the truth (without caring twopence how often it has been told before) you will, nine times out of ten, become original without ever having noticed it."

So I decided not to worry and just go with it. This idea isn't for the current book still only in the beginning stages, but the one after it--and let me tell you, it is a relief to have an idea that's going to be churning and spinning and swirling around in the back of my brain, waiting to be written when I finish this one, because this one refused to move past the vague idea stage for a LONG time.

And I've decided it's going to be awesome, even if robots/cyborgs/androids have been done before. The current book will have aliens but I still hope it will be awesome, too. It's funny; I always knew that any story I wrote would be SF, but never thought I'd write vampires, aliens, or robots. A few years ago I wrote a SF book with vampires (which needs some major work, though, to be honest) and now I'm writing aliens (well, one alien, and a bunch of humans) and next I'll be writing kinda-robots.

Let your ideas fly, even if they're weird or possibly clichéd.

What about you? Had any weird ideas? Had any at weird times or in weird places?

Using spreadsheets to map out your subplots

2011-11-22T13:55:00.000-08:00

So that Gary Corby spreadsheet idea I've mentioned several times on this blog? I decided to try it with the latest outline I've been working on. This is the result thus far (since the outline isn't quite finished yet):

I've blurred out the particulars of my chart, and made a few modifications to suit my own purposes. In this particular story, the cast is a medium-sized group that is stuck on an uninhabited alien planet, so they are pretty much together the whole time. This left me without a need to track where characters made appearances. Being more worried about tracking subplots and character arcs, I put a short description of each major scene along the top and of the subplot/arc on the left side. Some of those scenes will be broken up into smaller ones, of course, but for the purpose of tracking character and plot developments, they work fine this large.

I marked the introduction of a subplot with a red I, just so it would stand out, and used a slightly darker C to mark each arc's conclusion. Anytime that arc is developed in the middle of the novel is marked with a black X. Some of the subplots have their own divisions; for example, the subplot where the cast tries to determine whether they are really alone is divided into two, to show when they find evidence of habitation and when they find evidence against habitation. These are the cells marked in gray.

It's very useful! The areas shaded yellow are where I noticed there was little development of a plotline between its introduction and conclusion. For these, I will go back through my outline and try to figure out key places to work them in in as graceful a fashion as possible. The ones in pink are cases where I know the conclusion but have not yet figured out how or where to work the beginning and development into the story. I can be thankful that these are very small (one concerns the relationship between two characters, which is bound to develop anyway due to the tight-knittedness of the group, and the other concerns the appearance of a certain creature).

So that's it--a very useful tool for creating a visual map of your story. For plotters like myself, this is very useful in the planning stage, but for pantsers, I can imagine it being very useful as one revises.

Have any of you tried something similar to keep track of your story? Interested in trying something like this?

On library research for your writing

2011-11-15T16:00:00.000-08:00

Continuing with the library theme this week, I thought I'd write a little something about library research!

Maybe you're researching travel to other worlds. Or Sweden's politico-religious culture in the fifteenth century. (Yup, I've researched both for novels.) Whether you write science fiction, historicals, or another genre, you'll probably need to research during your career.

Most people aren't too intimidated about finding physical materials in the library, if only because staff can help when the building is open. But reduced hours are making it a challenge for some to visit during those hours. So what's a writer to do?

Online Databases
Electronic resources are often available to patrons at any time, from any location. Check out your library's website and look for a place to sign in. Entering your library card number or other identifying information will verify you as a library patron and get you access to articles from popular or academic journals, newspapers, and ebooks. If you're still unsure whether your local library allows off-site browsing, give them a call!

But how do I find stuff?

The biggest challenge is figuring out which terms to search. No matter how well-designed a database is, it's not a mind-reader, so it's important to try to think in terms of classification. Typing in "what happened in Sweden in the 1400s?" won't retrieve many results unless an article happens to use most or all of the same words. Instead, act like you're searching an index and pull out the key concepts.

Search Library of Congress Subject Headings

These are key phrases created by the Library of Congress to classify and describe information. If you can find the correct heading for your topic, you should find just about everything available on it. There's a good guide on the subject here (although it's a bit old), but you can also just play around to find the right heading. Or, when in doubt, ask a librarian!

The nice thing about LCSH is that you can append subtopics for more granular information. So when thinking about fifteenth century Swedish history, I might start off with the broadest topic I can think of (Sweden), then add History. I search for "Sweden -- History" (note the -- formatting). I'm not sure what date range to use, but in my catalog, I see there is an entry for "Sweden -- History -- 1397-1523", which fits!

Next I think about traveling to other planets. How might someone classify that? I try "Interstellar travel" and that works, but so does "Space travel", which redirects me to "Interplanetary voyages" and "Space flight". There are thousands of subject headings, so it might well take a few tries to find the right one. But once you get the hang of it, finding information becomes so much easier!

Some databases use their own subject headings, too. These can be just as useful, especially if there is a thesaurus feature to look them up. If you find a document you like, take a look at how it's categorized. Those terms could help you find more information on the same subject.

Public Universities

What if you'd still rather use print sources, or want access to academic information that your public library doesn't have? Investigate the policies of local public university libraries. Many of them will allow walk-in users, since they're funded by tax money (although you won't get borrowing privileges). Even better, they might be open longer than the public system, especially around midterms or finals.

Google and Wikipedia

Don't let anyone lie. Librarians use both these sites to look up basic information like names and dates. They're fine when used properly. Just gauge what sort of information you need before using. If you want authoritative information from an expert on a topic, I'd recommend the library, but if you just want to make sure historical figure X was born in 1610, Google away.

This turned into a long one, and I still feel like I've given only the most basic information about online searching! Questions? Future topics in this vein you'd like to see? Fire away.

Guest post on Rachelle Gardner's blog today!

2011-11-10T08:57:00.000-08:00

Hey! Rachelle Gardner, literary agent extraordinaire, asked me to write a guest post on her blog about the economic impact of libraries and whether they are good for authors. And guess what? I totally did!

For anybody hopping over here from her post, welcome!

On being well-versed, and also a plug for Literary Orange

2011-11-08T00:00:00.000-08:00

The LO part might be last in the title, but I'll pimp it out first in this post. Since the official website for next year's Literary Orange is up, I guess I can announce this: I'm going to be moderating again! I'll be doing the "Cosmic Destinies" fantasy panel, which is scheduled to include Samantha Henderson and Nathan Long. If you like books and live in (or will be in) southern California next April 14th, you should stop by!

Now to being well-versed:
I was conversing with a friend last night on the topic of science fiction and fantasy and how difficult it is to keep up with everything in that genre. It's got a rich history and its output seems to be growing everyday, and a number of authors are very prolific. I read quite a lot, and I used to be able to read even more when I could take the bus to work and didn't have to deal with grad school und so weiter, but even so, I feel like my knowledge is scattered. I've read almost everything by a few authors, bits and pieces of a larger number of authors, but most I know only by name and reputation. Every once in a while I'll overestimate my reading prowess...

I've read this much! I'm awesome!

...only for somebody else really into the genre to start discoursing at length about some author I've barely heard of and hadn't esteemed all that crucial to knowledge of the genre, and then I'll realize how little my hope of reading even a majority of the literature out there is. And the fact that I read in other genres, too, reduces further my chances of catching up!

Oh. The library's a bit bigger than I thought.
What do you mean there's more than one room?

I'm now convinced that anyone who claims to be super well-versed in science fiction and/or fantasy literature is one of the following:

overconfident of the proportion of it they've read
ill-informed of the scope of literature out there
confined to one particular sub-genre
blessed with a life and job that lets them read 24/7 (and even then I doubt their claims)
lying

Or maybe I'm just delusional in my interpretation of some people's claims or the feasibility of reading enough of these particular genres to be considered well-versed. Perhaps my definition of well-versed is simply too strict. I just know that I've read quite a lot, but still have much more to read!

What say you? How much do you think you have to have read to be considered well-versed, and are you there yet? How much do you read?

On outlining and inspiration and lack thereof

2011-11-01T12:30:00.000-07:00

I was going really strong with the outlining for a few days and then, BAM! idea block.

I had a vague idea of a few of the characters and the world they would inhabit, but said world is pretty isolated. Uninhabited, except for this small group of people. I had a few minor sources of conflict (man vs. nature, tensions within the group, mystery of the world, etc.) but nothing that felt big enough or hadn't been done very well in very well-known sources. I needed something big and not cliché to add interest.

So I told myself that idea probably just needed more time to ferment, as most of my good ones have in the past, and began outlining another novel. I incorporated a few characters I've been playing with since college and invented a few more who have the potential to be cool, but after a few days, I realized I couldn't really progress with the plot until I had figured out the central mythos of their world. I had a good idea of part of this world's history, but again, hadn't figured out the big, central conflict. I had just finished rereading a story I love for its huge cast of complex, fleshed-out characters and well-established world and magic/science system, and wanted to do something similar in scale, but again found myself tossing every little idea either because it didn't excite me or it had been done before and I couldn't figure out how to add my own spin.

Don't get me wrong. I'm confident that with enough time to think about the set-up, I could build my skills and craft a story that is complex and fleshed-out. My problem, though, is that I've always been quick to dismiss little ideas, or at least relegate them to minor sub-plots, while my big ideas, my good ideas, have always taken quite a while to build in my head. But I don't have that time right now! I've been revising old manuscripts for a while, and I know I do need to start really getting into something new. But of course, stressing about inspiration keeps inspiration away.

Well, I do have some short stories I want to rework. And that first idea actually has a story-within-the-story that I really liked and fully outlined, so I can write that, and maybe it will help me figure out what to do with the main story other than have characters walk around a deserted world and remark on how interesting everything is. Sometimes writing is the only way to stir one's imagination.

But I'll still wish some inspiration fairy could come infuse my head with dreams.

On taking beta feedback

2011-10-25T00:41:00.000-07:00

So I talked to a beta this weekend, who is about a third of the way through my most recent manuscript. Even though I've just started outlining a new novel, I'm getting excited to implement her feedback once she's finished. This last book was a bit of an experiment for me in several ways for me (small cast, unusual setting, different story structure, wrote it from beginning to end, etc.), and I tore apart and rearranged the structure during the first round of revisions, so I really needed someone to go through and help me catch continuity errors and plot holes and so on. It was interesting to hear her preliminary thoughts on what needed more description, what didn't make sense yet, what did work, and some issues I suspected but was unsure of so I left them in on purpose to see whether another reader would notice.

I've got a lot of work ahead of me, and I need to learn to write on a tighter schedule, but I'm looking forward to working on the third draft of this story. (Actually, I'm getting better at getting first and second drafts done in a timely manner, but I've got to remember to allot time for further revisions.) Like I said in my last post, one of the perks of still being unpublished is that I can take my time! But I think in many ways I almost enjoy revising more than first drafting, because most everything is already in place.

We'll see if I feel that way when I start the third draft. I'm riding high on a few positive comments right now, but I'll probably lament my writing abilities for a day when I get all the notes and see everything that still needs improvement. This beta is harsh but fair and, unlike me, actually went to school to study this. My goal is to write better first drafts so that fewer critiques are needed, and those critiques are on superficial things, not giant story matters. And I've got to get over this idea that first drafts can be trash, but second drafts should be perfect!

What about you? What's your favorite part of the writing process? And how do you deal with feedback on your work?

A confession and an "enjoy the time you have now"

2011-10-18T10:00:00.000-07:00

I must confess to something shameful, especially for one as disciplined as I:

Last week, and probably this week too, I've been taking a break from writing.

Now, before I hang my head in shame, let me offer my excuses: I know I've mentioned several times how crazy grad school is this semester. Well, it is. I lost a huge amount of data and hours of work on a massive project right as I was going to back it up. The reading and work loads are crazier than anything in the first two years, and it got to the point where I literally (and I mean that in the correct sense of the word!) did not have time or energy to balance work, school, and writing. When I only have to handle two of the three, I excel. With all three growing more demanding, I was beginning to resent everything. On top of that, projects were piling up at home, creating even more metaphorical weight on my shoulders: sewing left undone for months; piles of things to throw out, donate, or sort through as I fall clean my apartment; multiple rooms that need scrubbing, and so on.

So I decided to give myself a short break, as some take vacations from their normal jobs. Sure, writing's my dream, but it's proven beneficial so far: I've been able to get miscellaneous projects out of the way, and am close to finishing several others. I'm making tremendous progress on the largest school project I will have this semester, and its completion will relieve a tremendous amount of stress. And best of all, it's rekindling my previously-seriously-threatened creativity. I had just finished revisions on one novel, was still waiting for beta feedback on another, and was struggling with revision ideas for a few short stories and what to do for my next novel. I had only a vague idea of the world and characters, and now that I've had a little time to miss writing, they've begun whispering. I think I'll need to watch a lot of Life After People. For research purposes. Yes.

And see, the thing is, if I were already a published writer, I probably wouldn't be able to take this sort of little vacation. (Of course, I'd also be finished with grad school, but something else could threaten my sanity.) But once deadlines, other than self-imposed ones, become a reality, and people are counting on you and money and your reputation are on the line, you have to deliver. So, unpublished writers, as much as you aspire to see your books on the shelves, enjoy the time and flexibility you have now, when you can take a week or two to recharge if need be!

That's not to say you can slack whenever things get a little tough. Writing takes discipline, and you have to learn to write even when you don't feel like it. In my case, the benefits of taking two weeks off and getting other things out of the way outweighed the consequences of not getting anything writing-related done (other than thinking about my next novel, and getting excited about it). If I needed these vacations frequently, though, I'd have to reconsider whether I was really following the right path. But for now, I'm just going to count it as a blessing that I have the time and flexibility to take a breather before diving back in. And next week, to mix metaphors in a horrific manner, I will get back on the horse.

It'll look sort of like this.

When did you start?

2011-10-11T13:11:00.000-07:00

Inspired by Rachelle Gardner's post (about why you don't need to put "I've been writing since I was two!" in your query letter, because we've all been doing that), I thought it'd be fun to share when I started writing. Share your stories with me, too.

Before I started kindergarten, but after we moved to the house where I spent most of my childhood--so I must have just turned five--I was very frustrated that I didn't know how to write. My parents always read stories to my sister and me, which was a real blessing, and dang it, I wanted to make stories like that, too! But Tikki Tikki Tembo and The Velveteen Rabbit would have nothing on my stories! But of course, when I looked in the books, none of the letters made sense. Still, I must have thought I could teach myself to write through sheer willpower, for one day, MagnaDoodle in hand, I set out to write a letter to my dad.

Which he couldn't read. Because my letters were squiggles.

I'm pretty sure he just quirked an eyebrow at me and went back to organizing tools or something.

I was nonplussed.

Remember these? I should have saved mine. And framed it. For posterity.
I've mentioned in a previous post how I always used to make up stories as a kid. The first story I can remember writing, though, was for my third grade teacher. It was about a sea anemone detective who got framed for a murder by a man who had hair that looked like a sea anemone. (Ahh, the early nineties. Remember when guys used to wear their hair in flattops? I had marine biology on the brain even then.) Anyway, my teacher didn't know what a sea anemone was. I thought this was a silly critique, and brought in a picture to show her.

Then, in eighth grade, some kid gave a bad critique to my story because he'd never heard of The Empire Strikes Back. Such knowledge wasn't even important to understanding. It's not my fault you've got a basic ignorance of life, man.

And I've loved making up stories, if not writing them, ever since. Although I do still get annoyed when I get critiqued for silly reasons!

What about you? When did you start?

How did I get to five drafts?

2011-10-04T15:23:00.000-07:00

As I grapple with the demon-infested waters of grad school and a full-time job, I am finally--finally!--nearing the end of the fifth draft of my first novel. Finally! Note: I haven't been working on it this whole time. Actually, I took a break after the third draft, gave it to betas, and made a few changes based on their feedback, which I'm pleased to report was positive but fair. And then I let it sit for a long time and wrote other books before deciding to give it one last look, now that time has passed and my skills are--in theory--improved. Or so I hope.

And I'm glad I did! Although I'm still pleased with the story, reading old writing is weird, and you always notice a few choices or quirks of the language or whatnot that you can't imagine making in the present. There were also some minor instances of head-hopping that seemed a little amateur, even as much as I like to play with POV. So yep! I think after this round, the book will be about as ready to submit as I can make it, and I intend to try next year! I'd try now, if I weren't so busy my eyeballs might melt. (Lovely image, right? My brain feels like one of those "this is your brain on drugs" commercials with the egg from the '90s, that's how busy I am lately!)

To think that when I started on this endeavor, I never thought five drafts was a realistic thing. Surely I'd have it figured out after two or three! How naive of me. At least the changes are getting more minor with each round. Of course, if this novel does end up selling, it could even go through eight or nine drafts once agents and editors get through with it.

So (presuming I survive), fingers crossed for next year!

Silly writer dreams

2011-09-29T18:47:00.000-07:00

It has been a crazy week full of eight million people wanting sixteen million things out of me at work, 3000 pages of reading for grad school, floating CSS columns, choosing between saving the galaxy and becoming the Dark Lord of the Sith, and working on the fifth draft of a novel I wrote a long time ago. Despite the fact that I have been constantly running, running, running with even fewer breaks and more threats to my creativity and mental energy these past few days, my mind has drifted to the past and the future.

