Of This and Other Worlds

[Crossposted from Facebook, feel free to ignore if you've already seen it there...]

Well into the second week of working on a new short story, and enjoying the writing process more than I have for a long time.

It's taken me eighteen months on sabbatical to get over the deeply ingrained habit of checking every few minutes to see how many words I've written, of feeling anxious that it's taking so long to get through a particular scene, of worrying that my time and effort has been wasted if I end up having to cut some or all of what I've written and start over the next day. Not to mention the voice of my Inner Editor nagging, "That scene is boring! That description is sappy! That conversation doesn't advance the plot! Nobody's going to like this. Give up and write something else."

It's not that I don't care anymore about making progress, or writing the best story I can. I'm just not measuring my work by the same rigid, merciless standards that used to suck away all the pleasure of writing for me. I don't have an outline for this story, just a vague notion of where I want it to end up and a few scattered ideas about how to get there -- and that's fine. I don't know who the audience for this story will be, or where I'm going to publish it once it's finished -- and that's fine, too. I'm writing it because I want to, not for the money or the market or the fear of losing my career if I don't. And that's the best feeling of all.

But it's taken me all this time to get there, because I drove myself so hard for so long, running on fear and guilt and sheer bloodyminded determination, that I couldn't remember how to write any other way.

Creative burnout is a real thing, ladies and gentlemen. Don't let it happen to you.

 As you may or may not know, I'm a big fan of singer/songwriter/producer Matt Hales, otherwise known as Aqualung. renisanz introduced me to him some years ago, and I've been eagerly buying up his albums ever since. His most recent (and maddeningly hard to find) album 10 Futures features a single called "Be Beautiful", and when I first listened to it just over a year ago I heard the following lines:


Of course I knew that plenty of successful and well-loved fantasy authors write prose that is functional at best (*cough*JKR*cough*). But because I get so much pleasure from smart narration (when I was reading Jonathan Stroud's Lockwood & Co. series aloud to my children, I kept stopping mid-paragraph to yell about how good he is), it was hard to convince myself that striving for a more literary style might not be crucial to my development as a writer. That my own natural storytelling voice, plain as it might seem to me, could be good enough.

But that stanza in "Be Beautiful" made me think again. What really grabs people and makes a lasting impression on them? Is it perfection in the aesthetic sense -- in which case any catalogue model or finely designed piece of furniture should do -- or is it the spark and vitality that come from an idea, a picture, a story, that the creator is genuinely passionate about?

Not that passion on its own, especially divorced from any element of skill or craftsmanship or good judgment, is always admirable. There are plenty of terrible artists, and terrible human beings, who feel passionate about what they're doing. But passion is memorable, for good or ill, in a way that mere artistry can't match.

So I decided that if I ever wrote another book, I would hold out for an idea that was not merely interesting to me or potentially saleable to a publisher, but one that I felt truly passionate about. I would try to hold onto that urgency, that conviction, and let it shape the words I was writing instead of trying to force myself to write in a way that doesn't come naturally.

Amazing, isn't it? The power of music.

* * *

Fast forward to yesterday, when I was singing along to "Be Beautiful" in the car and realized I had no idea what half the words actually were (to be fair, the guest singer on that particular song does not enunciate well). So I decided to look up the lyrics when I got home and...

You can see this coming, can't you?

I'd misheard that stanza. It's not "beauty won't catch your eye / the way that passion will," it's "the way the bad stuff will." 

And I have zero idea what that means.

* * *

But that's okay. I heard in that song what I needed to hear, the truth I was already grappling with inside. Good writing isn't about doing all the technical bits perfectly and silencing all your critics with the elegance of your prose. It's not about copying the style and content of other authors you admire. It's about writing what really matters to you, to the very best of your ability, with the voice God's given you. I believe that firmly now, and if mishearing Matt Hales' lyrics helped to cement it in my mind, that's not a bad thing.

(Anyway, I still think my version sounds better and makes way more sense in context. So there.)

 Two lovely surprises in as many days!

First, a friend on Facebook pointed me to a recent article at Tor.com featuring Quicksilver as one of Five Books With Asexual Protagonists (and furthermore declaring my post about writing Tori's character to be "excellent", which was a nice bonus).

