I want to be a writer when I grow up.

I said this to myself when I was about eight.  I remember it really clearly because we learned to write haiku in third grade and I had so much fun playing around with the syllables, even though I'm sure my attempts were pretty terrible.

My eight-year-old self has her wish, but there are a few things I wish I could tell her at the moment of that revelation, just to prepare her:

Dear Small Self,

Writers spend a lot of time not writing, or at least not writing books.  Some of it is related to writing books, though.  There are edits and outlines and synopses, where you write the whole book in five pages before you write it in four hundred.  Yeah, I know.  You still have to do it.  There's something called social media for making friends and getting people to learn your name, and you'll find out all about that when the Internet becomes a Thing You Can Play With.  Right now it's just something computer people have.

You'll also spend a lot of time not writing books because, again, someone invented this Internet thing.  There will be strange, amazing, as-yet-unheard-of entities called Twitter and Wikipedia.  Please, don't let these take up too many hours.  That also goes for a thing called an iPad and its very reason for existing, Angry Birds.  It's coming.  Prepare yourself.  (But if you're curious, you're actually pretty good at it.)

Small Self, I have to tell you you're not quite done with the magic of bath crayons.  Oh, you'll find more fun things to play with in the next few years, like skip-its and Dungeons & Dragons and boys, but, in the end...bath crayons.  You'll need them because your best, most creative ideas will come in the shower, and you'll work your way out of that seemingly impenetrable plot tangle while you have suds in your eyes.  Your friends will come over, have a glass of wine, and emerge from the bathroom asking, "Why do your tiles say, 'Speakers = Eggs'?" 

You'll have to answer them.  That, though, is good practice for talking about your work, which you will do with friends, critique partners, agents, editors, the cute tattooed guy who works at your local bookstore.  And I want you to remember that, in big and small ways, these people have your back.  They want to read, sell, and promote your book.  They want you to succeed.  Give them the satisfaction of doing just that.

And, on that note, treasure every hour you get to write.  There'll be times when you can't (see above) and times when it's hard and times when it's easy.  Value them all.  Small Self, you get what you want, and nothing will make you happier.  Trust me on this one. 

In which I talk dystopian fiction, my bucket list, and my protagonist's best friend

Not here!  The lovely Lenore Appelhans invited me to do an interview for her #dystopianfeb theme month, and it can be found here.

Don't write someone else's book.

No, this isn't a post about plagiarism, although that's an interesting subject.  This is about an obvious writing lesson I really had to learn the hard way.

Writers are told to read widely in their chosen genre/age group/subject matter etc, so we know what's out there, what's been done.  I touched on this briefly in an earlier post, but that can be a double-edged sword for people, like me, who tend to accidentally pick up on style and let that color whatever I'm writing.  I know enough now to steer clear of things where that's a risk.

Unfortunately, for a long time that didn't stop me from doing it intentionally.  I have this project I've been working on for...a long time.  I've redrafted and reinvented this thing more times than I can count.  I'm determined to make 2012 the year I'm happy with it.  And for years (not kidding, years) I've told myself that it's a specific kind of book and so it needs to have a specific kind of voice.  I've fought with my protagonist, my supporting cast, my villains.  I've been thisclose to throwing my computer out the window and abandoning the idea completely, but I can't because I love it too much.

2011 was a busy year.  I wrote a different book, did several rounds of edits, found an agent, edited some more, CODA went on submission--and that's just the stuff related to that one book.  I have a Real Life that demands attention, too, just like everyone else.

I was tired of fighting Secret Project.  For a while at the end of last year, the temptation was again there to abandon it, but fuck that.  In one of those moments of bizarre lucidity that only come from some form of exhaustion, I finally saw that there's a different way to stop fighting.  I can just write like me, and let the damn story be told the way I want it to, the way the characters have demanded from the start.  Yeah, there are some rules that I need to adhere to, like not swearing up a storm in a MG manuscript, but I'm allowed to use my voice.  I don't need to use the voices of the writers whose ranks I hope to join with this book.  I'm allowed my style, my fun.

And it will be better because of that.

I'm wide awake now, and I don't think it's the 4,876 cans of diet coke.

All I need to know about my book, I learned from TV

Okay, that's not really true, but I did learn something fun about it--in particular the process of writing it--from watching Criminal Minds.  I LOVE Criminal Minds; it's practically the only show I watch with any kind of regularity.  I'd love it even if it didn't have Dr. Spencer Reid.*  Most of what you see on TV isn't true, sure, but I'm giving the benefit of the doubt in this case because it was Reid who said it and, as a character notable for his brilliance, he's more believable if the scriptwriters give him facts to work with.