You see, last Friday I saw my favorite band ever (Blindside) for the second time and met them for the first. I shouted until I lost my voice and bore a giant bruise on my shin from the exuberance of the crowd. It was glorious.

You see, I'm not one of those people who listens to music as I write. But way back when I was writing the first draft of this novel, I'd listen to them *before* writing, because as my story progressed I realized a couple of their songs resonated with the characters and the tone I wanted to evoke. Simply put, they inspired me.

And then my silly writer dreams come in, my fantasies of doing all the things that come last in the process, like writing the acknowledgment page. Because I love words in print, and I want to thank them in a unique way, because "I've been a fan for over ten years" and "your music means so much to me" just don't seem to be enough. Not when everybody at each of their shows is pouring their hearts out alongside them on the stage. They know we love them like that. Should I have the opportunity, I want to give back more.

So you see, though there are dozens of reasons I would choose this book if I could only have one published, but that's the one on my mind lately. They'll all wax and wane in relative importance as different things consume my life, but for now, in this era of craziness and not-having-time-for-anything, it's keeping me going.

Review: The Taker, by Alma Katsu

2011-09-27T16:02:00.000-07:00

So, onward with the quest to review all the books I got at Comic-Con this year. This week it's THE TAKER, the debut novel by Alma Katsu.

THE TAKER is the tale of a young woman growing up in Puritan Maine, her love for the most beautiful man in the town, and the way it ruins both of them for eternity--literally, because through some sort of medical/supernatural happenstance that is not fully explained, they both are sucked into the scheme of a conniving alchemist and made immortal. It's a tale fraught with the dangers of obsession, lust, and greed, told in three time periods, including the present, in which Lanny must deal with the aftermath of all her life has wrought.

Katsu's prose is haunting and lyrical without being overwrought, and Lanny's narration feels consistent over the two centuries the story spans, despite her increasing boldness, freedom, guilt, and sorrow as she progresses through a life burdened by events she caused but never asked for. Though the plot seems fairly straightforward on the surface, Lanny's reflections made me consider often the difference between the author and the character. This book is an excellent reflection of the gulf that can span the two, and how authors can write situations and characters they don't necessarily condone, or write them as warnings without becoming preachy. For example, several scenes in the present seem to glorify drug use, with the characters finding relaxation and release in the action, but their despair at their lives is never veiled, and it's clear that the drugs are just a chance for them to escape, to live in oblivion and denial for a while, and that the whole situation is pitiable. (The drug in question is marijuana, though, which a good number of readers won't consider any big deal at all, but I think my interpretation still stands! They're only taking it to cope with the misery of their lives.) So, too, is the book sex-obsessed, but that action quickly loses much of its glamor as well, becoming something used far too often for power and escape but rarely for anything good.

There's an undercurrent of deep sadness to all of Lanny's actions as the timeline progresses, and she herself is not the most reliable narrator, seeming to have a clear perception of human nature and her own actions in some instances while remaining in perpetual denial about others. Throughout the book, she consistently condones the actions of Jonathan, the beautiful boy who causes her downfall, maintaining that it is just his nature to fool around with every girl, even committing adultery, and that women have no choice but to fall in love with him and fulfill his every desire. Despite the fact that this puts her--and others!--in an unacceptable situation in her society, she never considers the idea that he should take responsibility for his actions (unless it's convenient for her), or that he's in any way culpable for seducing women as they are for being seduced, or that anything is in any way his fault. I would have liked to see her grow that way, but as the story plays out it is a fascinating look at the blindness we sometimes impose on ourselves with obsession and idolization and the amount we are willing to accept in an unequal relationship when we believe ourselves to be in love.

THE TAKER is far from being the happiest book in the world, but it is lovely in its own way, and haunting. It's a meditation of obsession and misplaced love, and a chilling cautionary tale that avoids becoming didactic. Katsu's prose is fluid and gorgeous, despite its darkness, and I could see this being the beginning of a great career for her. Fans of books like Andrew Davidson's THE GARGOYLE would definitely enjoy this.

Of writing and reasons

2011-09-20T17:00:00.000-07:00

In case I haven't mentioned it already (nope, no way, hasn't happened), I am very busy with both work and grad school and it's causing me constant concern over my writing productivity this year. In short, I dread lacking the time and me
insert linkntal energy as time progresses, since all of these activitiehttp://www.blogger.com/img/blank.gifs dip from the same energy pool. I'm gripped with a paralyzing fear of not getting much done, of crying from being unable to put words on the page or, worse, of being one of those phonies who only talks about writing.

Well. Things tend to come along when you need them, and yesterday I read two very inspiring posts about why people write. Here's Athol Dickson's post on Rachelle Gardner's blog about why he writes magical realism, and Therese Walsh's post on Writer Unboxed on why writers write/readers read.

Why do I write?

I write because, since childhood, I have been obsessed with stories. I told myself stories before I fell asleep each night. I couldn't fall asleep unless I made up some world, some new characters, and explored bits of their lives inside my head before drifting off to dreamland. It got to the point where I would fight off sleep to keep imagining.

When I was a kid, I didn't spend my recess playing tetherball or on the swingset. Or when I did, I was really a Pegasus, and whatever necklace I was wearing was a magical pendant, and somehow winning that tetherball game was crucial to saving the earth. Or, on the jungle gym, I was going for Olympic gold, though I wasn't all that graceful.

As I got older and more disciplined, I began seeking more structure in my creativity. I'm not an artist, I can't really sing, but I discovered I was decent with words. From that point on I knew language would be crucial in whatever I did. Real life brought different interests and hobbies, but one of my majors ended up being linguistics, and that passion for making my own fictions resurfaced. Only this time, I yearned to make some of those fictions tangible, giving them form in ink on paper and, later and inevitably, in computer pixels. (Although that's not really tangible either, is it?) I don't write everything; some things I keep private and some I decide are too short or weird. This would dismay China Miéville, whom I still remember saying to use every idea you have, no matter how bizarre. In my case, maybe those ideas are still cooking, and will emerge better-formed at some future point--

Why genre fiction?

Because science fiction and fantasy are about fantastic things. Improbable or impossible things. Symbolic things. And because I think symbols are one of the richest languages we have for examining the world and the human condition. When people see how worlds and characters move in a fictional realm, ostensibly not like ours, they come to realize that some things still look familiar, and that is because the world is just a veil. People are the same in California or Narnia or on the planet Equatoria, but sometimes we can't realize all our flaws and capabilities until we see them presented in some outstanding fashion. That gauzy veil of fantasy allows us more comfort in examining the world and human nature, but can also challenge us to a deeper analysis of something we might have otherwise overlooked. Symbols are merely another way of presenting reality, and in fiction, I find them more interesting than objective fact.

…I suppose that, as long as I have this passion and burning need, I'll be OK in the end, even if this year is not as fruitful as I would otherwise hope. I'm moving steadily through revisions still, so at least there's that. But Lord, I hope I can do something new, too.

Revising old stuff is weird

2011-09-15T17:00:00.000-07:00

I am on a revising roll and it's almost Friday.

So I'm revising a novel I wrote a few years ago, because I still think it's one of my best/favorites stories and I plan to query with it at some point (probably next year, after grad school's out of the way). And I still like it a lot! Nothing in it has made me cringe too hard, so I haven't melted with despair over my terrible lack of talent and futile quest toward publication.

But! Like with any manuscript from the past and growth over time, there are a few instances where I have been bewildered by some of my choices then. Like, though I wouldn't qualify it as abuse, I liked adverbs a lot more three years ago. And there were one or two instances where I head-jumped between characters for a paragraph, which doesn’t work with semi-limited third, even with dual MCs. And who knows what else I'll find as I continue through. I'll have to read through my first two chapters again once I reach the end to make sure the changes I've made work the way I think they do.

At least I'm still feeling pretty confident about the plot structure, character development, and important stuff like that, and still smiling at some of the lines I wrote. If I can forget I wrote this book and find myself just enjoying it, I will feel ready. Of course, at that point I'll realize that I wasn't revising anything and then conduct a frantic re-read--

But I'll take it as a good sign if I can get lost inside a story I wrote.

On the subjectivity of book reviews

2011-09-13T13:37:00.000-07:00

I've been struggling lately with my goal to review all the free books I got at SDCC. Well, with one book in particular. The book had an interesting, gritty plot. The prose was lovely. It straddled well the line between YA and adult, and I could truly see it appealing to both groups.

The problem is me. Perhaps I didn't read the jacket copy close enough, or got the wrong impression from it, or put too much stock into the cover image. Despite the solidity of this book and the writing, I found myself disappointed and enjoyed it less than I should have because it was not the kind of book I expected. The jacket copy made me think of a much more post-apocalyptic world, and the society in the story had luxuries and technologies I didn't find believable. (Actually, I questioned them within the context of the story, too, so I guess that is a valid complaint.) The setting was more industrial than I expected, which made impossible the type of story I was expecting. The cover image also suggested a completely different climate to me, one I was excited to read about, and the orientation of that image made me think there'd be more fantastical elements, or just plain weirdness, to the setting the characters inhabited, and thus to their stories. Of course, the author isn't at fault for this, and who knows how much information the cover artist had to work from. The one critique of the author I mentioned above, though it occurred throughout the story, wasn't enough to detract from the plot, pacing, etc. The story was well-conceived; the nuances of the setting just required minor suspension of disbelief on my part. Other readers might not notice or care at all. In the end, though, I was dismayed that the story took place in a city at all, when I'd been expecting more of a forest. When I looked back, though, that was mentioned on the jacket copy, so it's my own fault for missing it. And it wouldn't be fair to dismiss the author for that.

And yeah, my disappointment is probably compounded a little by the fact that I thought it might be a good comp title for a manuscript I've finished the second draft of recently, but there's only one superficial similarity of the setting between them.

Book reviews are opinion pieces, and by nature they are subjective. There's just no working around that. Good reviewers will work to eliminate little biases like these, though, especially when it doesn't reflect on the quality of the work and they're not evaluating its themes and messages. So for right now, I don't feel comfortable reviewing this book, because my review wouldn't be fair, and I'll hope my disappointment will fade enough for me to provide a good evaluation someday.

Of Awards and Long Weekends

2011-09-06T18:15:00.001-07:00

Hey all! How's it going? I totally lazed it up this past holiday weekend with a friend's birthday/Disneyland trip, movies, Doctor Who, and barbeques. It was so nice to relax, especially given how crazy grad school has been even in the first two weeks of the semester and how much I really need to finish those last couple revisions on one novel and then re-revise another and outline and outline and do more outlining and, ahh, at some point, decide on a novel and write a first draft...

In amusing news, Kris Atkins gave me an award over at her blog for coining the term "Sequelitis"! I am clearly the Shakespeare of my day. Images of bad Photoshops are springing into my head, as a result of an inside joke with other friends that has resulted in me producing way too many bad Photoshop jobs. In all seriousness, you should really check out Kris' blog if you like aspiring writer blogs. I'm assuming you do, or why else would you be here? She's witty and funny and I get the feeling that I'd really like her a lot in real life if we were ever to meet outside of the interwebs.

Also, like my fancy right-aligned picture? I totally did the code for that on my own instead of using WYSIWYG. No big deal, but it shows that I'm learning something in my non-crazy class!

So speaking of awards, do you use them much to judge the merits of a book? To decide which books to read? In the library field, they can be pretty important, if only for the fact that the public uses them to decide what to read, and so we're sure to get requests for award-winning or -nominated material. As a big SFF fan, I know anything that's won a Hugo or Nebula is likely to be good, although of course I've found exceptions according to taste. I listed quite a few when I lectured a few months ago, but personally, other SFF awards don't sway me too much either way, nor do most non-genre specific awards. I've liked quite a few Pulitzer winners, etc., but also found just as many pretentious. I'm more swayed by reviews, unless I know something of how an award is chosen. But what are your thoughts?

And speaking now of reviews, I'm hoping to throw up another SDCC book review this week. I need to work on wrapping up a few minor revisions on the most recent novel tonight so I can send it to my beta(s). Scary exciting!

And here is a picture of my cat, doing what I somehow did a lot of and not enough of this past weekend, but in a much more humorous position. He always steals my seat when I want to write, the little bugger...

Of Comp Titles and Marathons

2011-08-30T17:16:00.000-07:00

My final year of grad school started this past week, and it's looking to be a doozy. Between a full-time job, one heck of a workload in one of my courses, and the looming specter of building my portfolio next spring (not to mention maid-of-honor duties in a wedding, panel moderation at a literary festival, eventually--eek!--job-hunting, and maybe starting to actually do that query thing), I'm having a hard time figuring out where I'm going to find the time or mental energy for writing. Or a personal life. But mostly the writing. I plan to revise some novels and short stories, maybe write a few more short stories, and outline a few novels next, so that will probably fill up a few months, but I definitely don't want to let myself wait until May to start another first draft. That would be terrible!

Thoughts of revisions led me to thoughts of query letters, which led me to thoughts of comp titles. I know they aren't the most important part of a query, but it's still impressive if you can relate your book to several other titles to show you've considered your potential audience and so agents and editors can gauge how well your book might sell. But man, do I overthink it. I analyze every little portion to death, thinking, "Well, this story element is kind of similar, but all of these other things aren't" or "Hmm, my use of this device is similar to this other author's, but the stories have nothing in common!" or whatnot. In the end, even if I can identify tropes that have been used in 800 other novels, I have a hard time saying my book is similar enough to another because of any differences. And then you have to worry about appearances of delusion or inflated ego if you think your book would appeal to fans of something very successful and popular! I should probably stop taking it so seriously. Is an agent really going to request my manuscript, love it and think it will sell a million copies, but then shoot me down as a phony because they didn't think it was in the same vein as whatever comp title I chose? That'd be pretty silly.

Another issue is that I am more often inspired by graphic novels, movies, anime, etc., than other novels. I won't claim my ideas are 100% ORIGINAL NOBODY'S EVER DONE THIS BEFORE, but if I read a cool idea in a novel, I don't usually want to spin off of it for my own. If I see it in some other medium, especially a visual one, it makes my brain hash it out more, wanting to warp it beyond recognition and see it in text, totally separate. But listing some obscure manga as a comp title defeats the purpose. Not only might the agent not recognize it, but it doesn't help with that sales figure problem since the audiences aren't the same. Comparing a book to a major movie might be OK in certain circumstances (to give a sense of the plot or tone, or to cash in on a big trend that crosses media), but even that's stretching it.

I have a few strategies. Obviously, I browse my bookcases, as well as bookstores or Amazon for books I've heard are similar but with which I might be less familiar. If I am inspired by some manga or movie or whatever, I try to research any novels the author/writer listed as inspiration, to see if there's some basis for comparison there. I browse the TV Tropes website, which is addicting but pretty useful if you can identify your major story elements that would be marketed. What do you do?

(Speaking of, my next Sequelitis review will probably be a book I just read that falls squarely into that hmm-there's-some-similarity-in-the-basic-underlying-premise-but-nothing-else area.)

Revisions!

2011-08-23T16:25:00.001-07:00

I am one of those writers who likes having written and loves revising. Nevertheless, despite having been through this process a few times, the second draft of this novel is posing lots of new challenges as I reach its conclusion! Ahh well, it's all for the good (as one of my characters would say), because we can't grow if we just do the same things over again.

Despite my outline, I changed course halfway through the novel in terms of how much of the Big Secret my main character knows. I decided he really did know one of the key pieces of information much earlier in the story, and had to edit out all his cranky responses to being left in the dark in later portions of the manuscript. Fun with continuity! This dilemma hasn't quite presented itself in this way before (it's always been more like mixed-up dates or similar), and now I'm paranoid that some motivation won't make sense where I missed a spot. This is where outside eyes are going to be helpful!
Dropped a tiny subplot. It would have been interesting, but there were already a couple Big Ideas in the story and this wasn't adding too much. Had to untangle all the sections where I'd started to weave that thread.
Although it was too long, it wasn't as long as previous manuscripts, and cutting spare words hasn't been too hard! It's still long-ish, but not epic fantasy long, and I am so grateful SF and fantasy can get away with longer word counts. I don't know how I could do anything in 80,000 words.

I had to add in a few pieces of information and worldbuilding, and still do need to find a place to insert one or two more tiny things. Overall I feel like this is one of the strongest first drafts of anything I've written, and I'm hoping my beta(s) will help figure out what needs to be patched now that I've rent so much of it. Should be finished with this second draft in a day or two!

In other news, my final (fingers crossed) year of grad school starts tomorrow, and I am lamenting my lack of vacation. I hope this semester won't be too crazy, because I know spring will be.

Do you like revising? What's your favorite part?

Applying fantasy lessons to real life?

2011-08-16T19:48:00.000-07:00

This blog post reporting on Richert and Smith's study of whether children can apply lessons from fantasy stories to real life is fascinating, and certainly raises a lot of questions for those of us who write in that genre. Simply put, although kids can recognize the difference between fantasy and reality, and even between different fantasy worlds, they aren't able to transfer solutions from fantasy stories to real-world scenarios. They could transfer solutions from real-world stories to real-world scenarios, but even when the same solution was presented in a fantasy (such as pulling a rope to bring an object closer), they seemed to have a mental barrier to transferring the lessons from fantasy to reality. This inability was more strongly manifested in the children most engaged in fantasy, playing pretend, etc.