Then today I got a package in the mail containing two US hardcover copies of A Pocket Full of Murder which, at first glance, seemed no different from the author copies I already had. I was mystified at first, but then I spotted the note tucked inside:

So this is a meme that made its way around to me a couple months ago, courtesy of award-winning Code Name Verity author Elizabeth Wein tagging Erin Bow (author of the gorgeous, funny, heartbreaking Plain Kate) and Erin tagging me in return. (I was also tagged by Zoë Marriott, whose sumptuous and refreshingly diverse secondary-world fantasies I adore. But I could not tag Zoë in return because Erin had already tagged her as well *pout*). 

So I am mentioning (not tagging, because that implies obligation, and that can be burdensome) two long-time favorite authors whose books deserve more attention than they've been getting, and one soon-to-be published author whose manuscript I adored and am excited about seeing in print:

Deva Fagan is the author of the delightful MG fantasy romps Fortune's Folly and The Magical Misadventures of Prunella Bogthistle, as well as the sparkling YA science fiction adventure Circus Galacticus (oh, that Ringmaster!). She is clever, versatile, imaginative, and a lovely person to know.

Actor/Author Adrienne Kress has published two charming, witty, everything-but-the-kitchen sink MG novels, Alex and the Ironic Gentleman and Timothy and the Dragon's Gate, both of which my 10-year-old son loves and has read multiple times. Her just-released first YA novel The Friday Society has a fabulous one-line pitch (a "steampunk Charlie's Angels without Charlie") and I thoroughly enjoyed it; I hope a lot of other readers do too.

Emily Kate Johnston never ceases to astound me with her ability to write terrific stories and novels in a dizzyingly short period of time. (Okay, let's be honest: I'm jealous.) Her contemporary southwestern Ontario high school novel, set in an alternate history where dragons are a real and pernicious threat (no cutesy "taming the dragon" storyline here!) won my heart and, I'm glad to say, charmed my agent and US editor as well. You can look forward to seeing her debut in 2014, by which time it will hopefully have a title!

And now I'll answer some questions about my own most recent book...

What’s the title?

It's called Quicksilver. I chose the title as it seemed like a good fit with Ultraviolet, its sister novel. Then I spent the next few months racking my brain to figure out what it meant -- and I didn't really know the answer until I was well into the first draft of the book. First drafts are mysterious like that sometimes.

A short synopsis?

Quicksilver is the story of Tori, a 17-year-old girl who flees her hometown, changes her identity and goes into hiding when a ruthless policeman and a DNA specialist start asking dangerous questions about her strange biology and mysterious past. But protecting herself from the people who want to control her will take every ounce of Tori’s incredible electronics and engineering skills—and even then, she may need to sacrifice more than she could possibly imagine if she wants to be free.

Where did the idea for this book come from?

It was totally Tori's idea. She's stubborn like that, and I knew as soon as I started writing her character in Ultraviolet that she was going to demand a sequel of her very own. Some characters take time for me to get to know properly, but Tori came alive for me the instant I named her, and she's held a place at centre stage in my imagination ever since.

What genre does your book fall under?

I'd call it a contemporary psychological thriller on the rocks with a science fiction twist. Hopefully it will leave the reader both shaken and stirred. (Although if Tori ever met James Bond, she would probably whack him upside the head with her toolbelt.)

Which actors would you choose to play your characters in a movie rendition?

All the K-Pop fans are going to laugh at me now, but I swear I had no idea who Siwon was when I found an old photo of him wearing glasses and decided he looked like my mental image of Milo. He's too old for the part nowadays, but if we're fantasy casting I don't see why we can't use a time machine. So here, have a picture:

( Read more... )

As for Tori, I've never found an actress who matched my mental image of her, but I did find this jaw-droppingly fabulous piece of artwork by Charlie Bowater:

( Read more... )

Will your book be self-published or represented by an agency?

Since 2009 I've been represented by the excellent team of Josh Adams at Adams Literary in the US and Caroline Walsh of David Higham Associates in the UK. Quicksilver will be published by Carolrhoda Lab / Lerner Books in North America and by Orchard Books in UK/Aus/NZ.

How long did it take you to write the first draft of your manuscript?