Anyway, I won't spoil this week's episode for anyone who hasn't seen it, but at one point Reid, JJ, and Morgan are discussing music and Reid tells them that, neurologically speaking, we solidify our appreciation of music at age fourteen.  Our tastes might grow, change, expand, but no music will ever have the same effect on our brains as what we listened to at that specific time in our lives.

*light bulb moment*

A LOT of music has come out since I was fourteen.  It was...a while ago.  (BRB, going to eat a cookie and cry into my wrinkles.  ...  ...  OK, I'm back.)  When I was writing CODA, though, a significant percentage of the music I listened to and that made it onto the book's soundtrack were songs I learned and loved, yes, the year I was fourteen.  My first mental images of my protagonist in a club had him dancing to that music.  Some of the songs--hell, maybe all of them--might not be the most shining examples of their kind, but I have such powerful associations with them that they were automatic go-tos when I needed to evoke a specific feeling in myself and pour it onto the page.

So, that's really interesting to me, and made me wonder if I would've written the book differently if I'd known about the age thing.  I think it's actually possible there's one small aspect I would have changed.

All through the writing process the book surprised me, marching off in the opposite direction to what I intended, changing and growing and presenting themes and ideas I hadn't considered.

It's sort of cool to know that eight months later, it still can.

Em

*Admittedly, not nearly as much.  He's delicious.

Books I'm reading...or not.

I'm sure I'm not the only one out there who needs to steer clear of certain kinds of book while writing.  During the CODA process, I had to give up sci-fi completely, and even a lot of other kinds of fiction written by people whose style stuck in my head too easily.  I wound up reading a lot of non-fiction, especially biographies and travel memoirs, and re-reading a lot of Terry Pratchett.  (I love the Discworld books, but the style was never going to infect me.  I'm totally incapable of bringing that level of funny.)  I celebrated finishing CODA by reading John M. Cusick's excellent GIRL PARTS.*

Now, I'm writing two books at the same time.  One is a kind of companion novel to CODA, so all of the above still applies.  The other one means that I can't re-read any of the fantasy series I love so much.  Including Narnia and Harry Potter.  My soul is crying.  If that's not incentive to finish the book, I don't know what is.

What I am/have been reading recently:  A lot of contemporary YA, in particular John Green's amazing THE FAULT IN OUR STARS. (I don't really need to link that, do I?  You all have a copy?  Good.)  Also, all the Bill Bryson travel memoirs I haven't read yet (there aren't many on that list), THE MASTER AND MARGARITA again to see if I understand more of what the hell is going on the second time around, and a few reference books on plot and style I dip in and out of.

It's important to know and ready widely in your genre, but equally important to let yourself fall behind on that reading while you write.  You know, YOUR book.  The one that's nothing like anyone else's.  You can always catch up.

Mostly, though, I'm writing another book I want to read.

*And with a bottle of Bombay Sapphire.  The author made up a drinking game for me based on the book.  HA!

The fine line between issues and stereotypes

 Warning: rambling post ahead.

Anyone who pays attention to the rumblings of the YA-verse on twitter (as in YA writers, agents who represent them, editors and publishing houses who pub them etc) will have seen today the kerfuffle over this article on the Publishers Weekly blog.  Briefly, it is the story of a writing team who say that a specific (but unnamed) agent would only agree to represent them if they "straightened out" a gay character in their book.

I have Views on this.  Herewith:

For starters, the title of the article is misleading.  It isn't agents (plural) to which the article is referring, it is one agent.  And yes, I believe making that distinction is important.  To generalize in that way is simply another form of exactly the same problem that's being railed against.  You can't generalize a whole profession, a whole industry, by one member of it, in the same way that you can't - and shouldn't - generalize people regarding their sexuality.  To claim that "agents" - without giving specifics - do this kind of thing is sensationalist and misleading. 

I queried a novel with an openly bisexual main character, two other openly gay characters, and an atmosphere indicating that none of this was frowned upon.  I didn't do it because of any Issue, the main character is bi because he told me he was and I couldn't think of a good reason to take it out.  The others are gay because that's how the plot worked.  No part of the book is about sexuality, it's just about people.  Did I get rejections?  Yes.  Did any of those rejections cite the sexuality of the characters as a reason?  Not a single one.  I received two offers of representation, and had phone calls with each of those agents.  In one, it was mentioned only in an "I love that you did that" passing kind of way.  In the other, there was no need to mention it at all.  Off the top of my head I can name half a dozen YA books that contain LGBQT characters that I've read this summer alone.  Agents will take on these books.  Editors will love them.  Houses will publish them.  To claim otherwise is a tactic that leaves a bad taste in my mouth.

Why?  Oh, I don't even know where to start on the reasons, but it's mostly these: because it will scare people off writing books with a full representation of the spectrum of humanity, and authors will self-censor before those nameless, faceless agents get a chance.  Because authors will get more militant about "standing up for the cause" and the books will wind up being "issue books" about nothing other than sexuality, and that's a huge, undesirable problem.  Being defined by one's sexuality is exactly what most LGBQT people I know don't want.  They're people, not walking lists of who they sleep with.  In fact, I don't know any straight person who'd want to be defined by that list - rarely would it paint an entirely flattering picture of the person in question.

It's easy to get upset when reading an article such as the one linked above, and it's easy to take up arms for the cause, especially when everyone else is.  (Look up the #YesGayYA hashtag on twitter to see a good example.)  And I have nothing but respect and admiration for anyone who does look at something like this happening and thinks, this is wrong.  This shouldn't happen.  I agree.  It is and it shouldn't and I have absolutely no doubts whatsoever that it does happen, daily and behind closed doors and in closed minds.  The thing is, though, that you don't get to pick which generalizations and stereotypes are okay to perpetuate and which ones are Issues.  You can't, on one hand, say, "Agents do this and it is WRONG, everyone fight back!" but, at the same time, complain that YA novels (or any other subset of fiction) contain stereotypical, white-bread characters and that needs to be changed.

In short, you can't rail against the generalization of sexuality but lump an entire profession into the category of all having one single, unified opinion on said sexuality.

Even if you read the article, don't generalize, and accept that it was one agent who did this...well, so what?  Sure, it's possible that they were being guided by personal beliefs, but equally possible they were being guided by what they thought might sell.  Agents misjudge what might sell all the time, and you only have to read about [insert NYT-bestselling author here] getting 50 rejections before landing an agent to know that.  There are hundreds of agents who don't represent what I write, and hundreds of agents who represent what I don't write.  There are agents who request edits from their authors that turn out not to be the right editorial choices.  I personally know at least three people to whom that's happened.

That doesn't make the gap between author and agent an Issue.  It makes that agent not the right match for that author.  Nothing else.

And to add to what I'm sure is a list as long as my arm of unpopular opinions I hold, I'm not at all sure that the battle-cry of "we need more X" (where X equals any kind of minority or difference from the "norm") isn't part of the problem.  Do we need more gay characters in YA?  Yeah, we probably do.  We also need more kickass girls and fewer assholes and more non-catty relationships between BFFs and a whole host of other things.  We need more realistic people in our books, however those people manifest.  Defining anyone, be it an actual human or an imaginary creation, by one particular aspect of who they are is a slippery slope that, I think, subtly but surely teaches us to view them as one-dimensional.  Not good for a person, not good for a character.  Open-mindedness is about more than accepting one whole facet of a person.  It's about accepting that they have four thousand whole facets and each of them deserve attention.

Diving into the deep end

A few writer friends recently asked me on twitter if I had a blog.  At that point, the answer was, "No," because honestly I'm not sure how interesting I can be in this format.  I'm not sure how interesting I am in any other environment, come to that. ;)  Nevertheless, though I may not be able to add much to the plethora of excellent blogs out there detailing the journey from stolen-moment writer to published author, those friends were right to tell me that I really should have a web-presence in more than 140-character bursts.

So here I am.  And because I'm all perked-up by having just made this blog, I'm not content to leave the first post as just an introduction.  I'm going to talk about music.

On a writing blog.  Yes. 

The question of whether to have music on while writing gets a different answer from almost all of the writers I know.  Some need complete silence, some have quiet background music on some of the time, others can only write to classical or instrumental stuff.  Music-junkie that I am, I fall at the extreme must-have-tunes-ALLTHETIMEZOMG end of the spectrum.  I literally can't write without it.  This reminds me of ninth grade, when I actually proved to a teacher that I perform better on exams when I have something to occupy the rather large percentage of my brain that is susceptible to being distracted by sparkles. 

Recently, this has become even more of a "thing" for me since one of my current works-in-progress - and the one I am working on most diligently at this moment (when I'm not making blogs, writing introductory posts, baking cookies, or digging in the fridge for that last, lonely diet coke) is actually about music.  This means that those hours of playlist-building, which those uptight people in my life might label procrastination, are actually research.  Ha!  Shows what they know.

Currently playing: an eclectic mix of guys-with-guitars of the indie-rock persuasion.  The fact that most of them look great in eyeliner has nothing to do with my appreciation of their music.  I swear.  Though my protagonist is a guy-with-guitar of the indie-rock persuasion who happens to look good in eyeliner, so if anyone asks...it's research.  Inspiration, even.

It's likely that no one's reading this yet, but if you're out there...what are you listening to?  Do you have different playlists for different types of scenes?  Different characters?  Or are you the silence-is-golden type?

xoxo