I could see these findings discouraging fantasy authors who want to encourage people to stretch their imaginations, and even being used against them by critics. I've heard many speculative fiction authors remark that they are drawn to genre writing because it offers them a unique opportunity to examine real-world problems in an interesting way, and that they hope readers will see real-world parallels and even take action battling some of these issues. In other words, they hope the veneer of fiction will help people see the problems in reality and begin working to apply solutions. Are these authors misguided in their hopes? Is there just no way their work can effect any sort of change, even if it is only change within the mind?

No, of course not! As interesting as these findings are, it's important to remember that this study only looked at three-to-five-year-olds, who are at an early point of their cognitive development. According to Jean Piaget, children at this age are in the preoperational stage, only just beginning to use symbols and haven't quite begun abstract thinking. This would seem to include the ability to see parallels between fantasy and reality and realizing there could be truths in the former. Once they develop more, it's likely they'll be able to connect the two and the goals of the adult fiction authors to whom I allude above will not be in vain. It's also important to realize this study is only looking at practical problems, not moral or ethical ones which are above the heads of most children that age in any context.

It'd be really interesting if the study could be extended to determine when that's likely to happen, though. Sure, there's plenty of cognitive theory to help us make a prediction, but concrete data to back it up sure is nice! Even though I'm aiming to write for adults, it's something interesting to ponder in the meantime. Though the study was looking at simple solutions to physical obstacles, children's authors may want to reconsider the way they impart lessons in their stories, if that's part of their aim in storytelling.

That's my semi-scholarly post for the day. Do you write for a child or adult audience? If you're aiming to teach lessons or offer solutions in your stories, do you think kids are likely to "get" them? And what about those of you, like me, writing for adults?

(Note: If you want to access Richert and Smith's article for yourself, find a library with a subscription to the journal Child Development. It's in volume 82, issue 4. I imagine most universities with an education or similar program will have it in their libraries, and many will allow outside patrons to browse their collections within the library. It's also possible your public library may have it!)

Sequelitis #3: Now it's a trilogy

2011-08-09T17:00:00.000-07:00

Sequelitis #3 is dedicated to VORTEX, which completes the trilogy started by one of my favorite novels of all time, SPIN, by Robert Charles Wilson. As always, beware of spoilers, and if you haven't read SPIN, go do it!

Alright, some background. SPIN came out in 2005 and blew me away. It had an amazing high concept premise about a mysterious alien force (the Hypotheticals) that enclosed Earth within a membrane that seemed to slow time down. For every second that passed on Earth, several years passed in the rest of space. The story was told from the perspective of a twelve-year-old boy who witnessed the stars go out (when the membrane went up), and follows him and his two friends over the next forty years of their lives as Earth faces its imminent doom from the expanding Sun. AXIS followed a few years later, and very much felt like a bridge between the first and last books. It featured a new set of primary characters, with an appearance by one of the originals from SPIN, and though good, did not capture me quite the same way.

VORTEX continues with the third-person narrative and alternates between storylines, one on Earth centered around a social worker and a cop investigating a young man who may have channeled a story from the future, and one being that story, featuring one, and then later a second, of the primary characters from AXIS. Both stories were interesting, but seemed more like Slices of Life from the Spin Era. It's clear the two storylines are connected via Orrin, the man channeling the story from the future, but I couldn't be sure how, nor how this is connected to the Hypotheticals. In fact, for a long time, it seems as if Wilson is not going to give us the ultimate answer as to who the Hypotheticals are or why they've done what they've done. He repeats things we knew from the previous books, such as that the Hypotheticals saved mankind, in essence, by allowing humans to expand to other worlds just when they were reaching the point of overwhelming their own, but why? In the end, I was reading this book for the why, and after a while I was scared Wilson would never quite explain it, in a they-don't-know-so-we-don't-know way. No matter how interesting the world-building was, especially of the future world, my attention was a bit dampened by my anticipation.

The last 10% of the book makes up for it, though.

Wilson forges a firm connection between the two storylines with prose that reaches the beautiful heights of SPIN and answers every question the reader could have. We learn the basic history of the Hypotheticals, how they've expanded, their reasoning and goals. Through it all, Wilson does a deft job of presenting the Hypotheticals as they are: mechanical, unfeeling, alien. They do not save us because they love us or want us to join their galactic federation. They're practical and remote, and yet the explanation of their reasoning is satisfying. The science is plausible and well thought-out, which is sure to delight fans of the hard science side of the first book.

But it isn't all apathy. We learn the ultimate fate of the universe in a sequence that is touching and a bit sad, but serene. At the same time, a tragedy that could have befallen several of the characters is dealt with in a way that is emotionally fulfilling without being cloying. It's delicately balanced, Wilson at a high point. I found myself more moved than I expected, especially since I'd spent so much of the book waiting to get to this point. This was what I wanted, and I'm so glad and grateful that Wilson delivered, even if he delayed my gratification until the last possible moment.

This book is a worthy read, although new readers should probably pick up the first two before diving in to this one. SPIN is still the best of the three, and quite possibly the high point of his career thus far, but VORTEX is a fitting end to the saga. Be aware that the answers are a long time in coming, though they will be there, and enjoy the ride.

Book recs get me high!

2011-08-04T11:29:00.000-07:00

Title says it all. Fewer things give me a bigger high than recommending books to people. I'm passionate.

Comic-Con = free books from awesome publishers!

2011-08-02T16:26:00.001-07:00

Comic-Con is one of the few conventions that still seems to be giving away books by the truckload. Giving away. Free. I stalked by the publisher booths a few times for various signings (most of which provided free books) and picked up all sorts of things I didn't expect. From major publishers! Whereas the vendor booth down the aisle was selling books for list price, I scored a few upcoming releases from the publishers just because they saw me perusing their selections and taking out a pen to write down titles for later. This doesn't happen at every convention, either! Never assume, but if you're a book nerd and get the chance to go to something with lots of publishers, bring a big bag just in case.

In return, I'll try to post at least short reviews once I read these titles, although my to-be-read list is quite long and I'm not sure when I'll get to all of them. I still want to continue my Sequelitis reviews, too, as well as post about WRITING. (Revising the last novel right now, so there's not too much to report on that front just yet.)

Honestly, I can't imagine how much these publishers have to pay to do this every year. Not only are the booths expensive, but they give out boxes of free books as well as book bags, posters, pins, and various other swag. But their goal is ultimately promotion, and that's why most of the books are either first-of-series or upcoming debuts, and I figure a little blog post here and there can't hurt, and might even help someone's career a little bit. It'll be fun!

...I'll miss my Kindle, though. The one negative about big, free books is that I still have to carry them around.

2011 San Diego Comic-Con report PART DEUX!

2011-07-29T09:34:00.001-07:00

Argh, this was supposed to go up last night and I only just noticed it didn't.

Anyway, back to Thursday at SDCC! Thursday always seems to have the greatest offering of literary panels. Most of my morning and early afternoon was centered around the Epic Fantasy panel, but a few hours later, I attended two more panels which, like the one I sat through before Epic Fantasy, had a feminist spin.

"No Damsels in Distress Here" was a book panel with quite a bevy of authors: Kathy Reichs, Chloe Neill, Jeanne Stein, Merrie deStefano, Carrie Vaughn, Sherrilyn Kenyon, Seanan McGuire (aka Mira Grant, aka the reason I came), and even a debut author whose book launches this fall, Marie Lu. Topics included the authors' influences and favorite female characters, how to create strong female characters, and what defines them. How does one write a strong woman as a woman rather than a man in a dress, especially for women who are physically strong or not stereotypically feminine? (At one point, McGuire pointed out that she'd received criticism for George from FEED, who has a male nickname and a retinal condition that doesn't allow her to cry. I thought George was an awesome character, but apparently there was more than one person who felt McGuire tried to make her too masculine.) At the opposite end of the spectrum, some of the authors related their struggles in conveying the strength within more traditionally feminine characters, or feminine characters who are more sexual, etc. And of course, all of them touched on how strong female characters could empower their readers. I realize I'm not giving a ton of details here, but I, like most of the filled room, was pretty absorbed in the conversation! When that happens, I forget to take notes. Seriously, if I've got very little written down after a talk, I know it was a good one.

A few hours later was the "Her Universe: What Women Want in Their Female Sci-Fi Heroes" panel, which was created and moderated by Ashley Eckstein (voice of Ahsoka on The Clone Wars) and named after the clothing line she had created after noticing a lack of cute geeky wear available for women and girls. (If you get the chance to check out her line, there are a lot of cute, nerdy things to drool over.) This panel didn't focus on any specific medium, and the guests included men and women, including Dave Filoni (the supervising director of The Clone Wars), Chris Sanagustin (Universal Cable Productions), Bryan Q. Miller (story editor for Smallville and writer for Batgirl), Betsy Mitchell (editor-in-chief at Del Rey), Melinda Hsu Taylor (writer/producer for Lost and Medium), Gail Simone (writer for many comics at DC), and Allison Scagliotti (Warehouse 13). Much of the conversation mirrored that of the previous panel, but it was fascinating to get the male perspective (especially because these men, unlike one at a previous panel I attended, weren't cracking jokes about wanting to sleep with every woman there and actually seemed interested in creating relatable characters). It's illuminating to look at how people go about creating characters or worlds in different media; novelists can learn things from looking at TV writers and vice versa! The most touching and exciting portion of the panel, though, was when they talked about the young generation of female fans who still get teased for liking SF and other nerdy things, and how they wanted to do something for them, whether it be creating clothes or young padawans that both girls and boys can admire, not seeing or caring that she's "just a girl". The panel ended on a note of hope that one day, we'll look back in wonder at the days we had to have panels dedicated to girls and women in science fiction, because their presence will have become commonplace and normal.

Ahh goodness. I've gone on quite a bit again. Suffice it to say that most of my literary activity was on Thursday, so these last two posts will probably be the bulk of my report. Friday was dedicated to another love and Saturday was for walking around the exhibit hall for the most part, but I will do a short wrap-up post soon.

Seriously, if you're a book lover and you can get Comic-Con tickets, GO!

San Diego Comic-Con report! The day of epic fantasy and talks of girls

2011-07-26T18:34:00.000-07:00

Thursday at San Diego Comic-Con might as well have been called "The Day of Epic Fantasy", because nearly everything I did revolved around that theme. My original plan was to start the con on Friday, but once I saw the panels offered, I quickly changed my vacation request at work and prepared to boogie my way down there for the "Putting the 'Epic' in Epic Fantasy" panel and signing.

My friend dropped me off around 10:30 and I headed straight for Room 6A, half-expecting the line to already be stretching out the door. To my surprise, I was able to waltz right in, beating most of the crowd for the panel offered before my target: "Oh, You Sexy Geek!", which was an interesting discussion around all the controversy surrounding hot girls being nerds. Because, as you surely know, the two things must be mutually exclusive. Panelists included Katrina Hill, Bonnie Burton, Adrianne Curry, Clare Grant, Kiala Kazebee, Clare Kramer (Glory!), Jill Pantozzi, Jennifer K. Stuller, and Chris Gore. There's been a lot of discussion around this topic lately, and like many of the panelists, I find it ridiculous. Sure, I'm sure there were quite a few girls at that con who were there for attention, but probably a greater number who wanted to enjoy all things geeky because that's what they enjoy. It's divisive and exclusionary to speak out against girls in the fandom unless they're physically unattractive. Let's all band together and enjoy our commonalities, people! The greatest amount of contention on the panel was over whether overly sexualized characters and the girls who cosplay them hurt the female image, and where the line, if there is one, should be drawn. Then Seth Green hijacked it all. It was great.

After that came the Epic Fantasy panel, and the room was packed. And how could it not be, with this line-up? Not only was George R.R. Martin there, drawing massive crowds because of the current popularity of Game of Thrones and ASOIAF, but two of my favorite writers, Patrick Rothfuss and Kevin J. Anderson, as well as Brandon Sanderson, Christopher Paolini, Peter Orullian, and K.J. Taylor (the only woman on the panel, which was a bit sad to see right after a panel that sought to empower women). Some people flip out when they see famous actors or musicians, but I bask in the presence of great writers. I was thrilled to see so many people come out to discuss books. The energy in the room was infectious.

Far be it from me to be able to relate every detail of the panel now, almost a week later, but with seven panelists, there was time for only a few core questions. The first was about defining epic fantasy, with most of the panelists citing size, scope, and little stories all making up one larger story as the important factors. Martin viewed the label as more important for marketing, and Rothfuss noted that other people had applied it to his books because of their size. There was also much talk of epic beards, which always seems to be a point of pride and honor among certain men of my acquaintance, even those with no or modest facial hair. Eventually Paolini pointed out that size is not always a factor, as A WIZARD OF EARTHSEA is fairly short (and looking at my copy on the shelf, I see it is indeed rather thin). Anderson then noted that in epic fantasies, the story is the most important character, and Sanderson touched on the immersion factor and how many epic fantasies let the reader see that world through many characters' eyes.

From there, the conversation flowed to creation, and whether the world or the characters come first. I laughed, as I usually ask this question at Literary Orange, and many of the authors implied it is a frequent one. Still, it remains tough to answer. Some start with one stronger in their minds than the other (Anderson with the world, Taylor with the characters), some start by seeing one scene very strongly and working from there (as Martin did with the birth of the direwolves in A GAME OF THRONES), but everyone seemed to agree that you can't work on one without the other: no matter where you start, you have to build up the world as you need things for the characters to do and see, then flesh out the characters, then add a little more to the world, and so on, back and forth. Then they discussed whether all of that evolves organically or they outline it all. Opinion was divided, and they all cited it as a matter of preference. In one humorous moment, Rothfuss related how he used to come down hard on outliners, until he realized that every time he made a bulleted list, then added sub-bullets, he was doing the thing he criticized. Even the outliners, though, have to allow room for the "beautiful accidents" that sometimes happen, and work the story from there.

Audience questions followed. One person asked about knowing when your story is ready to be published. Sanderson related his story of writing five trunk novels before submitting his sixth, Rothfuss talked about revising his books for fourteen years, and Martin quipped that you know you're ready when publishers send you a check. Rothfuss asked for stronger female characters when asked what is needed more in epic fantasy, to epic applause, especially from those who had attended the previous panel. (And his answer made me really hope he will write something with a female protagonist once he is done with Kvothe, or at least let us learn more of Denna and Fela and the other women in his books.)

At that point, I looked around and noted how crowded the room was, and decided to skedaddle a few minutes early so I could beat most of the line at the signing. A smart move indeed, for I was not that far back--it only took me about fifteen minutes to get to the front--and once the panel emptied, the line had to be brought outside to hold everyone. I'm not even sure if everyone was able to get their books signed. Oh! Apparently there was a three book limit, and I had four. Most of the line was urging me not to get the book I'd picked up for my uncle signed, and the very nice man behind me offered to get one of mine signed for me, as he only had two books. So, Mr. Nice Man: thank you very much. You are awesome.

OK, I've made it up to about...1:30 in the afternoon on Thursday in this post. The above paragraphs are probably the lengthiest I'll write about anything at the con, but nevertheless, I will leave off here and continue my con report in a day or two. Thanks for reading!

Comic-Con is coming!

2011-07-19T15:06:00.000-07:00

Just like winter.

Despite the craziness that is work and school right now, I am excited for San Diego Comic-Con later this week! (Even if it cuts the time I have to get everything done for said work and school, let alone everything else.) SDCC used to be a pure relaxation con for me, but over the last couple of years I've discovered and come to enjoy the number of panels they have related to books and writing, and am hoping to hit a few of the more awesome ones this year. (You can never really plan for SDCC; the lines for everything are atrocious. My hope is that bigger panels will be happening at the same time, to draw attendees away.)

And when I'm not in panels, I'll be hanging with friends (some of whom I only get to see once a year!), wandering the dealers' hall, and...waiting in line, if we're being honest.

Is anyone else going? What panels are you hoping to hit? What else do you do for fun there?

Sequelitis #2: The Sequel

2011-07-06T14:02:00.001-07:00

It's the Year of Sequels, and here I am going to give two quick reviews on sequels that came out this year to books that came out last year! Today I'll cover THE WISE MAN'S FEAR by Patrick Rothfuss and DEADLINE by Mira Grant.

THE WISE MAN'S FEAR (sequel to THE NAME OF THE WIND, by Patrick Rothfuss):
Quick plot details: Kvothe continues to relate the story of his life as the child of a Gypsy-like clan turned legendary arcanist, magician, and possible hero, while a few key scenes in the present show just how far he's fallen from that status--something he may need to regain, as something dangerous is gathering around the quiet town where he's settled while waiting to die.

The review: Rothfuss continues to string gorgeous sentences together. I would love to see his first drafts, because the prettiness of his writing seems effortless, and it's almost unfair if it just flows from his pen (or onto his computer) like that. It's the kind of writing your eyes flow over, and every once in a while you pause and reflect on how lovely the last paragraph was. It's melodic, which is fitting for a born musician like Kvothe, but not ostentatious or overwrought.

Kvothe continues to intrigue his audience of Bast and Chronicler, as well as the reader, with the story of his life. He starts off in the university again, but eventually has an opportunity to visit other portions of the world, committing impressive deeds, learning new cultures and fighting forms, and encountering--and surviving--creatures of myth that break other men. It is all very interesting to read about, but at this point in the story, I'm not sure it's enough to convince me he's this LEGEND that everybody knows about. Sure, it's impressive, and might bring him some fame, but he's been built up as a character people will be singing songs about for hundreds of years. Given that he's still quite young when we meet him as our broken narrator, I'm not sure I quite buy it yet. I expect that most of his grandest feats will occur in the third book. That was one of the biggest frustrations with this book, really: it's the second book in a trilogy, and feels very much like a middle chapter. At the beginning, Kvothe relates deeds he presumes Chronicler would want to hear about in a long list, but we haven't gotten to read about them yet. And unlike some other series, these aren't standalone novels; there are subplots that get resolved, but no major ones. I also didn't care much for the section where Kvothe becomes the Greatest and Most Desired Lover ever. Yes, he's a teenage boy just learning about sex, but I rolled my eyes a bit at the sheer number of women who wanted him after a while. However, none of it was handled gratuitously, so his reported prowess just seems like a little bit of male fantasy indulgence. I did like the increasing hints we get toward Kvothe's unreliability as a narrator, and the subtle but ever-present ways his love for Denna is growing. I have a few theories as to her story, and wonder how much will be revealed in the third book. And it was good to finally get Kvothe away from the university, to learn more about the complex and diverse world Rothfuss has created now that Kvothe is no longer quite a child.

I did quite enjoy this book, but it does illustrate the frustrations of reading many series as they come out: you have to wait too long for resolution! If I understand correctly, though, the trilogy was originally written as one book, then split up due to length, so there's little to be done about it. I will be waiting for the third book with great excitement, and expect that once I have the whole story in my hands, most of the minor issues I had with this book will dissipate. This is epic fantasy done right, and it just makes me wish I had discovered this series after it was completed. And it's so well-written that any writer should study what Rothfuss does here. Read it!

DEADLINE (sequel to FEED, by Mira Grant):
Quick plot details: FEED was a political thriller with zombies, following a news blog team consisting of a kickass brother and sister and their staff as they cover a presidential campaign in 2041, 25 years or so after the cures for cancer and the common cold combined in the atmosphere to form a virus that turns any mammal over 40 pounds into a zombie upon death.

The review: There were a lot of plot elements in this book that could have failed, but Grant writes with such skill that every single one worked. I was a bit nervous at first because the end of FEED sees a POV shift which carries through to this novel, and I wasn't sure if that character could carry the entire book. He does, and does so marvelously, changed by his experiences in the first book and somewhat crazy as he tries to uncover more background on the political conspiracy from the first novel. Like THE WISE MAN'S FEAR, this is the middle novel in a trilogy, and thus the reader doesn't have all the answers at the end, but it felt more self-contained and cohesive than the former. There are still overarching plots to wrap up, but we (and the characters) learned more concrete facts about what's going on, and some of our questions were answered. There was enough to entice us toward the next book, but nothing to make us pull our hair out or leave us feeling lacking.

There are plenty of moments that will make you hold your breath, but in this one, there's less time spent running from zombies and more time trying to escape...well, zombies, but ones that are amplified through attacks by whoever is behind the conspiracy Shaun and co. are trying to uncover. Needless to say, the stakes are higher. New characters are introduced and minor characters from the first book are beefed up, yet all have a depth to them and show the scars, especially the mental ones, of past trauma. There were a few moments where it seemed characters put things together too quickly or somewhat out of the blue, but they were very minor, and Grant even addresses one of the minor flaws I saw in the last book's ending. And yet again, she delivers quite a twist at the end, complete with another POV change, that has me dancing in my seat in anticipation of the next book.

I highly, highly recommend this series, and usually I abhor zombie stuff. FEED is nominated for a Hugo right now, which should also serve as a mark of its quality.

Upcoming!

2011-07-05T16:09:00.000-07:00

I'm a bit swamped this week, between grad school and the beginning of the fiscal year at work, but I've been itching to do something I haven't in a while: book reviews. Just short ones, trying to be more concise than usual, but not today. Tomorrow, maybe, or Thursday. I've mentioned before that this is the year of sequels I want to read, and I think that will be my theme for these batches of posts. I shall still call them Sequelitis!

Stay tuned, and forgive my poor, addled brain this week. It is summer, after all.

The Trouble With Titles

2011-06-28T17:00:00.000-07:00

So, in the brief interim between finishing a first draft and starting revisions, a funny concern has risen to mind. Actually, it's been there for a while, but I pushed it to the back when I was scrambling to finish the first draft, realizing how irrelevant it was at the moment. Now though, the draft is done, and onward the thought comes...

I'm having doubts about my title.

I love my title. It's one of those moody, evocative things that came to me in a dream, and it's unique (I did a search and everything to prove it!) But I worry it may convey the wrong idea to readers and, subsequently, turn some of them off. The book is science fantasy, and "faith" being one of the two words in the title will, I fear, turn off some of the more science fiction-biased readers away, if the fantastic content doesn't.

The book does include some supernatural creatures and events, but I fear that broadcasting that word across the cover may make it seem much more preachy or heavy-handed than it is. Don't get me wrong, I'm a religious person and it's natural that my work will touch on themes of faith and spirituality. One of the two major characters is very religious, and the other takes the existence of the supernatural stuff almost for granted, as a given in their world. But these are just the characters and the way they view their world; there are no attempts to proselytize, no beating over the head. I am far from the first SFF writer to include spiritual themes, creatures, or events in their work. There's not enough there to make the book more suited for a religious publisher than a mainstream one, and I believe the book could be accessible and enjoyable to many people, regardless of their religious conviction or lack thereof. The "faith" in the title is more of a reference to the religious character, who claims she is capable of seeing "everything"--including the future and the course the two must follow through the book--and whether her faith is founded in anything else and whether the other character should have faith in her.

So now I ponder: should I change it to dispel false preconceptions and make it more accessible? Find a less loaded synonym, though the title won't have the same flow? Let an agent/potential publisher worry about it, and figure they'll change it for me? I'm inclined toward the latter unless I think of a better title in the meantime. This assumes a certain amount of trust that an agent won't get hung up on the title, either, but it's my job as the writer to craft a strong query that will hook them no matter what the title is. And in that case, I've got nearly a year to worry about it, since I decided not to begin querying until I finish grad school next May. By then, I could have another book I want to query more, or at least first. Hmm. Things to ponder.

Finishing the first draft and smelling the sweet scent of success

2011-06-21T18:20:00.000-07:00

So if you couldn't guess from the title of this post, I finished the first draft of my latest novel just now. The feeling of accomplishment just can't be beat! My spirits are especially jubilant for a few reasons:

Though it's still too long for what it is, the overage is not too extreme and I have no doubts that it can be tightened up. This is real progress because, if you have not guessed, I am very wordy.
There are lots of things to add or fix, but I feel pretty aware of the novel's faults and imagine these are all minor and cosmetic, rather than huge structural issues.
I started writing it in a pretty low point in my life, but still finished it well ahead of my self-imposed deadline. I think I'll be able to finish the revisions in time, too.

It definitely serves me well to take a break after finishing a first draft. The week or two, or even a month, gives me time to somewhat forget the minor details of the story, to distance myself from it so I can evaluate it with more objective eyes. It makes me less tied to the story elements that I might otherwise feel I just couldn't cut. During that time, I'll probably revise some short stories I've written, as well as try to come up with or flesh out ideas for my next project. I also plan to celebrate with an ice cream bar, a sewing binge, and maybe a video game, since I haven't had time to play one in a while.

What about you? What do you do to celebrate?

Literary Orange starting up again!

2011-06-14T14:23:00.000-07:00

Literary Orange 2011 was just about two months ago now, but it is already time to get started on next year's event! Tomorrow's the first meeting for the author committee, and I'm psyched to begin once again.

Yep, that's right. We start our recruitment of authors nearly a year in advance. If you'd asked me three years ago how long it took to plan an author panel, I would have guessed a couple of months. But it takes a year! A year! And we're still a fairly small festival. I can't imagine how it works out for bigger events like the LA Festival of Books or San Diego Comic-Con. (Of course, they have more money and prestige than we have, and can probably attract many more authors that way.)

Why does it take us a year? First we have to decide on which panels we would like to have, then come up with a list of potential authors for each one. Invites go out to the first batch, and some authors respond right away. Others take a little longer, caught up in writing or promotion or vacation. Some say no, unable to attend because of other events, travel expenses, or any number of reasons. So we send out more invites, modify our list of panels if necessary, and continue on from there until September. At that point we try to have our authors locked in so the committees for publicity, event planning, web design, event programs, and so on can ramp up their work.

We've had good results from this, though. Last year we reached max capacity and got excellent feedback from attendees. We got more media coverage than ever before, and had a broader diversity of panels and speakers. I got the opportunity to moderate another panel with some of my favorite authors. So if you're in southern California and free next April 14, I would encourage attending! And if there's anything you want to see, let me know and I'll pass along the word.

Not enough female SFF writers? Well, how can we get more?

2011-06-07T17:00:00.000-07:00

So everyone saw the Guardian piece last week about the results of their poll of readers' favorite SF novels, yes? If not, it's worth a read here. Author Nicola Griffiths went through the suggestions and found, out of more than 500 suggestions, only 18 female authors. General horror and many thought-provoking suggestions ensued. I got to thinking, "What can be done about it?"

It's a slightly different issue than including female characters, or characters of color, or characters of different faiths or orientations or political opinions. We're talking authors here. How can we solve this problem? The easiest answer, of course, is to support female authors by buying their books. If we can't afford to buy them, we create demand at libraries so they will buy them. Libraries buy an unbelievable number of books, so this will help catch the attention of publishers. Every sale counts.

But it's also important for us women to write. And for those of us within SFF fandom, we have to make people take us seriously. Too many times have I seen stereotypes about the SFF fandom come true. I have witnessed an undercurrent of "this is a boy's world" in many of the conventions and various events I've attended. At the best, it seems female authors were accepted, but with the idea that most of their work is for women; girls will read anyone, but guys only read guys. I've had male friends ask me for reading recommendations, and watched their eyes light up as I described a book, only for it to fade when I mention the author's invariably feminine name. It's disheartening. Frankly, it's bull. It seems like only aggressive tactics will work, but I can't just force everyone I encounter to read a few pages until they get sucked up by the story and forget the author's gender.

Still, we have to push. Suggest female authors when we can. Tell them Justine Musk's novels are just as gritty as anything else they'd want to read. Tell them N.K. Jemisin and Ursula LeGuin craft words and worlds just as complex and beautifully as any male SFF writer. I really, really hope Mira Grant wins the Hugo this year, because being able to tell guys that a woman wrote a kick-ass zombie book that was voted the best SFF novel of the year would be incredible.

I'm just not sure how much of a solution this is. I feel like it's what many of us have been doing anyway. I do so just because I don't care what gender the author is so long as the story is good. I try to have an awareness of who's writing what just so I can make recommendations, especially if I ever start working in the public library sphere where I'm more likely to get asked for fiction titles. (Most people asking for fiction in the academic world already have specific books in mind.)

And I can try to make it as a SFF writer myself, to be the change, and hope to increase that count to 19. But that's a few years away at best, and I'm aware that some of my success may be based on how saleable publishers think my name is, which is partially dependent on how well other women sell in the genre--another reason we should support these authors. I was thrilled to see how many men attended the fantasy panel at Literary Orange this year, since our line-up was all women. But I want more ideas I can implement now to raise the visibility of female SFF authors and get people reading their works. I'll just feel like I'm rambling, my voice echoing in the dark, until then.

How bad is too bad?

2011-05-31T13:00:00.000-07:00

So yesterday, after being on quite a roll for a while, I was confronted with something I hadn't encountered (or at least wasn't aware of encountering) for a while: one of those scenes that just turns out really lame, no matter what you try to do.

To be fair, it was a bridging scene, a way of getting the characters from point A to point B that I hadn't thought through enough in advance. I'm a pretty extensive outliner, but none of that can save me if my outline makes the same logical leap. Sometimes it's not something you recognize until you get to the actual writing. Ahh, well, the background doesn't matter; all that does is that I got to a vaguely-outlined scene and it was nowhere near as strong as the surrounding material.

A few years ago, I might have tried to fix this scene right away, keeping myself from progressing until it felt perfect to me, even if there was a chance it might be cut or greatly reduced in revisions. In this case, that chance is very real. Now that I've had an evening to reflect on it, I think it suffers from my usual weakness: I ramble when I'm not quite sure how to move the story forward. In all likelihood, it just needs some tightening up, and the reader should probably come in just a tad later in the scene.

I'm proud of my plan just to move on, though. In the end, I will benefit more. I won't delay the rest of the story and the extra time will probably give me better perspective on the scene, especially in the context of the full novel. But it does make me wonder how bad a scene would have to be before I would feel compelled to fix it before moving on. At what point should I focus on fixing it first before continuing? Is it always better to wait for the revision phase?

This scene was a minor thing, so jotting a few notes down seems sufficient. I suspect immediate fixes would be required for scenes that have a greater impact on the overall story structure, in which case it's likely my entire outline would need modification. Every manuscript brings new lessons with it, and hopefully this new awareness means I will outline more carefully in the future to avoid even these minor issues. But what do you think? When is it better to forge ahead, and when is it necessary to fix something right away?

The Question of Adaptations (i.e. an excuse to talk Game of Thrones)

2011-05-24T17:00:00.000-07:00

A long time ago, before I became interested in writing novels, I contemplated writing plays or screenplays. Part of this was due to my involvement in theater, but my biggest motivation was not only wanting to create stories, but to adapt some of my favorite written stories into visual form. I've spent a lot of time contemplating what makes a good adaptation, and now that HBO is airing Game of Thrones, the issue has resurfaced in my mind. Warning: there may be spoilery bits below, although I will try not to be too specific.

(Hey, did you know I like Game of Thrones/A Song of Ice and Fire? I only blogged about it here and here and here and...OK, not that much. But I am quite a fan of the series.)

I think HBO is doing a phenomenal job with this adaptation, and it's because even when they don't follow the exact plotlines of the books, they've managed to capture and distill the essence of them. Certainly it would be impossible to capture every detail of 1000 pages in a ten-hour story, and I don't think anyone expected that. However, so much of those 1000 pages are internal monologue, especially since the first book has to build up the world, and the scenes that have been added work to convey that information to the audience. Of course, some scenes work better than others. In most of Ros' scenes, characters narrate important background information, but they're still usually awkward to watch. (I might be biased; this character's not even in the books but she's getting more screen time than half the Starks.) But other scenes are far more subtle, and these I find really effective. For example (spoiler!), at first I was rather confused by the Viserys/Doreah bathtub scene, until I realized that this scene served as a juxtaposition to Daenerys' in the first episode; the scalding water didn't harm her, but a little candle wax hurt Viserys, and this reveals a lot about who the true dragon will be. It's more important than all the stuff Viserys is also telling us about dragon skulls.

I wonder about the challenges in choosing what to include in the series when the source material is so vast, or how to show major character changes in such a short time. Daenerys bothered me a little at first, because she was far more passive for the first few episodes of the series and her story with Drogo seemed too turn around too quickly; all the nuance and slow evolution was gone. Then I realized it had to be this way in order to show most effectively her transformation from passive to badass. Without the internal monologue, having Dany go back and forth in her emotions would just seem inconsistent to a TV audience, and in order to preserve the major arc of her character, things had to be simplified. I've also heard they shot the wedding night scene to match the book, but the actors didn't feel like it worked for this reason; it was too strange to have her consent in one episode, then have her repeatedly raped, then have her fall in love with Drogo, without knowing what was going on in her head.

While working to compress things of this scale into a short time, there's also the danger of cutting too much and inadvertently cutting something that will be important later. This happened quite a few times with the Harry Potter movies, or so I've read; J.K. Rowling had to insist they put Kreacher in the sixth movie after the filmmakers opted to cut him because he would be so vital in the seventh. Lucky for us, Martin seems to be working closely with HBO on Game of Thrones, and so far I can't think of any major plot elements that have been left out. It seems like it's got good writers, the cast is phenomenal, and the production values are insane, so I'll hope it continues to be great.

What about you? How are you enjoying Game of Thrones? Or what other adaptations have worked (or not) for you? Have you ever adapted text for film or stage before?

Disappearing comments and grad school breaks

2011-05-17T21:24:00.000-07:00

First of all, has anyone had issues with disappearing comments on Blogger? Several people commented on my last post (and I've got the emails to prove I'm not crazy), but now the comments have all disappeared! That post was mainly to share a link I saw on another blog, so not a huge deal, but the issue in general is of some concern. I haven't gone back to see if comments on older posts were affected.

I've got about a month off from grad school, and while I still have work, it's nice having a little mental vacation. It's given me more time to write for fun/future career with less stress, which is always a positive thing! I'm nearing the 100k word mark for my current WIP, and for the first time ever with one of my novels, the end of the story is in sight! I'm not the fastest of writers and it will still take me a little bit to reach the end, but this is a big change for me. Science fiction and fantasy writers can get away with having books a little longer than the norm, but some of my past works were ridiculous. I'd reach the 100k mark and realize I was only halfway through--if I was lucky. Thus, I consider this a real leveling up. (I was probably still too wordy near the beginning and will have significant cuts to make, though. Just not as bad as with previous manuscripts!)

What about you? Any recent victories, minor or major, in your lives?

"Bloom like an artist"

2011-05-10T17:00:00.000-07:00

I've officially finished my second year of library school! One year to go. This week is going to be WRITE WRITE WRITE while I can, although I do hope to relax a little to let my brain recuperate. It's odd to only have my job and writing taking my mental energy right now.

I was going to write a post about doing research for historical or science fiction, but my brain is still in recovery mode, and I feel more inspired to share this comic I saw on Janet Reid's blog today. It's beautiful and a must-read for anyone who's a writer, artist, or human.

Read this.

I'm of the mindset (well, most of the time; we all have negative moments) that you have to "make it" for yourself. Yeah, it'd be great to be published someday and have people read my work and be able to do what I love and make a living off it, but I won't be happy unless I feel I'm fulfilling my creative potential to the best of my ability. And (I think) I can be happy if I do that whether the world recognizes my work or not.

Sequelitis

2011-05-05T12:00:00.000-07:00

I'm late this week with posting. It's finals time for my grad school, and it's been all I can do to keep afloat with that as well as stay on target with my for-fun-and-possible-career-someday writing. I WILL get better at this!

Having finished a book recently, as I am wont to do, and trying to decide which to read next, my mind wandered to the sheer amount of series I've been reading lately, and how so many of them seem to have sequels coming out this year. I used to avoid series like the plague until they were finished, because I hate having to wait for the next installment. It's even worse when I don't know when the next installment is going to be. But given that a lot of my reading is in series-happy genres, I eventually gave up and gave in. It's difficult enough to keep up with all the current releases I want, and I don't need to fall even more behind!

Off the top of my head, here are the major sequels I can think of that I want to read soon:

Already released:
THE WISE MAN'S FEAR by Patrick Rothfuss
I can't believe I haven't read this one yet, since it came out in March. THE NAME OF THE WIND was engaging and gorgeously written, and I can't wait to learn more of Kvothe's story. This will probably be next on my list, actually.

THE LAND OF PAINTED CAVES by Jean M. Auel
Hoo boy. I was really excited when I first heard about this, as I've been reading the Earth's Children series since I was a teenager. THE CLAN OF THE CAVE BEAR is still one of my favorite books. However, I've heard mixed reviews for this book. Actually, some of them are pretty terrible, and the elements being criticized are the things I didn't care for in the last few books of the series. Has anyone read this yet? Is it worth it? I probably will pick it up at some point, so I don't feel incomplete in my reading, but I'm a bit fearful.

Forthcoming:
DEADLINE by Mira Grant (May 2011)
OK, I don't even like zombies all that much. I can handle THE WALKING DEAD, 28 Days Later (which aren't real zombies), and THIS series. The first book, FEED, was brilliant. Insanely well-thought out and -written. It's nominated for a Hugo right now, and though I was surprised because I didn't think it had gotten that much recognition, it deserves to be on that list. I can't believe how much I'm looking forward to the sequel. My review is here.

HEARTLESS by Gail Carriger (June 2011)
I love this series. It's witty and humorous and the author is a lovely woman. Alexia manages to kick ass while being proper, and her whole gang is entertaining to read about. Plus, I saw the cover art for the fifth book at Literary Orange, and I CANNOT wait for that one.

THE KEY TO CREATION by Kevin J. Anderson (June 2011)
Actually, this is the third book in the Terra Incognita series, and I still have to read the second one, THE MAP OF ALL THINGS. I got the first book, THE EDGE OF THE WORLD, as a freebie at Comic-Con last year, and liked it quite a bit more than expected when I finally got around to reading it. I'm interested in what happens to a few of the characters. My review of the book is here.

VORTEX by Robert Charles Wilson (July 2011)
Oh man, have I pimped SPIN out on this blog yet? I'm pretty sure I have. Many times. But not enough. SPIN blew my mind. AXIS was definitely a transitional book between it and this one, but I'm hoping VORTEX will provide a thrilling conclusion and leave me without brain matter.

A DANCE WITH DRAGONS by George R.R. Martin (July 2011)
YAY. FINALLY. This book better be awesome! I went to his signing a few months ago and ended up on Winter Is Coming because of the awesome shirts my friend designed, and he wouldn't announce a date then. I'm glad to be getting both a TV series and a new book this summer!

What about you? What sequels, or even standalone novels, are you looking forward to in 2011? (Ignore that we're almost halfway through it...)

Science fiction and fantasy lecture at UCLA!

2011-04-26T16:13:00.000-07:00

Yesterday I followed up on an invitation from Mary Menzel, the director of the California Center for the Book, to give a lecture on science fiction and fantasy at the UCLA Graduate School of Education and Information Science! The opportunity to share my passion for an hour and a half on that topic was one I hadn't received before, but definitely one I'd love to have again. I didn't dream much as a kid about being a performer as an adult, aside from the eight years I did theater and considered becoming an actor or director, but when I did, my dreams were about going on talk shows. When I got older and more interested in writing, it was about talking about my books on talk shows or being on panels at Comic-Con. Even though I wasn't talking about my books, I'm just as passionate about these genres!

The format of the lecture was slides and voiceover detailing the various subgenres commonly requested by library patrons, as well as listing of major authors (both historical/influential and popular today) and a few of their works. As far as I could tell, everyone was interested, and I certainly had fun delivering my speech. If I were to give it again, I would add slides with information on authors tackling racial themes or writing protagonists of color, as the few times I touched upon the subject elicited responses for further information. And of course it's impossible to be comprehensive in such a short session, but there are a few authors I should have included or somehow left off by accident (Vernor Vinge, Dan Simmons, Tim Pratt...I cringe at myself). Well, revision is for correcting mistakes!

If anyone is interested in seeing the slides and handout I prepared, they are available here. I really hope I have the opportunity to give more talks like this again, because it's both personally fulfilling and reaffirms my career goals in authorship AND librarianship.

Amazon to allow Kindle Library Lending!

2011-04-20T13:06:00.000-07:00

Bonus post this week because this is so stupendous: Amazon is going to allow libraries to begin lending books for the Kindle!

About time! I am excited and hope my local libraries will start purchasing more books this way. I'm not surprised they're working with OverDrive to do this.

I'm not a big notetaker, but one cool thing about this is that it will let borrowers make notes in the Kindle books that won't be visible to the next person who checks it out. However, if the first patron borrows the book again, or even buys it from Amazon, the notes will still be available!

Literary Orange 2011 Report, Part 2!

2011-04-19T17:00:00.000-07:00

It's taken me a little longer than I would have liked to get part 2 of my report up, but grad school was crazy with four assignments due last week and barely left me with enough time to get anything done (although I did meet my writing quota, so yay!). Anyway, here goes~

Literary Orange is a small (but growing festival), with two keynotes and three panel sessions interspersed between meals and book signings. Our keynotes this year were Ron Hansen and T. Jefferson Parker, who both gave interesting talks about the writing process with anecdotes from their childhoods.

During the first session, I went to the science fiction panel. Did I mention how thrilled I was this year that we were able to get enough authors for science fiction and fantasy panels? The crowd seemed pleased, too, and there was a lot of overlap in attendees between the two. The panel had four authors: Kay Kenyon, Tim Pratt, and Dani and Eytan Kollin. The first two provided the more serious grounding and the last two the hilarity, though of course they were all very knowledgeable about the subject matter. The whole thing was entertaining, and I'm hoping some of it will show up on YouTube. (I know the Kollin Bros. have a series of short podcasts you should check out! I'll try to remember to throw in the link later.) What I love most about these panels, where you have contrasting personalities that work off each other, bouncing off each other's words without conflicts, is that you get a real appreciation of the diversity of the fandom. I was really struck last year at Comic-Con when China Miéville talked about how fantasy is not reducible to a certain type, and I think the same applies for science fiction fans. There are still lots of stereotypes about us, and while some of us do conform to them, the rest of us are as different as can be from each other, and more similar to the rest of the world than many would suspect.

The third panel was on graphic novels, and had three panelists: Esther Pearl Watson, Kazu Kibuishi, and Buzz Dixon. I'm familiar with the last two (in fact, I have two of the covers of Flight in framed poster form in my living room), and invited the first after reading about her work in one of our library catalogs. Here too I appreciated the different perspectives each was able to bring to the panel, and the contrast it provided with last year's focus on Stan Sakai.

I skipped the second panel, didn't I? That's because I hosted the fantasy panel in that slot, and wanted to save it for last! This year we had Gail Carriger and Kim Vandervort, and both were fantastic to work with. Note to self, though: quit asking so many multi-part questions. There's a fine line to walk when moderating a panel like this. Both of these authors are women, writing strong female characters in what is traditionally viewed as a male genre. Questions of feminism are bound to come up, as they should, but at the same time, the panel was not meant to be focused on feminism, and I wanted to include questions that would interest the variety of people we were hoping to attract (and did!) this year. The audience enjoyed it and complimented all of us, though, so it must not have been too heavy-handed. Actually, my biggest problem half the time is wanting to jump in and discuss these fantastic topics, ranging from feminism to the writing process to worldbuilding and parasols and future projects, and it was even more difficult to restrain myself with only two authors on the panel, because it gave each of them time to really dig deep and provide long and thought-provoking responses. Pretty hard not to fangirl, really, and I'm not ashamed to admit it. The panel was super-fun and I wish we'd had more time for audience questions! They were great, especially the steampunk fans who did a little bit of dressing up for the occasion.

Also, the greenroom was awesome, and Gail Carriger showed me the still-secret cover art for Timeless, and it is fantastic and really brings the whole series full-circle. Check out Gail's site at http://www.gailcarriger.com/ and Kim Vandervort's at http://www.kimvandervort.com/home/.

Literary Orange 2011 Report!

2011-04-12T18:55:00.001-07:00

Ahh, the Literary Orange talk continues, because now the event has happened and there are things to report!

Literary Orange, a joint literary festival between UC Irvine Libraries and Orange County Public Libraries, happened this past Saturday. I was thrilled with how big the event was this year! It's a bit hard to tell when pulling up, as the annual MS walk is always the same date and pulls in a lot of people, but we ended up topping attendance. In fact, we sold out. How fantastic! I'm really happy that so many people were passionate enough to come out and hear their favorite authors speak.

I was also GREATLY pleased by the diversity of the crowd we had this year. I don't know if it was lowered ticket prices or better advertising (I even saw bus ads this year!), but we attracted a much greater segment of the population. There was a more even distribution of genders, and a lot of younger people this year--and not just college students, but some who might have been as young as junior high, there with their parents. We were also able to offer more diverse panels this year, including more genre panels, and people seemed happier with the programming. And I noticed that a great many aspiring writers were attracted to the event, possibly because one of those new panels featured two agents. Whatever drew these attendees in, I'm glad for it, and it seemed everyone enjoyed themselves.

Food was great, greenroom was amazing. I had lunch with the lovely Gail Carriger and several librarians and friends of the library, and heard really nice keynote speeches from Ron Hansen and T. Jefferson Parker. Their relaxed addresses really seemed to resonate with the crowd, and the hour each was allotted flew by.

Unfortunately I'm getting a little long-winded and perhaps overly positive, so I'm going to split this post into two and continue soon with details on the panels attended, including the fantasy panel I moderated. If anyone from the event stumbles over to this little ol' blog, tell me: what did you think? Did you enjoy the event, or am I hallucinating?

Literary Orange 2011!

2011-04-05T07:30:00.000-07:00

Literary Orange is this Saturday at the UC Irvine Student Center! If you are anywhere in the Southern California area and enjoy going to author panels, listening to authors speak, getting books signed, or for the first time at this festival, listening to agents speak about getting published, I highly advise attending!

I will be moderating the Fantasy: Exploring the Edges panel with Gail Carriger, Karen Essex, and Kim Vandervort and couldn't be more excited. We'll also have panels on science fiction, mystery, romance, poetry, travel books, children's books, YA, war books, graphic novels, and more! A full list of events and author appearances is at the link above. Our keynote speakers this year are Ron Hansen and T. Jefferson Parker. There's a little bit of everything for everyone! I hope to see some of you there.

Childhood classics that hold up

2011-03-29T18:53:00.000-07:00

I'm a little bit behind on my blog post for this week, as I've taken a mini-vacation from work and am just starting spring break for grad school. (Having the rest of the week off from that will be nice for writing!) And for one other pretty important reason: I got a cat this past weekend! Yup, I'm not a writer/soon-to-be librarian with a cat. I'll get a dog someday when I can afford a place that will allow it.

Anyway, there is a point to this. I named my cat after a character in a childhood classic, and it got me thinking about the stories that hold up over time, the ones that stick with you long after you've outgrown the subject matter or vocabulary or style. And it also made me think about the stories you view with a very different perspective as an adult, because of the themes or the general shallowness or some other reason.

A while ago I moved, and as I was packing up my books, I flipped through some of my favorites from childhood: ISLAND OF THE BLUE DOLPHINS, JULIE OF THE WOLVES, and a lot of Calvin & Hobbes collections. To my delight, I found myself enjoying them still. Some of it may have been nostalgia, but most of it was because the writing was still good, despite my more advanced reading level now. At heart, they are good stories, no matter the reader's age, and touch on themes that are universal, including loneliness, freedom, self-reliance, and wonder.

Then there are others that I view differently because of experience. I recognized some of the religious content in The Chronicles of Narnia series, especially that related to Aslan, but my understanding is a lot fuller now with twenty additional years of life and study behind me. And I see in THE JUNGLE BOOK a lot of the imperialism and Orientalism of the time, which totally flew over my head as a child. (And yes, this is the book I named my kitty from--he's a little black panther-type like Bagheera.) Still, I enjoyed these books then and I do think they are still good stories for children, and worthy of study by adults.

And there were others that I now realize are vapid and shallow, series written by ghostwriters for mass consumption, which don't offer much intellectually but which I enjoyed as a kid. Which is fine. I read a lot and I was entertained.

Well, I've written this entire post with a sleeping kitty on my lap, so I think at least he won't detract from my writing.

What are some of your favorite childhood classics, and do you view them the same way now?

Possibility: a database to tell you if your book's been done before?

2011-03-22T14:00:00.000-07:00

Jessica Faust's post on BookEnds yesterday had me thinking all night, and I had to jot this down before work this morning. An aspiring author wrote in wondering about forums to bounce ideas around in, partially to make sure nothing similar had been written before so the author wouldn't "waste time" writing something that's already been done. (Cue grumbling at the idea of "wasted time"; if nothing else, the time invested should work toward improving craft.) In my comment, I pointed out that there wasn't any sort of database where users could plug in keywords about their idea and retrieve a list of books using the same elements.

But what if there was? What would it take to make such a database work?

It was a good thought exercise using both my literary and my library training. One of the first classes I took in library school involved creating a small, searchable database, which gave me a lot of insight into how something like this could be constructed. It would not be difficult, except for the scale. Thousands of books are published each year. Thousands more have been published in all the years before this. Even taking a cross-section, limiting to the most popular titles of any time, would still present a huge challenge to whoever was responsible for indexing and tagging all those titles.

So who would do it? A large commercial company could, but this would result in a database likely to be very expensive, with fees for adding new titles each year. Writers would mostly access this kind of database through libraries (which I support!), but given the strained budget situations most libraries are facing, it's questionable that many libraries would rank this as a high priority.

It could be done for free using open-source software and harnessing the power of the public to do the indexing and tagging, but this creates issues of authority and control. See, with a company or some sort of organization in charge, you're going to get what's called a controlled vocabulary; terms for an element will be uniform, and by finding the right term for the element you seek, you could retrieve all the relevant results in the database. Give that job to the public, though, and you will likely see books tagged with vocabulary meaningful to the users, but not at all consistent. Say you want to write a book about a sorcerer with a giant bee for a pal, but want to make sure nobody else has used that idea first. You type "bee friend" into the database--and miss the entry somebody tagged "animal sidekicks", the one somebody tagged "killer bee minions", etc. Say you want to make sure your book isn't too similar to others with feisty redheaded protagonists. Type that in and you'll miss "redheads", "girls with red hair", "girls with crimson hair", etc. There will be nobody to enforce continuity between terms, and the database will lose effectiveness as each new contributor uses their own variance on a term. And of course, with either solution, a lot would depend on how many books were added and fully tagged. Current books would probably receive the most attention, with older books that are influential but not quite classics having sporadic information and obscure titles slipping between the cracks.

(Why do I think something like this would be fun to work on, anyway? I love organizing things way too much.)

In the end, what's going to be most important is gaining familiarity with your genre. For popular, widely-written-areas, this will be hard, but it's important. There are Internet sites and literary databases that might be helpful in some cases, if one figures out the right combination of terms to search--and maybe I should write a post about doing web or database research someday, from a librarian's perspective. Of course, if one is worried that a certain plot element will be really clichéd, then one can always turn to something more lighthearted like TV Tropes, which, despite the name, is well-fleshed and has a section on literature in each entry. Of course, since the content is user-submitted, there's no guarantee everything with a certain trope will end up on any list, but it can be useful in identifying major plot contrivances and traps.

Warning: TV Tropes may consume hours of your life and prevent you from actually being productive.

Japan

2011-03-15T13:53:00.000-07:00

Even translated words can maintain their original beauty when they come from the heart.

Translated message from a Chinese Sendai tsunami survivor

I was horrified by the disasters in New Orleans, Indonesia, Chile, Haiti, and New Zealand, but Japan is really hitting home for me due to having friends there and the fact that it was probably the country best-prepared for this type of situation, and is still helpless in the face of nature. I send them my prayers and whatever money I can spare, though it will never be enough.

A library science student's response to the HarperCollins ebook circulation cap

2011-03-07T08:00:00.000-08:00

A week ago, HarperCollins issued an open letter to librarians stating that they would only allow a purchased ebook to circulate 26 times before requiring the library to repurchase the title. Their reasoning is that with two-week loan periods (which are not standard, as every library system sets their own), the library would get a year's use before having to repurchase.

As someone both immersed in the library world and the writing world (though my involvement there is still aspirational), I can see both sides of the issue, although I side more strongly with the libraries. Authors don't want to lose out on royalties by letting libraries purchase one copy that's good forever, when normally they have to repurchase popular print books that wear out. Libraries, however, are critically underfunded and losing more money with each new budget, and repurchasing books is a drain on resources.

There are a few points that need to be remembered. Perhaps the most important is that many libraries will buy multiple copies of popular titles in the first place, especially the public libraries who will be most affected by HarperCollins' new model. Like a physical book, an ebook can only be loaned to one person at a time, so libraries will buy several copies in order to meet demand.

Another is that books are weeded periodically, especially if they don't circulate. A good proportion of the ebooks purchased may never circulate 26 times, and thus libraries would never be have to replace them. As for the popular titles, interest in most books tends to wane within 2 or 3 years, after which circulation drops off steeply. Books aren't replaced if there is no anticipated demand. Authors aren't losing any money on these ebooks, because they wouldn't have made any more money on the print.

So perhaps HarperCollins and libraries can come to a compromise. Perhaps HarperCollins can raise the circulation limit on its ebooks to 50, providing about two years' worth (by their estimation) of circulation. Even 40 uses would be a vast improvement. As most print books will not be replaced in less time than that (unless a patron absolutely destroys them), this seems a fair way to approximate the normal replacement cycles of print books in libraries. After that, the library can decide whether there will be enough demand for the title to justify buying a "replacement" ebook.

Or perhaps HarperCollins can mimic the model many academic ebook vendors (with whom my library has worked, anyway) have adopted, and charge a flat rate for the ebook and a licensing fee for every year after the first. This would leave HarperCollins with the task of dividing up those fees among their authors, but surely a system could be worked out.

Or perhaps HarperCollins can offer multiple models, including one for perpetual access to the title for a higher price. This would provide libraries more flexibility in their purchasing options, allowing them to buy a book once and then letting it "die" after 26 (or 40, or 50) uses, or buying a book once that they know will be in demand for years, but paying more for it.

If HarperCollins really loves libraries as much as they claim, then surely there can be some compromise. A number of librarians have pitched in on the HarperCollins blog with great ideas (some of them similar to the ones found here), and I'm sure there will be quite a bit of discussion at their booth come ALA. I work in an academic library currently, so our dealings with HarperCollins are limited, but I will be keeping an eye on this issue in case I ever do transfer to the public sphere.

Have three, take two

2011-03-01T23:12:00.000-08:00

The great and pervasive "they" often say that consumers expect services to be done cheaply, quickly, and well, but it's only realistic to expect two of those options. More and more, I've been having similar feelings about the mental endeavors I have to balance in my life: work, grad school, and writing. I might only have the time and mental energy to balance two at a time, if I want to perform to my best potential.

But school is temporary--I'll be done next May--and even if it means I occasionally write a little bit less in order to get some other project done, I'm a big believer in little efforts adding up. I've been able to finish manuscripts since starting grad school. Maybe not as quickly as I would like, but they've been completed. I've just got to keep pushing on, try to meet my weekly quotas, and look forward to the day when the mental energies I devote to school can be redistributed to other projects. So even if it means I won't again achieve the word counts I used to reach before starting school until after I graduate, maybe I should accept that I'm trying my best, not give up and slack off, and cut myself a bit of a break. After all, wouldn't it be better to persevere at a slightly slower pace than to burn myself out?

Upcoming events!

2011-02-22T21:04:00.001-08:00

I've mentioned Literary Orange on the blog before, but have I mentioned that I'm set to moderate the fantasy panel this year? I've just finished reading all of the books I could find by the authors we have, and now my mind is turned to formulating questions for the panel. It should be interesting; our panelists this year are Gail Carriger, Karen Essex, and Kim Vandervort. If you live in southern California, you should consider checking the event out! We've got panels on everything from historical fiction to science fiction to romance to graphic novels, and will even have an agent panel this year. The event is April 9, 2011.

A few weeks after that, I've been invited by Mary Menzel from the California Center for the Book to speak to a class of library science students about science fiction and fantasy, so I'll need to find the time to put together a presentation on that topic as well. So exciting!

Gary Corby and his ingenious spreadsheet idea

2011-02-14T19:47:00.001-08:00

I discovered this amazing, useful tip via Janet Reid's blog, but all credit goes to Gary Corby, who shared it in the first place.

Ever have trouble balancing the appearances of characters in your stories, or the way scenes are arranged? You want them to flow well, but also reveal information to the reader at key points, and you want your characters to show up with good timing. And even with an outline, this can turn out to be quite a challenge in your first draft.

Well, Mr. Corby had the ingenious idea of creating a spreadsheet to block this all out. Across the top, he put the names of the characters, and along the left side, labeled each scene. He puts an X in the appropriate cell whenever a character appears in a certain scene, and voila! It becomes much easier to track who shows up when, who shows up and then never shows up again, and so on and so on.

I had an extensive outline for my last manuscript. Pages and pages of text. But it was also the first novel I wrote with a very large cast of characters, and pretty soon I found myself swimming. What happened to so-and-so? Have we heard from them in a while? What about that subplot? Mr. Corby also color-codes blocks of scenes that have to be treated as a logical unit, and this allows him to see what scenes can be easily shuffled around if necessary. I imagine one could get quite complex, tracing when themes or subplots and so forth appear, rather than just characters. It's ultimately customizable and provides a quick visual reference to the structure of your story, and that's great. This strategy could have really helped me, and given how much I use spreadsheets in my day job at the library, I'm ashamed I didn't think of it first!

I'm planning to rewrite that last manuscript at some point in the future, and am looking forward, with probably more glee than is appropriate, to trying this out. I'm about halfway through my current manuscript and it, as is normal for me, has a smaller cast, but if I get stuck, I'll definitely pause to give this a whirl. I'm excited.

As a disclaimer, I had not heard of Mr. Corby before, as I'm not too into mysteries, but the voice and allusion to setting just in his little blog burb has made me anxious to track down his books. So it's a win all around.

Curing Bad Writing Habits Through Writing Badly

2011-02-10T17:06:00.000-08:00

A little late this week. Excuse me. An assignment came up that was bigger than I had anticipated.

A year or two ago, a friend/writing colleague of mine and I embarked on a project to cure us of many bad writing habits: we decided to write the worst fantasy novel of all time. We aimed to utilize every stereotyped character type and plot line, every technical aspect that manuals and literary greats will tell you to avoid. We overused adverbs, had an unconnected prologue, used any tag except "said" or "asked", abused exclamation points, used clichéd turns of phrase, included page-long tangents that had nothing to do with anything, and so on. And we found it was liberating, and made us better and more conscious writers.

See, it's easy to tell oneself, "Use adverbs sparingly." It's another thing to use them so much that you can't stand the sight of any word ending in -ly. Even if it's not an adverb. Now, when I'm tempted to use an adverb in my normal ("good", in theory) writing, I pause. I won't say, "Never use adverbs", because I think like anything else they can be used effectively*, but I consider whether that word is needed. Is there a stronger verb I can use, instead of modifying a weak one? Will using this adverb increase the reader's understanding of the action? Will it make this sentence or section better or worse?

I'm not a perfect writer, and I still have much room for improvement, but I've found that intentional overuse of a device can perform a cauterizing function on bad writing habits. At the very least, I've learned to think twice before using many of these devices, and I hope that I've begun to do so in a more efficient and stronger manner.

What about you? Do you have any unorthodox writing tips?

*(See, I just used one. Effectively.)

Missing the Point, or, The Full Effect is Lost on Me

2011-02-01T16:00:00.000-08:00

I've come to a realization in the last year or so when reading science fiction from the Golden Age or a few decades after. While I can appreciate and enjoy the stories and recognize when they contain revolutionary ideas for their time, I don't think I am hit with the full impact I would have experienced had I read them when they were new.

See, the thing is, I'm fairly young and most of these stories were around at least a decade before I was (usually more like two or three). In the time between their writing and my birth, and my birth and the age at which I began reading anything, countless writers had already read those books, been influenced by them, and incorporated their ideas into their own writing. I've read THE LEFT HAND OF DARKNESS, but only after reading many of the writers for whom LeGuin paved the way, so the unique ways she addresses gender don't strike me as so extraordinarily new as they would have, I suspect, if I'd read the book when it came out. The same is true for STRANGER IN A STRANGE LAND. It just seems so very 1960s to me, a perfect encapsulation of an era. If I'd been around to read it when it was first published, I'm sure its ideas would have seemed so much more original and revolutionary and controversial. Since I can only look at it from a historical perspective, it almost seems quaint. (Of course, I've got a background in studying religion, especially early Christianity and Greek mystery religions, so figures like Michael Valentine aren't all that new to me.)

Now, I enjoy these stories. I like the characters and the plots and many of the ideas. They have made me think critically about some of the things we take for granted in the world. But I still think I'm unable to feel the full effect they had when new. It's a bit sad, really. I can understand the impact these books had on thinking, on writing, and on culture from a historical and academic perspective. I can appreciate the doors they broke down or the topics they made OK to discuss. But I'm still somewhat removed by history and all the years and books and ideas that have come between us.

Perhaps I shouldn't take it to heart. After all, all ideas are new to the individual at some point. If I had read LeGuin before reading anyone else's take on gender that didn't conform to a strict dichotomoy, perhaps I would have been blown away. If I'd read Heinlein with no pre-conceived ideas of messianic figures or knowledge of the free love movement or--gasp!--Muslims as anything but radical figures, perhaps he would have shocked me. SLAUGHTERHOUSE-FIVE was the first thing of its kind I can remember reading, and that book shook me very much and remains a favorite to this day.

And each generation gets its own new ideas. I'm sure if I considered it, there would be books that have moved or surprised me now, or made me think about things in a new fashion. Who's to say these books won't be the big hallmarks of thought we look back on three decades from now?

Having trouble writing memorable character action? Pick up some visual media!

2011-01-25T14:25:00.001-08:00

A challenging issue I’ve noticed lately in my own writing, and seen other people comment on, is mixing up the physical actions of characters. It’s easy to have someone look, glance, stare, smile, pout, or raise an eyebrow over and over again, and because of that, those movements can become repetitive as they react to the world around them. This is especially true if a scene does not involve much physical activity, such as if all the players are sitting and talking. But those actions are important. They can reveal if a character is relaxed or happy or frightened, whether they like the situation around them, and so on. How can a writer mix up a character’s actions while still adequately conveying the character’s mood, feelings, or thoughts?

Real-world observation is probably the best exercise, but if one is writing late at night or early in the morning or in between other tasks, it might not be possible to go sit in a park or a coffee shop to witness the way people move. Besides, that depends on stumbling across a situation the character and the real-life person share, which one might not always be lucky enough to find.

Though people bash on writers who are too inspired by TV and film rather than literature, and even on books that are written too much like movies (thinly-veiled screenplays connected by lines of prose), visual media can be a great reference tool for character movements. Moreover, they are often within reach if one is writing at home, making them easy to consult in a fix. If you can identify a situation where your character might react in the same manner as one in a movie or TV show, one can skip to that scene and observe what body language the actor uses to convey the character’s feelings or thoughts on the situation.

Recent re-reads of manga and graphic novels have revealed them as an even more useful tool. Because they are so reliant on pictures, each little movement is important to the story, revealing something about the character’s emotions or personality. Often they are illustrated by artists who have spent years observing human body language, so writers can benefit second-hand from all that experience. Just last night I reread several chapters of an old favorite, and noticed the way a character shuffled her feet to express discomfort and shyness, the way another tossed his hair to express arrogance, and the tiny tics of facial muscles used to convey a range of nuanced emotions. Perhaps I could have picked up on these things by observing a real-world conversation, but I imagine I would miss the more subtle gestures in my attempts to be discreet, since it’s rude to stare.

So, recent lesson learned: next time there’s no people around to observe, pop in a movie or pick up a graphic novel if you’re stuck trying to express a character’s movement without having them repeat the same three actions.

Having trouble writing memorable character action? Pick up some visual media!

2011-01-25T14:25:00.000-08:00

A challenging issue I’ve noticed lately in my own writing, and seen other people comment on around the Internet quite a bit, is mixing up the physical actions of characters. It’s easy to have someone look, glance, stare, smile, pout, or raise an eyebrow, and because of that, characters’ physical movements can become repetitive as they react to the world around them. This is especially true if a scene does not involve much physical activity, such as if all the players are sitting and talking. But those actions are important. They can reveal if a character is relaxed or happy or frightened, whether they like the situation around them, and so on. How can a writer mix up a character’s actions while still adequately conveying the character’s mood, feelings, or thoughts?

The Challenges of Blogging and Getting Things Done

2011-01-18T16:39:00.000-08:00

I had intended to blog yesterday, but it was a holiday, and my sense of which day it is has been thrown off for the rest of the week has been thrown off. Today it took me several hours to realize it was Tuesday and I hadn't gotten around to doing the post I'd wanted! It got me thinking, however, about the things in life that do keep me from blogging, writing, or on occasion, getting other tasks done.

I've mentioned before that I work full-time and in graduate school part-time, both related to libraries, and I don't have this issue in those realms. I'm very self-directed and task-oriented, and I accomplish tasks promptly and to the best of my ability when there is a deadline or a need for the finished product. In other words, when there is something at stake, I'll work until whatever needs to get done is.

The problem with writing and blogging, at this stage in my career (complete amateur), is that sense of importance is not there. I set weekly writing quotas for myself and tell myself I will blog, and for the most part that works, especially for the former. But if something comes up--I have a crazy week with work or school that absorbs all my time, I'm preoccupied with some other project or go out of town--I tend to let myself off the hook more easily. I'll be disappointed in myself, but I'm ultimately the only one affected by this missed deadline, removing much of the urgency and impetus for getting the task done. If I don't finish a story one week, I can finish it the next, and nobody else will really know the difference. The people who read my work tend to be more lenient now, especially given the working and studying thing, and my blog isn't big enough yet for there to be any sort of outcry if I don't post for a while (although posting infrequently certainly doesn't help to grow it). There's a certain freedom in being able to write when I want without having to worry about assignment deadlines, but I think I may be in the minority that seems to thrive under pressure and will produce more when some date is set by which I must be finished.

Until then, I'll just have to continue to push myself harder and pretend that any self-imposed dates aren't just arbitrary.

Do deadlines work for you, whether self-imposed or given by others? What strategies do you find helpful for making yourself get things done?

More from the GRRM signing...we're on Winter Is Coming.net

2011-01-11T11:34:00.001-08:00

Pictures of us in the t-shirts mentioned in yesterday's post have been added to the report from Winter Is Coming.

GRRM signing! Winter is coming...in spring.

2011-01-10T13:58:00.000-08:00

I attended George R.R. Martin's signing at Vroman's Bookstore in Pasadena yesterday. If you're ever in that area, I recommend checking out that venue! It's a huge, two-story store with an amazing selection, quite impressive in a day where smaller and independent bookstores are having trouble keeping up with Barnes & Noble and Amazon. My friends and I got there a few hours early and were still the sixtieth people in line, and the store was able to accommodate the huge turnout.

There were rumors that Martin was planning to speak before the signing (the topics of speculation being the HBO series of A GAME OF THRONES or the long-awaited release of A DANCE WITH DRAGONS), but time was limited and the line was long, so he went straight into signing, even starting early to make sure everyone would get through. (The store had a really generous limit on signed items, too--you could get five things signed!)

However, my friends and I got a little extra time with him as a result of our wardrobe. A few years ago, one of my friends, a former graphic designer, designed several A Song of Ice and Fire-themed shirts for us, so of course we had to wear them. And wow...did we attract attention. We got photos with Martin, photos from his publicist, photos from the HBO publicity crew for Game of Thrones and True Blood (Martin was in town for a press circuit of the series), photos from the staff at the Westeros and Winter-Is-Coming websites...yikes, our photos might end up plastered all over the web. If they do, I'm the one in the black Daenerys t-shirt with the list of locations in her "world tour" on the back. (My friend is a creative genius, really.)

We were privy to a lot of information we can't repeat from HBO, which was really amazing to receive, and I'm sorry I can't spread it...and for flaunting it a little. But! Martin did tell us a little about the show. He's still pleased with how season 1 is progressing and is very involved in the process. Season 2 has not been picked up yet, as that will depend how well season 1 does, but everyone there is expecting it to be a hit. The premiere is April 17, although I think that had been announced on the web already. So if you get HBO: watch! If season 2 is made, there's no contractual obligation for them to follow A CLASH OF KINGS, but Martin seems to expect they will as they've made it a point to stick closely to A GAME OF THRONES and have collaborated with him on many points.

A friend of mine is currently borrowing the first book in the series and was out of town this past weekend, preventing me from retrieving it for a signature, but I have one of the coolest author signatures to date in my copy of A STORM OF SWORDS, which is my favorite installment anyway...

Getting back into it...and my new love for the Kindle

2011-01-04T13:01:00.000-08:00

I'm not much a believer in New Year's resolutions; if there's something I need to change, I shouldn't wait for some arbitrary date to do so, especially when tying it to a calendar seems to make it less likely I will continue it beyond February. But in the last half of 2010, my passion waned due to a combination of factors (some related to the general busy nature of life and some due to personal issues) and I did less writing than I had anticipated. So my goal for the near future is to try to capture some of that desire again, or at least press myself harder to write despite my feelings. Now is a good time to start, actually, as it's the one month a year I don't have to deal with graduate school on top of working full-time.

I've also begun reading the work of the authors on the fantasy panel I will be moderating at Literary Orange in April! I received a Kindle for Christmas and can only give it glowing praise. I've been flying through books two and three in Gail Carriger's Alexia Tarabotti series, and though I quite like the series and would progress through it quickly in any format, I attribute a lot of my current speed to the ease of reading on the Kindle! There are no page numbers, but there is a little progress bar on the bottom that tracks what percentage of the book has been read, and I feel so accomplished seeing that percentage creep up every time I read.

Anybody else have interesting resolutions? Love or hate for the Kindle (or other e-reader)?

Happy Holidays!

2010-12-20T15:06:00.000-08:00

Although I think I don't have enough of a consistent posting schedule to declare a hiatus yet, I'll probably not be posting for the next two weeks due to long-awaited vacation time and travel. I've never been one for New Years resolutions--if there's something you want to change, why wait for an arbitrary date?--but this year I think I will make an exception and resolve to post a little more frequently, as well as get back on track with my personal/fun writing. (I've been doing it regularly, just not in the quantities I used to! I need to get my word counts back up!)

I've posted a couple of book reviews recently, if you stumble across this blog and want something substantial to peruse.

Happy holidays!

Book Review: FEED, by Mira Grant

2010-12-13T17:44:00.000-08:00

Given that I've reviewed Kevin J. Anderson's THE EDGE OF THE WORLD recently, it is only appropriate that I review the other book I managed to snag a free copy of at Comic-Con, which is Mira Grant's FEED. I'm normally not a zombie fan--I hate gore--but the way the publisher was hyping this book piqued my interest, and I'm glad it did, because FEED is a very smart book.

The title's a play on words: of course it's a reference to the zombies, but also to the protagonists, sister-brother team George (short for Georgia) and Shaun Mason, bloggers on their own news site who are selected to follow the campaign of a presidential candidate thirty years in our future. Twenty-five years before the start of the action (in 2014), two would-be cures for diseases got in contact with each other, mutated, and spawned a zombie epidemic. The zombie virus has infected the entire population of the world, lying dormant (most of the time) in every human and animal until death. If you're over 40 pounds, you're screwed and will reanimate to feast upon the living.

This book has some incredible world-building. Grant hasn't made her zombie-infected world into a post-apocalyptic wasteland, but into an America where people have tried to continue on as normally as possible despite the fact that a freak fatality could trigger an outbreak. People still go out to dinner, but outdoor dining is almost unheard of because the restaurants are too hard to protect. Gated communities abound even more than they do now. Political rallies require even more security than they do now, and multiple blood tests per day to test for amplification of the virus are the norm. George Romero has become a national hero, as his movies taught people how to survive in the first days of the outbreak. (In fact, both our protagonist and another major character are named after him, as are a sizable percentage of the children of their generation.) Releasing the virus is considered an act of bio-terrorism, and serves as a major plot point as the campaign is being targeted in a conspiracy that causes a massive outbreak during a political rally and then an attack much closer to home. Grant has thought out the effects living with this kind of epidemic would have on everyday life if it did not cause a societal collapse, which is a refreshing change to the genre.

With few exceptions, the characters are complex and fleshed out well. Moreover, they are likable. George has a passion for reporting the truth and is a smart and believably smart-ass woman, while her brother Shaun (an "Irwin" in a cute pop-culture reference) has a flair for poking at trouble in order to create exciting stories, being reckless without being annoyingly stupid about it. Grant is a bold writer and isn't afraid to do mean things to her characters, and there's one twist less than 100 pages from the end that really made my stomach sink, although it wouldn't have been believable if the situation had turned out differently. It's not even the most original twist, although it's still done rarely enough that it was quite shocking in context, even though a retrospective look at the book reveals a lot of subtle foreshadowing.

The only part I had any issue with was the confrontation between the protagonist and villain at the end, because it occurred far too quickly in a book that's nearly 600 pages long. The villain fesses up too quickly, it seems he will be dealt with in two pages, there's a minor twist, and then that's over in two pages. I haven't figured out how to stretch out the tension without making it unbelievable, but it felt rushed and was less satisfying as a result.

But as I said at the beginning, this book is smart and will appeal to lovers of the zombie genre as well as those who don't like the gore. It's well-written and well-executed, and it will be interesting to see how the story progresses through the rest of the trilogy. Recommended.

Book Review: The Edge of the World, by Kevin J. Anderson

2010-12-01T18:12:00.000-08:00

I've been meaning to review Kevin J. Anderson's The Edge of the World, book 1 of the Terra Incognita series, for a while. In the interest of full disclosure, this is a book I received free from the publisher's booth at San Diego Comic-Con 2010; they were handing out free copies of several books to anyone who wanted one and I received no money or other benefits for reviewing it. As should be expected, there are spoilers below.

The Edge of the World is the first in an epic fantasy series centered around the long-building war between two empires and the search for new parts of the globe on which each embarks. Perhaps it is just my memory of sitting through three-hour lectures on the subject in college, but it is very clear that this conflict is at least partially inspired by the historical conflict over Jerusalem. The Aidenists and the Urecari have long been uneasy with each other, rival nations and religions that view themselves as being descended from the two sons of their creator god. Their empires abut each other and they share a holy city, Ishalem, whose name is even evocative of that of the City of David. An accidental fire that destroys most of Ishalem, including the most holy relic to each religion, destroys any strides toward peace the two nations had made, and it is not long before they engage in war. The Aidenists send out a ship to look for a missing holy land across the sea (farther than anybody has ventured) and, much later in the book, the Urecari send a hot air balloon far to the east after a visitor arrives from beyond the desert they thought had marked the edge of the world.

As can be expected, these sections of the book are quite thrilling, as the various parties encounter desert raiders, sea serpents, and the mighty Leviathan, the most dangerous creature in all the seas, so dangerous that their legends say the creator god only made one. Anderson does a good job of capturing the wonder each side experiences as they discover new lands, creatures, and peoples, and also the sense of danger and fear that accompany many of them. The reader believes that these characters might not make it out alive, and that they might suffer horrible fates, without any gratuitous gore or delving into torture porn. You experience the awe that each character feels, and each of their emotions as these awesome things turn out for worse.

Like many epic fantasies, there is a large cast of characters in this book. Often in these works, they become indistinguishable, and the reader has difficulty keeping track of who each person is, their affiliations, their goals, what they were doing the last time they were seen, and so on. This isn't the case in Anderson's book. Each character is unique, fulfilling a certain role in Aidenist or Urecari society, and has specific motivations and personality. There is no danger of mixing them up and the narrative is straightforward enough that the reader rarely forgets where they were seen last; indeed, each time they are encountered, it is like catching up with an old friend.

The characterization of the empires, though--here is where I struggle to determine if I am reading politics too deeply into the story, or if maybe the writer falls a little short of his seeming goal of making both sides equal in "goodness". Neither of the sides is a straight metaphor for the current powers struggling over Jerusalem, but there do seem to be some parallels. Both sides do terrible things to the other, attacking unprovoked or escalating the war through rising levels of retaliation. However, it seemed to me--and perhaps a second reading will change this--that the Aidenists as a whole conducted themselves better than the Urecari. In general, it felt like the Urecari did more heinous things as a nation, whereas the atrocious acts committed by the Aidenist side were carried out by rogue individuals. Of course, there are exceptions, but the level of Urecari brutality felt much higher. They hung Aidenist priests on large fishhooks (a symbol of the Aidenist religion) en masse and even kidnapped and raised Aidenist children to grow up to infiltrate their homelands as assassins and saboteurs, while the Aidenist king is shown much more often hesitating to retaliate or launch an attack. There were good and bad individuals on each side, but the Aidenists felt a bit favored.

It is an Aidenist couple who provide the emotional heart of the novel, as well: Criston and Adrea. Shortly after their marriage, Criston departs on the Aidenist voyage across the sea, and Adrea is kidnapped in an attack and becomes an Urecari slave, though she eventually manages to maneuver herself to a greater position of power. They both believe the other to be dead, but through the fourteen-year span of the book, their longing for each other permeates every action they take, even though circumstances twist each into a darker person. There is a strong hint at the end of the book that they may find each other in the next volume, and it will be interesting to see how they relate. Is either the same person anymore? Can they rebuild what they once had?

There's a bit of everything in this book, making it appeal to a wide range of readers: adventure in new worlds (though each quest is separated by many pages), political machinations and intrigue, and the human element of two lovers who have lost each other and have to adapt to a tearing world to survive. Despite the horrors of the war, there is still a sense of adventure, of wonder, of lightness that permeates the prose, which will probably make it more palatable to readers who like epic fantasy more in the vein of Lackey than Martin. It is not often I read past book 1 in a series, but it is very likely I will pick up The Map of All Things the next chance I get.

I'm writing SCIENCE!

2010-10-30T12:49:00.000-07:00

I write science fiction and fantasy. I think taking characters out of the real world and putting them in a fictional setting provides fascinating opportunities to explore the things that are universal among humans. Even if that fictional world is pretty much ours with a twist, it can remove some constraints and let you do things with characters that you might not be able to otherwise.

So though I started writing science fiction as a way to explore characters, my last few manuscripts have really shown me that I like writing science. Just pure explanations of scientific concepts. Of course, there are times I have to pull back; info-dumping in any form is bad and should be integrated more neatly into the narrative. There's also the fact that should I ever get published, people will want to read more story than essay. But I can't deny that writing the scientific parts, whether they be astrophysics or fringe theories, is bringing me a lot of joy lately.

I thought I'd be a scientist growing up. I entered college intending to be a biologist. I got pulled into religious studies and linguistics, two fields I also love. This means that I really don't have a subject expertise in the area, which means I have to do extra research to make sure I'm stating things correctly, and there is a constant fear that some creative phrasing may make it appear I don't know what I'm explaining. Right now I'm writing a scene where a character from a culture that's lost much of its scientific knowledge is trying to explain the basics of DNA to another character whom she believes has no scientific background. I have to balance the character's words so that it's clear she understands but doesn't use any of the lost technical jargon. In my last manuscript, all the characters were scientists, so the only challenge was making sure I explained everything correctly in a way that wouldn't bore or confuse the audience. This new approach is a fun challenge.

A lot of the writers I read do delve into the more technical points when they write about scientific concepts. Any favorite examples, either of that or of writers who've done what I'm trying to do?

Literary Orange 2011 Website Up!

2010-10-24T22:01:00.001-07:00

Hi all! I just wanted to post to say that a good portion of the Literary Orange 2011 website is up here!

Literary Orange is "Orange County’s premier literary event, where authors, passionate readers and committed libraries join together for a day-long celebration of literature in all its guises." It was a lot of fun last year, and I would definitely recommend attending if you live in southern California and would like the opportunity to listen to authors speak and maybe get some books signed.

While we have mostly figured out the event program, it is subject to change and so the final list of what-goes-when isn't up yet. However, our front page does show our keynotes, and there is a list of the authors who will be participating in panels and lectures here. I hosted the science fiction and fantasy panels last year, and we had a great turnout and discussion. This year, we were able to get enough genre authors to hold separate panels, and I'm set to host the fantasy panel with Gail Carriger, Karen Essex, and Kim Vandervort!

Most of our panels are designed to appeal to enthusiastic readers. However, due to popular demand, we are going to offer a publishing industry panel this year as well! Several agents from the Sandra Dijkstra Literary Agency, as well as others in the industry, will be on hand to answer questions from aspiring writers.

It's a bit too early for registration to be up yet, but if you can make it out, keep this event on your mind...

SPEAK out during Banned Books Week

2010-09-27T16:45:00.001-07:00

First, I have to apologize for neglecting this blog for...just over a month now. I had fallen a little short of my goal while I was moving, but in the past month, I've suffered quite an emotional upheaval and let the fallout from that keep me away. I'm a very disciplined person in most cases, but I had to funnel that discipline into work and grad school first, and blogging fell by the wayside. As did most things related to the internet. But I am back and plan to try being more consistent.

So! It's Banned Books Week, an event I always look forward to each year, especially since I'm in the library profession. Even I have not been under enough of a rock to miss all the hoopla this year about SPEAK, a novel that's ten or so years old and was made into a movie a couple years back. It's received a surge of interest lately due to the efforts of Wesley Scroggins to get the book banned because it is "soft pornography" due to its rape scenes. It's been talked about in countless web posts, on nearly every news site and agent blog I read and all over Twitter. I rage because too often the victims of sexual violence are silenced, or silence themselves out of shame or fear. It's important to talk about these issues and to provide books, fiction or not, that shed light on them and could possibly encourage any young girl to come forward by making her realize she is not alone and what happened to her is not OK.

He also criticizes SLAUGHTER-HOUSE FIVE, which is my favorite novel ever and one that I found a lot of spiritual depth in, despite Vonnegut's secular humanism, because of what I brought in as a reader. (I've read it at Banned Books Week before, actually.) So often when I see books challenged on grounds of immorality, I have to wonder how much is actually present in the text and how much is injected from the reader's perspective. I wonder doubly so at the confusion of rape with porn, and it makes me feel sick inside.

There's a perpetual debate within the library profession about what constitutes censorship. Try as we might to represent all viewpoints for all people, we have collection policies that prevent us from buying certain books and limited budgets that force us to decide between books. And as librarians are human, it is possible for our personal opinions to color our selections, no matter how free of bias toward any creed we try to be. But censorship is something we must try to overcome. We don't have to like what every author has to say. We don't have to read what every author has to say. But ideas need to be free, and speech is free in my country, and we cannot tell others what to read or write.

If you can, I'd recommend checking out what your local library is doing for Banned Books Week. Read some of the books on the list and get a feel for the ideas. Participate in a read-out. Buy a book from an author you feel is unfairly banned. Read and be free.

So it begins...again... (Literary Orange and grad school!)

2010-08-25T12:00:00.000-07:00

Today marks the start of my second year of graduate school. I work in a library full-time, but to be an official librarian, I need that piece of paper. It can get a bit tiring to work in a library all day and then study and write about them as well, especially when I want to use that time to write fiction (or relax...or take a vacation, a mythical experience I've heard about but not partaken in years) but it's an interesting career that I think I'll enjoy. Though my ultimate dream is to write something that gets published, I know there's little chance of that being able to support me financially, at least for the first couple of years. I owe it to myself, any future family I may have, and society to not be a leech when I am able to work.

So far the semester doesn't look too overwhelming, which is a relief as my last spring semester was. The material wasn't overly challenging, but the classes had large workloads and I had difficulty not so much in balancing my time but my creative energies. I was constantly drained and too determined to not give up on a novel that needed a serious reboot. This semester, though, the school workload seems manageable, constant but not too heavy, and I feel better going in about the novel I began a few days ago. I was a bit surprised that my initial writing burst didn't lead to as many words as in my previous experiences, but my control of the language was better; I wasn't just putting down pretty words because they were pretty (but occasionally meaningless or nonsensical). One thing for sure is that I am a determined brat, so I'll learn from last semester and hope to balance it all better on this go.

On another front, we've got nearly all of the authors we need for Literary Orange 2011 lined up! I'm very excited for next year's event! I shouldn't reveal any names before they're listed on the website, but I'm very pleased by the participants and excited to moderate the fantasy panel again. To address a complaint we received last year, we were able to secure enough authors to have more genre panels this year. There will be a variety of literary and non-fiction panels as well, so there's something for everyone. If you're in the Orange County, CA area, I'd recommend you attend! But of course, I am a bit biased.

P.S. My new apartment looks awesome so far. So glad to be moved in.

Back!

2010-08-19T19:18:00.000-07:00

Not much to say other than that final projects, then moving, consumed all of my time recently. I'm slowly reconnecting to the Internets, but both my feed reader and my work email were gross in their fullness this morning, so it will probably take a little while. But I have a spiffy new place, and plans for a new writing project to start very soon! Grad school starts up for the fall next week as well, so here's hoping the workloads for both school and my work won't kill my creative energies. I had problems with that this past spring, although fall and summer weren't so challenging in that way, so we'll see.

Part 2 of My San Diego Comic-Con 2010 Report!

2010-07-29T17:02:00.001-07:00

Saturday was the main event for me, seeing China Miéville. I spent most of the convention kicking myself for not ordering KRAKEN in time...I only went to the con for two days because my life has been super-busy of late, and that super-busy-ness prevented me from looking at the schedule until last Wednesday. What a dork am I. (I could have bought the book at a store or at the con, but I am broooooke and wanted him to sign my copy of Perdido Street Station anyway. I don't necessarily need pretty hardbacks anyway...)

But man oh man, what a gracious and charming guy Miéville turned out to be. Some of the sillier people I know had predicted he would be a rather gruff speaker, citing his reputation for being very political (which I'm not) and his rather "unconventional" appearance for an author. Alas, these were the kind of people who think fantasy and science fiction are only for old professors or young men lacking in hygiene and social graces...I digress. Besides, shaved heads and a row of earrings aren't that intimidating; I live in California and have seen much stranger. And I always find it refreshing to see authors who don't look like one would expect.

It sort of ties into a point Miéville made that really stuck with me, that fantasy is not reducible to one thing. It's not one type of story. It's a sub-portion of speculative fiction, a title that should demonstrate how far-reaching the genre can and should be. What the human mind can conceive, what it can speculate on, is incredible, and if we each spend time delving into our own worlds (or multiple worlds, usually, if you're an author), all separately from each other, it's ludicrous to deduce that fantasy is a homogeneous entity. ...Bringing it back around to Miéville's appearance, and that of the large attendance in the room, it's just as silly to assume that fantasy would only appeal to one type or look of person. I really believe there's a speculative fiction story to interest everyone, because it is in humanity's nature to be inquisitive.

I should stop being so wordy, so I will continue this post with...slightly less wordy points:

-Panel started with a reading of his short story, "The Rope is the World". Very interesting thought experiment about life with space elevators, and one of the few stories I can think of where second-person present worked.

-Question and answer session where a lot of the specific questions went over my head, given that I'm rather new to his work. Additional points that I could appreciate:

We all have more ideas than we even realize, but we often cast out our sillier ideas because of societal conditioning. We're more creative than we know. (Guilty!)
Fandoms often ruin the things they love. "You know what's awesome? Boba Fett. You know what would be more awesome? More Boba Fett...Well, no. Now you've ruined Boba Fett."
I admire anyone who stands by their work, even if it has alienated some readers (in reference to one of his more politically-charged novels, which I haven't read).

Overall, he was eloquent and personable, especially during his signing, taking the time to converse with each person a little more than most authors I've met. Of course, I've only run across one or two authors who came anywhere near the "curmudgeon" label, but this was a prime example of how to connect with your fans and conduct yourself. Kudos, and I'm looking forward to reading more of your work, Mr. Miéville.

I had been planning to go to a panel on writing action and characters after the signing, but I received a phone call that a good friend of mine, who had spent a good portion of the previous few weeks remaking his General Grievous costume. It blew my mind last time, and so I dropped everything to go support him (and in the process, fulfilled my nerdy con dream by posing with Predator cosplayers). Action and characters tend to be things I'm better at, so I hope my writing won't suffer too terribly as a result...but perhaps I can find somebody else's con report to fill me in.

I don't expect anyone to have read all the way through this monster. Someday I'll learn to be brief while I'm rambling! But if you did, please share your con experiences, experiences with good or bad author panels, most awesome costumes you've ever seen, etc.

San Diego Comic-Con 2010 Report!

2010-07-29T16:46:00.000-07:00

San Diego Comic-Con has long since evolved from being aimed strictly at fans of comic books to being a venue for promotion of media in all forms, from comics and graphic novels to TV shows to films. I love it. I love it I love it I love it. It takes all my nerdy geeky interests and offers me information about them and forums for discussion and fellowship with fellow nerds and free swag. In the last few years, though, I've noticed it has become an increasingly interesting (and useful) convention for fans and writers of genre fiction as well. (Well, these programs have been present for a long time...so perhaps it's just my growing interest in the topic that has made them stand out to me. But I get the feeling that the number and quality of the panels aimed at SF/fantasy fans and writers has grown as well.)

I was only able to attend for two days this year, but managed to make it to one reading- or writing-related panel each day. (Unfortunately, SDCC has grown so large that it's difficult to get into many panels back-to-back, unless you get there early and camp out--and that's assuming the panels you want are in the same room!)

After waiting in line on Friday with a bunch of fantasy fans (including fellow aspiring writer Shannon Messenger and Rare Bird Lit intern Lizzie Andrews), I made it into an urban fantasy panel with an interesting focus: evolving beyond the vampire phenomenon. Don't get me wrong, I love me some vampires, but it was refreshing to have a conversation that revolved around other topics! Mario Acevedo, Marjorie M. Liu, Tanya Huff, Lauren Kate, Merrie Destefano, Jocelynn Drake, and Richard Kadrey were the panelists. I'll admit I haven't read half of them, because urban fantasy isn't a super-favorite genre of mine, but I was familiar enough with most of them and they were all pretty interesting anyway. They had some creative and useful tips for taking existing legendary creatures and putting twists on them. The genre's so saturated, and nearly everything's been done at some point. If you're going to write urban fantasy, it's vital that your fantastic things--creatures, people, whatever--stand out. Why should anyone read your book when there are twelve other evil unicorn tomes on the shelf?

Yes, evil unicorn books came up. I think the idea is awesome and wonder why I'd never heard/thought of it before now. I think from now on, every time I read a passage where a villain's on a horse, I'm going to picture a fiery-eyed, evil unicorn instead. So...actually, my praise for evil unicorns contradicts my point. Pretend evil unicorns are passé. I know, it's hard.

And now from that tangent back to my point: there needs to be something to attract readers to your work and them, something to hook your audience, something new in a tired old trope. They also talked a little about the difficulties of creating truly unique new races. Like anything else, lots of research is involved. But that's OK, because I love research!

I also used the opportunity to pimp out Literary Orange to anyone fairly local, and came up with a few more ideas for authors to invite either this year or to a future event. Woo!

I'll update about day 2 of the con for me (Saturday) tomorrow, and it will mostly be about...China Miéville!

Reason #Whatever to Get an E-Reader Someday

2010-07-26T19:37:00.000-07:00

I'm moving in a few weeks, and started packing up my books tonight only to realize that when it comes time to actually move them, it is going to suck.

Oh well, I regret nothing!

I had a blast at San Diego Comic-Con over the weekend and will write up reports of the relevant reading/writing panels soon! I've got a whole new wave of inspiration for writing and the author committee for Literary Orange...

San Diego Comic-Con!

2010-07-22T17:10:00.000-07:00

Tonight I depart once again for the glorious world of San Diego Comic-Con, one of my favorite annual events. I used to go just for the movie and TV panels and to look at video game merchandise, but over the last couple of years I've really come to appreciate the variety of author- and writing-related panels they put together. I love hearing my favorite genre authors just speak, and even those who write in a sub-genre I don't read or write much can offer some brilliant insights or at least an interesting talk. Book signings are also a plus, although I'm wishing I had consulted the schedule early enough to know to order the hardcover of China Mieville's KRAKEN off Amazon in time...

I'm hoping I don't miss the legion of amazing Predator costumes again this year.

To anyone else going, I hope you have a blast! And if you can't go, don't fret too much: most of the panels end up on YouTube anyway.

Like everything else, learning to plot takes a few tries

2010-07-13T21:03:00.000-07:00

My first novel sat in my head for a couple of years. A friend and I were going to tell the story in a different medium, but it never came to pass. I had full visions of several scenes in my head and a burning desire to get the story down in some form, so by the time I decided to commit it to a novel, outlining came quickly. I wrote descriptions of the key scenes, the major plot points...but then had to figure out how to connect them. Sometimes this involved making up new characters or history on the spot. Most of the time I was able to make it work, but I did feel pressed when I occasionally wrote myself into a corner.

I tried a different strategy with my second novel: plotting and then writing it from start to finish. I like structure, but even with my meticulous outline, this technique seemed to stunt me. Because I hadn't thought of the defining moments first, it was harder for me to connect to my characters and learn their personalities, histories, motivations. I tried the highly-recommended technique of simply asking, "What comes next?", but found myself thinking a little too literally: "Well, I guess the protagonists went to sleep. Maybe things were quiet for a few weeks. They just went about their business until...oh yeah, I was supposed to be thinking of the next interesting thing to happen, even if it's supposed to occur weeks, months, years later." I introduced many plot threads that quickly became entangled, and the novel was a bloated mess. Still, I knew I would benefit from having some linear sense of the story at the outset, rather than isolated scenes.

With my third novel in progress, I've been trying to combine the strategies from my first two manuscripts: I've begun thinking in plot threads. I think on one element of the story at a time. Instead of asking "What comes next?" for the story as a whole, which seems too abstract for me, I focus on each particular character's arc, figuring out what their goals will motivate them to do next, creating the "big moments", and working the story from there. After I've got a bit of one thread laid out (or I get mental block), I move on to the next. So far this has helped me keep a balance between all the different threads and prevented me from getting too far into the outline and realizing, "Oh crap, this important character or plot point hasn't had an effect on the story in ages, and where did they go anyway?" because they've gotten lost in the shuffle as I struggled to Make Progress. Since I move periodically between defined plot threads, I don't forget about them and actually am more aware of the need to work toward entwining them all together. Plot threads can't exist in a vacuum; they need to form a greater story!

My hope is that this will prevent me from writing myself into any more corners, or from creating random subplots that go nowhere and have to be excised later from the text. This should save me both time and words. Do I expect it to be a perfect strategy? Probably not. It's inevitable that one will deviate from the outline a bit as certain story elements become more consuming than anticipated. But I think it's a good way to serve my desires both to know the key moments that will reveal the characters and major points of the story and to have a story structured from beginning to end. We'll just have to see. I have a ways to go; I still have to figure out how to tie in the revelation of my antagonists' motives without one of them giving an Evil Monologue or having a protagonist Just Know. But if this strategy doesn't work, I can always try a new one for novel #4.

Anyone who stumbles across this post: How do you usually plot your stories? Are you strict outliners or are you able to just start writing and let it flow organically? (If the latter, I envy you that ability!)

Library Advocacy Day

2010-06-29T15:22:00.000-07:00

As a worker in the library field (I haven't quite got my MLIS yet so I hesitate to officially call myself a librarian), I need to point out that today is Library Advocacy Day. I only regret I'm doing it so late in the day. It's replacing National Library Legislative Day this year due to all the budget squeezes libraries across the nation are feeling. (It's bad: layoffs and cuts everywhere. My aunt is a librarian in a system in danger of being shut down, leaving a large and rather poor county without access to any libraries unless they drive over 100 miles and to another state. Not to mention it's many residents' only access to free Internet...) Please contact your Congresspeople and local legislatures if you care about providing communities with free access to information (be it through books, databases, or the web), places to study, and the multitude of educational and cultural programs libraries work hard to host.

Neil Gaiman wants you to.

Although statistics show high usage for all age groups, libraries and literacy are especially important for children. If you're interested in that issue, be sure to check out Reading is Fundamental or click at The Literacy Site each day to provide free books to children.

I say this as I sit at the reference desk of the academic library where I work, watching a group of elementary school students use our computers to do research and be encouraged to stay in school. (It's a slow shift, given that it's summer, so don't worry!)

True Writing Stories (Part 2)

2010-06-22T20:42:00.001-07:00

A chance sighting of the DVD of the Keira Knightley film version reminded me of one of my favorite true writing stories today: Pride and Prejudice took 16 years to get published.

Yes, you read that right. Pride and Prejudice. Yes, the one by Jane Austen. The quintessential girl novel. The origin of Mr. Darcy. Still one of the most beloved novels today, nearly two hundred years after its publication. I don't consider myself all that girly a girl when it comes to my literary tastes, but I swoon with the best of them when it comes to this book.

But publishers didn't, at first. Upon its completion in 1797, Austen's father gave it to a bookseller with hopes it would be published, but it was, you guessed it, rejected. Many years later, Austen sold the copyright to Whitehall for less than she had asked. She also sold it for a one-off payment, meaning all subsequent profits went to the publisher. Sounds like she could have used a good agent there.

So there you have it. If you ever have the misfortune of being rejected for sixteen years, keep persevering and think that perhaps your book, too, could someday be loved for several centuries. In the meantime, work on something else. It's important to note that Austen kept writing while pursuing publication for P&P. By the time it came out, she had already published another classic: Sense and Sensibility.

True Writing Stories (Part 1?)

2010-06-10T12:00:00.000-07:00

I love reading stories about wildly successful authors (OK, even moderately successful ones) who tried to get their stories published for years before finding that perfect mix of timing and people who believed in their work enough to sell it. Even though my own queries are still a ways off, it's heartening and I believe (or hope) it will help me prepare for the inevitable rejection I will someday face. (I suppose I could have a seemingly effortless and meteoric rise to success à la Stephanie Meyer, but I'm realistic enough to know those cases are rare exceptions.) Knowing that all authors struggle at some stage also reassures me as I face my own challenges, recently consist of a minor case of writer's block brought on by life changes (both recent and soon-to-be), library school starting up again for the summer, and ideas for plenty of characters and settings but no clear vision yet of what said characters are supposed to be doing in those settings. On the other hand, I have completed a lot of revision and rewriting on older stories, so despite my frustration I've gotten something vital done.

A good number of the examples I had collected for my little "true writing stories" folder appeared a few months ago in this article on Examiner.com. It's quite eye-opening to realize how much certain authors had to struggle, authors who have written classics or at least enjoy immense popularity. Many of them didn't even receive polite form rejections, but scathing criticisms from the agents and editors they hoped to impress. And when you consider the conditions under which some of these authors wrote their tomes, such as Anne Frank (Nazis? And to still remain so hopeful?) or J.K. Rowling (raising children on her own in poverty, writing on diner napkins), it becomes even more astounding. I must applaud, and feel grateful that my biggest problem is that my ideas won't coalesce quickly enough.

Never give up, never surrender. It may sound trite, but there you have 30 examples where it proved true in history.

What are your favorite true stories about authors? I like this topic so much that I might even make it a recurring feature!*

*(Although, really, that one article wiped out a lot of my stash. I need to see what I have left.)

P.S. Have I mentioned how much I love the delayed posting feature here? By the time this shows up on my blog, I'll be in a meeting at work instead of revealing how late I stayed up the night before.

What Lost Can Teach Us About Story-Building (Part II)

2010-05-27T19:57:00.000-07:00

Note: More spoilers, I'm sure.

So in Part I, I talked about learning from the things that Lost could have done better, story-wise. But overall I thought it was an awesome show, one I'm looking forward to rewatching once the DVDs are released, so in this post, I'm going to focus on learning from what Lost did well in terms of story.

Things to Make Sure You Do Well, Like Lost (for the most part, at least)

Know your characters' backgrounds well. If possible, give them a trait that seems to run counter to their place on the bad/good black/white scale.
Lost used flashbacks in the first several seasons to help develop their characters, and in doing so, made them more complex and interesting than they might have appeared if the story had taken place in one timeline only (on the island). The characters became even more interesting if we saw some aspect of their past or facet of their personality that didn't seem to match the image they projected. Sun seemed like a meek, submissive housewife at first--until we realized she knew English and hid it from her husband, had an affair recently enough that she worried Jin might not be the father of her unborn child, and was quite a little liar since her childhood. Ben was the creepiest character and THE villain for quite a while, and had murdered his father and most of the Dharma Initiative, but he sincerely loved his daughter and felt tremendous guilt for the role his actions played in her death. They both got much more intriguing when we learned of these parts of their lives.

Now in some stories, your characters may be almost entirely good or bad--but it's still important to flesh out their backgrounds, to give them proper motivation for their position. Why does your villain want power? Why does your hero fight for good, even if they've never really done anything all that bad?

Develop your setting(s)!
People are at least partially a result of their environments, so your setting is going to affect the way your characters think and behave. When writing your story, you should ask yourself, "Why this setting?" Think about what your setting offers to the story, and strengthen the parts that help it. Your readers should not feel that your story could have taken place anywhere else. In good stories, the setting will add charm or drama or suspense or something exciting or interesting to the plot, if not becoming a character in itself. The Island in Lost was definitely its own character, full of monsters, enemies, healings, secret structures, and various other mysteries, and became personified in the minds of the audience AND the characters (who often spoke of the Island's "will").

Add lots of interesting details.
Once again, I refer to most of the mysteries of the Island detailed above. But there was also lots of detail in the seemingly more mundane, from the political dynamics among the survivors (remember all the tension when Sawyer was hoarding supplies) to funeral ceremonies among the Others. These details can serve to illuminate personality traits of the characters, practices in their culture, and other things that make the world feel more thought-out and, as a result, real. The real world is complex, so readers won't believe a simple false one. You just have to be sure you're not adding detail for the sake of detail or oddity, and that if you hang any guns above the fireplace, you fire them.

The world's a complex place. It's rarely one person or group against another.
At first we thought it was the Losties vs. nature (the smoke monster, the polar bears), then the Losties vs. the Others. But as the show unfolded, we found out about other factions, some related and some less so: the tail section survivors, the Dharma Initiative, Widmore's group, and even other factions of Others, such as Alpert or Dogen's group at the temple. This aptly reflected the complexity of the real world, where more than two parties are usually involved in any one struggle. Even if your story is one group vs. another, though, remember that the members of those groups are individuals, and there will probably be strife within each group based on slight differences in motivations, backgrounds, or goals.

I've been enjoying reading posts about everyone's thoughts on the finale this week. Looking back on the series as a whole, what lessons about storytelling are you taking from it? What do you think the writers did well or poorly?