Six months, and I thought it was going to kill me. It wasn't even that the book was so demanding (though it was: I had to do a LOT of research into areas I'm not at all familiar with, like math and engineering) but that my elderly parents were going through a succession of health crises at the time, and juggling their needs with my publishing commitments was a challenge I'd not faced before on that kind of scale. So I had to beg for an extension on my deadline, and I felt horrible about it, but I knew that rushing the book would be the worst thing I could do in the end. I always want my books to be the best I can possibly make them before I send them out into the world.

What other books would you compare this story to within your genre?

Uh… Ultraviolet? That's really all I can think of, honest! Either my reading habits are woefully limited, or else my imagination is just that weird. (Probably both.)

What else about the book might pique a reader’s interest?

I guess it depends on how much they like any or all of the following: DNA analysis, cutting-edge technology, secret identities, mass transit, heroic rescues, dramatic text messages, unexpected visitors, pancakes, soldering, miniature dachshunds, makerspaces, excellent biceps, asexuality, Korean home cooking, road trips, radio telescopes, outrageous lies, tragic romances, not-so-tragic romances, and/or power tools…

I probably shouldn't be writing this because I have a killer headache and I have just tried to take a nap with no success, which means I am Crankypants. However, I think the point stands regardless of my frame of mind:

Fictional romances which involve two people being so absorbed in each other that they end up being indifferent, insensitive or downright cruel to the other people around them are, IMO, not romantic at all. They are obsessive, unhealthy, co-dependent relationships and make me want to smack both the lovers upside the head.

This is why I started getting very unsettled by Nine/Rose after "The Long Game". It's also why I found the behaviour of Ten/Rose in episodes like "Tooth and Claw" deeply problematic and upsetting, and why Ten's pillow talk to Martha in "The Shakespeare Code" made me grind my teeth.

Similarly, there are a number of popular "oh-so-romantic!" novels I've read where the love interests are all gropey and kissy in front of friends who are single and/or suffering from unrequited feelings and/or going through tough times in their own relationships, and I couldn't buy into the romance or sympathize with those characters at all.

(And IMO Wuthering Heights takes the absolute cake for non-romances, because not only are Heathcliff and Cathy cruel to everybody around them, they're also cruel to each other. As a novel about massively dysfunctional characters involved in a gothic tragedy it's superb; but anybody who interprets WH as a great romance has, to my mind, a highly suspect idea of love.)

Full disclosure: I'm not even going to pretend that this view of mine isn't rooted in personal experience. When I was young and single I had a friend who constantly macked on her boyfriends in front of me, making me feel completely unwanted and intrusive. After one particularly cringeworthy display in the middle of a shopping center I took her aside and quietly asked if she and her boyfriend could reserve the passionate kisses and lingering embraces for times when I was not present, and her response was a plaintive "But we love each other!"

I'm sure she felt very strongly about her feelings of passion for her boyfriend being bigger and more important than anyone else's feelings, and how this demonstrated the Epic Quality of Their Love. But I'm also sure, to this day, that she was wrong. (Not least because she and that boyfriend broke up a few weeks later.)

Or to use a non-physical example, in my single days I once got a letter from a recently-married cousin saying, "Marriage is fantastic! I highly recommend it, you should try it sometime!" Which made me want to HULK SMASH because at that point I'd never even been on a date, and not for lack of wanting or trying either. But I swallowed my bitterness and wrote her a polite response saying that I would dearly love to meet a wonderful person and get married, but this was really not in my control, and that I was happy for her contentment in her marriage, but perhaps she might consider not saying such things to other single people in future because they could be quite painful and upsetting.

(Perhaps not surprisingly, she never wrote to me again.)

Anyway, I have now been happily married for fourteen years and have three children, but my feelings about this matter have not changed a whit, and I'm certain that I'm not alone. So to my fellow writers in the process of trying to create truly swoonworthy romances, may I suggest that before your characters rush into a clinch or share a sly in-joke or otherwise engage in exclusionary behaviour in front of others, you and they should stop and think a little about how those other people might feel.

There has been a lot of bad news in my life lately (not for me personally, but for people I love and am close to -- serious health problems, impending operations, the sudden death of my uncle), so it was lovely to open my e-mail the other day and find out some really fantastic news for a change:

Ultraviolet has been nominated for the 2012 Andre Norton Award!

This is the YA division of the Nebula Awards, which are legendary in the SF&F genre, so even being considered for the award is a pretty big deal, let alone actually making the shortlist. I am thrilled and honoured.

Here's the full list of nominees as posted on the official SFWA site:

• Akata Witch, Nnedi Okorafor (Viking Juvenile)
• Chime, Franny Billingsley (Dial Books; Bloomsbury)
• Daughter of Smoke and Bone, Laini Taylor (Little, Brown Books for Young Readers; Hodder & Stoughton)
• Everybody Sees the Ants, A.S. King (Little, Brown Books for Young Readers)
• The Boy at the End of the World, Greg van Eekhout (Bloomsbury Children’s Books)
• The Freedom Maze, Delia Sherman (Big Mouth House)
• The Girl of Fire and Thorns, Rae Carson (Greenwillow Books)
• Ultraviolet, R.J. Anderson (Orchard Books; Carolrhoda Lab)

I have actually not yet read any of the other books on the list, but I've heard amazing things about all of them. I think I'm going to make it my business to read all the other nominated titles before the awards ceremony.

***

For my fellow writers in the quasi-local area, I have more good news -- I'm going to be presenting a workshop on revision in Waterloo, ON at the end of March: 

( Poster with details under cut... )

So if you need a pep talk before launching into your own revisions or would appreciate some general tips on how to go about it, this may be the seminar for you! Or just come and say hi and hang out with me and some other writers. Whatever. :)

***

And finally, a vid that has nothing to do with writing but I've been posting it everywhere since I discovered it last night, just because it is so INCREDIBLY CLEVER. And also broke my heart a little.

From the author's introduction at her journal: 

In the beginning, there was Sherlock Holmes. And Holmes brought forth the brilliant doctor House, embodied by the lovely Hugh Laurie. Who prior to that in Fortysomething played a slightly less brilliant doctor, Paul Slippery, who begat three sons, the eldest of whom was played by the equally-lovely-if-somewhat-peculiarly-named Benedict Cumberbatch. Who of course grew up to play Sherlock. ... And then my head exploded.

All I can say is, watch. Enjoy. Marvel at the parallels. Surely some of them had to be intentional?!

I suspect I've used that subject line before, but really, what could be more appropriate? I feel like I've been on a long journey these past couple of months, wandering through the misty wastelands of my own imagination without knowing where I'd end up, or whether it would be worth the trip when I got there. However, I am happy to say that as of yesterday I was able to turn in a complete draft of Swift to my editor -- and that yes, it is a story, and I'm pleased with it.

Erin Bow has just written an excellent post about What it's like to finish a book: or, one writer's neurosis in three stages which sums up my own feelings at the moment pretty well. Except that she and I differ in one significant aspect: she writes that "editing doesn’t produce the adrenaline to which one can become addicted in the rush of finishing a book. Certainly it doesn’t fill the same place in the heart..." Whereas for me, the revision stage sometimes does produce that kind of ecstatic rush, and it is definitely dearer to my heart than the thrash-and-flail process of first drafting. Once I know where the story's going (and that there is a story), I can stop worrying about the plot and concentrate on the details of character, dialogue, and the little touches of worldbuilding that will take the book to the next level.

But that will come in a few weeks, once my editor's had the chance to go over the manuscript and write me one of her lovely insightful letters suggesting all the ways in which it can be better. All sorts of things are bound to change in the ensuing revision process, and that'll be a challenge of its own. But for the moment I'm content. Not to mention excited about the potential not only of this particular novel, but of the book(s) to come... and that's a nice place to be.

So a while back, the nice folks at my UK publisher, which also happens to be Jackson Pearce's UK publisher, asked if Jack and I would be interested in doing a video together. And since I really enjoyed Sisters Red and she really enjoyed Knife a.k.a. Spell Hunter and Rebel a.k.a. Wayfarer, coming up with questions to ask each other was no hardship!

However, Jack is a veteran of video blogging and I... am not. So it's a bit squirrelly near the end where I suddenly realized I'd deleted one of my crucial clips and had to re-film it, but couldn't quite get the camera angle right.

Other than that, though, it turned out great! Really!



(Note to self: get a better camera.)

I've finally discovered how to vlog without taking all day to film and edit the thing! So here's my first video, about what it means to authors to get fan mail -- and how to increase your chances of getting a prompt, personal reply from an author when you write: