Payal Dhar's Blog: Writer's Log, page 14

Week#24: My to-read list

I haven’t made a list in a really long time, so here goes. This is my current (priority) to-read list, in no particular order:

Bartimaeus: The Ring of Solomon (Jonathan Stroud): I started reading this on my trip to Singapore, but it got left behind because it was to heavy to carry around. Our favourite smart-mouth djinn is back, this novel chronicling his adventures before he met Nathaniel in The Amulet of Samarkand.
Flat Track Bullies (Balaji Venkataramanan): This is a book that was recently given to me by no other than the publisher herself (Duckbill). I’ve only glanced at it so far and from what I can make out, it appears to be an entertaining account of the summer holidays of one young Ravi Venkatesan.
Black Limericks (Ranjit Lal): I’d started reading this a couple of weeks ago, but had set it aside since at that point I needed something lighter. It features a 17-year-old girl with the uncanny ability to compose limericks on demand, but—as in many of his other books—Ranjit Lal wades into some heavy stuff in this one… I won’t give much away, but anyone looking for some good YA reading should pick this up.
Bad Boy (Peter Robinson): In other words, the 19th Inspector Banks mystery. Many feel that the Banks novels have started to go stale, myself included, but for old times sake I can’t help pick them up. This one is supposed to be a high-stakes plot where the personal and professional collide. I have my fingers crossed.
Tomorrow: The Dead of Night (John Marsden): Part two of the Tomorrow series, a young adult novel of what would happen if Australia were invaded by a foreign power. Led by Ellie Linton, a group of adolescents prepare to get on with their lives and make a difference. If the first book is any indication, this one is going to be a cracker too.

Of course, this isn’t all… and may the list keep growing.

~PD

Week #23: The relevance of fantasy

(This was written after my panel discussion on “The Future of the Fantastic” with Sally Gardner and Lara Morgan at the Asian Festival of Children’s Content in Singapore. It got me thinking about the relevance of fantasy in our lives and why I think it’s important.)

I’ve been asked—usually by well-meaning, non-reading adults and never by teens and other young readers—why I write fantasy. Why not about real things and real people and real life?

A discussion relevant to this is raging in the US at the moment, given the success of John Green‘s The Fault in Our Stars, which has been made into a movie. There is much excitement about the fact that this heralds the re-emergence of contemporary realism in children’s fiction. John Green been credited for ushing in the golden era of realist fiction, pushing out shiny vampires and grim dystopias. Some publishing professionals are even calling it the eara of “real stories for real people”.

Needless to say, there’s been some backlash to all of this because of the implication that sci-fi/fantasy is not real or that teens can’t relate to it. That it’s somehow less. Green himself does not endorse this view, by the way. One person who’s argued eloquently to defend the honour of fantasy writers is the Australian young adult author Justine Larbalestier. “All stories, no matter their genre, are about people. People relate to other people even they are disguised as dragons,” she says. It’s worth reading her full blog post, where she takes down the argument that realist fiction is any more real than SFF.

So, no, it doesn’t matter what the expers are saying. Fantasy isn’t going away. In any case, realist fiction is as much fantasy as time travel and alternate history, if you really want to quibble about it. In fact, fantasy as a genre has always been amidst us—probably since humans started telling stories. Notice how all cultures, in any part of the world, have their own tradition of fantasy in folktales and mythology.

Actually, fantasy—and I use the term loosely to embrace all kinds of speculative fiction—allows us to strip down our own realities and examine them closely and effectively. It can’t get any more world-relating than that. For instance, consider Malorie Blackman’s Knots and Crosses, a sort of Romeo and Juliet story that looks at racial prejudice. Only, in her world, dark-skinned people have the power and fair-skinned ones are oppressed. It gets to the heart of the issue of race in such fantastic manner by turning it around. In a young adult anthology I just co-edited, two of the stories feature matriarchal dystopias—what happens when one half of the human race sets the rules and holds the reins? The short answer is: exactly what happens in the patriarchal dystopia we live in.

Thus, fantasy can, and does, play a role in helping us understand our reality better precisely by allowing us to take a step back and look at it from a new perspective. This is especially important for young people who are just starting to figure out how messed up the world is. Sometimes in conservative cultures, as in India, where we’ve been slow to engage with children on the grimmer side of life (though this is changing now, at least in English fiction, which is what I know about), fantasy can be a safe platform to approach serious subjects.

Though we fantasy writers like to tell ourselves that we get to let our imaginations run unfettered, much more so than those writing realist fiction, we might in fact be deluding ourselves. It differs from individual to individual, of course, but in SFF too our imaginations are often limited by our own realities. My favourite example of this is the Star Trek episode “The Turnabout Intruder” in which a female Star Fleet officer does a body-swap with Captain Kirk so she may command a starship. It turns out that in the 23rd century being a woman disqualifies you from postions of command. Star Trek creator Gene Roddenberry later referred to having been shortsighted in the plot (commentators have also pointed out how the story line was clearly a backlash to the feminist movement).

Also witness how many, if not most, fantasy worlds feature the same gender stereotypes and roles that we see around us. Few authors have managed to offer a radically, culturally different society from our own in fantasy. Even how we picture technology is influenced by what we have around us. In 2006, while writing my first book, I wanted to depict a world more technologically advanced than ours. So I gave computers and mobile devices a touch-based interface. A couple of years later, the iPhone came along and showed me exactly how ridiculous my stylus-tapping was. (On a more serious note, here’s Justine again on “We live in a racist, sexist, homophobic, transphobic, classist etc. world. The odds of none of that leaking in to our work is zero.”)

In sum, writers of fantasy are inspired and influenced as much as the world we live in as any other kind of writer. So fantasy fiction represents and reflects our life and times just as well as any other kind of creative work. This is turn means that the future of fantasy is very robust, because as a genre, it is rooted firmly in our present and our past, and it’s possibly our mirror to the future. And you could say that about any kind of fiction, really.

~PD

Week #22 Delayed: An AFCC report

Yep, I was too busy having fun (and working, of course) at the Asian Festival of Children’s Content (AFCC) in Singapore to post Week #22 in time (there will be two posts this week to catch up). In short, the AFCC was a fantastic, fabulous experience. It was a confluence of numerous writers and illustrators, editors and publishers working with children’s content around the world. Unfortunately, I wasn’t able to attend all of the sessions that I wanted because so many of them clashed, but here’s a brief report on the ones I did.

Having grown up on a diet of literature from the English-speaking West, it was heartening to see that stories have started to flow in the opposite direction. So far, it’s just been a tricke, but stories from Asia are being told everywhere and readers are eagerly lapping it up. The success of Mahtab Narsimhan‘s The Tiffin, a novel set around the dabbawaalahs of Mumbai, is a case in point. Mahtab is an Indian-born Canadian writer. I attended her session on the use of myths and magic in her novels.

Another example of children’s fiction crossing borders is Mitali Perkins. She spoke along with Sampurna Chattarji on young adult stories not just providing mirrors for youngsters to examine their lives, but also as windows to understand realities that are not their own. Readers, even young readers, it appears, are very capable of identifying and sympathizing with “others” if we let them read about people different from themselves.

One of my favourite sessions was on trends in YA. Publishers Sayoni Basu (India) and Cheryl Robson (UK), and editor Stacy Whitman (US) spoke about how (and if) trends matter in YA publishing. Until recently, dystopias were the flavour of the day, before that it was vampires. What will come next, and as writers and publishers and editors, how much does that matter? (Short answer: They don’t. Good stories always win, trends go away.)

The session I was part of, a panel discussion on the future of YA fantasy, was a lively discussion about the relevance of fantasy in our world and where it’s going. It was moderated by Myra Garces-Bacsal and my co-panelists were Sally Gardner (of Maggot Moon fame) and Lara Morgan (author of the sci-fi dystopian series The Rosie Black Chronicles).

Also worthy of mention was the Children’s Literature Lecture by Lebanese writer Fatima Sharafeddine about the evolution of children’s publishing in the Middle East. It was intriguing to note the similarities with the Indian scene, especially related to taboo subjects and the complexities of having a multilingual society.

The AFCC wound up with a networking dinner, featuring some excellent Japanese food. Many bonds were forged over the course of the three days I spent in Singapore at the AFCC (and two more sightseeing). Here’s to more books in the future.

~PD

Week #21: A hattrick of great reads

For every disappointing book I read, I try to tell myself that there are probably dozens of great ones out there. That was more than adequately proved by the three great reads I managed over the last week.

The Magnificent Superdog

Himanjali Sankar’s The Stupendous Timetelling Superdog stars Rousseau, a rather silly golden retriever who has an unlikely superpower—he can tell the time. So when the Orange Marmaladies, the Original Timekeepers of the Universe, inadvertently cause time to disappear from earth, Rousseau is the only one who knows when it’s time to eat and when it’s time to sleep. Needless to say, he’s somewhat in demand. The book has some highly entertaining illustrations by Pooja Pottenkulam, especially of the invisible Marmaladies!

In book 2, Missing: A Magnificent Superdog, the Marmaladies kidnap Rousseau to study his time-telling abilities. Even as the Ghosh family frantically search for the beloved pet, two of the Marmaladies slip into earth to catch a glimpse of their favourite Bollywood star, Shah Rukh Khan. However, things go kind of wrong, and they end up captured and branded terrorists. The second book is illustrated by Priya Kuriyan and is just as funny.

The Superdog books are clever and funny. A great example of how books for young kids can be intelligent without talking down or being simplistic. I enjoyed book 1 more than book 2, but will happily sample a third installment of Rousseau. (Full disclosure: Himanjali is one of my editors. I worked with her on There’s a Ghost in My PC, and if all goes well, she may be publishing one of my forthcoming books.)

Coraline the explorer

Neil Gaiman’s Coraline is the story of a little girl who loves to explore. Having moved into a new house, she spots a strange door in the drawing room that leads her into a whole other world, with an other mother and an other father. They have buttons for eyes and they want Coraline to stay with them forever. Coraline must use her wits and the help of the black cat that talks to her to find her way out and rescue her real parents.

Coraline is a brave and believable and likeable character, and it’s easy to root for her. I love Gaiman’s young protagonists and the fact that he does not stereotype them. This makes them solid and real rather than shallow facsimiles based on popular notions of what boys and girls should be like.

If you’re looking for something to read, I highly recommend all three books.

~PD

Week #20: Believing the Lie, a review

When I finished reading Believing the Lie by Elizabeth George, I wondered fleetingly if this was the worst book I’d ever read. Well, by a long way, no. Because, unbelievable though it is, it did keep me reading on. All 650+ pages of the tiny type, despite my frustration with the narrative style, despite getting increasingly appalled at the conclusions being drawn, despite feeling let down by once-favourite characters.

The Inspector Lynley novels were, ages ago, some of my favourite crime fiction. The later books have gone steadily downhill—and if readers are to be believed, the latest one, Just One Evil Act (2013) is nothing to shout about from the rooftops.

It would be an understatement to say that Believing the Lie was a disappointment. I know that Elizabeth George can do much, much better. Step 1 would be to get a really good editor.

It always pains me to say this, but at this point, the TV series is better than the books. Here is my full review, but I warn you, it’s not pretty.

~PD

Week #19: The AFCC Writers’ and Illustrators’ Conference

In the first week of June, I will be attending the Asian Festival of Children’s Content (AFCC) in Singapore as a speaker. Needless to say, I’m very excited about it as the AFCC is without doubt the biggest event of its kind in Asia. It brings together creators of children’s content from across the world, with the intent of producing and making available quality books and other media for Asian children.

The session I’m going to be part of is titled “The Future of Fantastic (YA) Fiction”, part of the Writers’ and Illustrators’ Conference. My co-panellists are Lara Morgan and Sally Gardner. Here’s the description from the AFCC website:

Magic schools, paranormal adventure, pessimistic visions of the future—the biggest trends in young adult literature in the past decade have revolved around fiction that draws upon the weird and fantastical. Join these speculative fiction authors as they discuss the ins and outs of science fiction and fantasy for young adult audience.

With cross-cultural exchanges taking on ever greater importance today, I’m expecting this to be an inspiring and meaningful experience. I can’t wait to meet my co-panellists and other authors, illustrators, filmmakers, teachers, librarians and other people involved in creating children’s content and bringing it to Asian kids.

Of course, attending the AFCC would not have been possible without the organizers, the National Book Development Council of Singapore. A big thank you to them for inviting me.

~PD

Week #18: Teamwork!

Collaboration. Now, there’s a word I’d never expected to get excited about. But life has a funny way of dropping things into your lap that you least expected. This past year or so has been a lot about collaborating and the rest of 2014 is likely to continue that way. The surprising thing is, I’m loving it.

Project Number One is an Indian–Austrlian feminist young adult anthology. Now, that’s a lot of adjectives in front of “anthology”, but it’s really quite simple—a collection of stories about ‘what the world would be like if things were different’ and imagining the futures of girls (and boys) in such a world. The twenty contributors, ten each from Australia and India, comprising both writers and illustrators, were thrown another challenge. We were all paired with a partner from the other country. Some of the pairs co-created a single story, while others engaged in conversation about ideas and themes that excited them. The result: seventeen stories, some graphic, some prose and even a playscript.

The amazingly super and fantastic Kirsty Murray is one of the co-editors of this volume along with *blush* me and associate editor Anita Roy of Young Zubaan. The putting together of this collection resulted in an unending flurry of emails and Skype conversations. It was my first experience of editing and it was a blast. As of now, the manuscript has been submitted and the book will be out in late 2014 (in India, published by Young Zubaan) and early 2015 (in Australia, published by Allen & Unwin).

Project Number Two was knocking together my story for the Indo-Aus collection. My writing partner was Penni Russon. We exchanged emails and ideas, and came up with a theme and a quirky term to base our stories on, but we more or less did our own thing. This, however, was the first time I was engaging so closely with a fellow-writer in a way that would have a direct bearing on what I would be producing. I ended up with two (very different) stories and chose one for the anthology that I thought best summed up the whole collaborative process. There I go again, that C word!

Project Number Three is something that I’m just about to start work on. It’s a series of four school stories, each book written by a different author. Since I’m author number three, it means I’ll be working with characters and a setting created by someone else. I was slightly apprehensive when I said yes to this project, worrying about how limiting it will be. But now, after some bracing meetings and exchange of ideas, I can see that it’s really not. In a way, it’s easier as some of the work has already been done for me. But it is definitely going to be a challenge. In a fun way. I just have to pick up the baton and run.

So, as the Wonder Pets say, “What’s gonna work? Teamwork!”

~PD

Week #17: Back from Camp NaNoWriMo

Yep, I was at Camp NaNoWriMo this April. My target was 25,000 words. I managed about 18,000. Not bad, eh?

This year at Camp NaNo, I was attempting to juggle two writing projects. The first I won’t mention out of shame. The other was a novel I’ve had in mind since about the middle of last year and wanted to make use of the NaNoWriMo model to vomit the words out on page and have at least a basic first draft ready.

So exactly how successful was NaNo for me? Even though I didn’t meet my target word count (mainly because a lot of the writing was actually revising what I’d already written after a change in course presented itself in my story line), I would say that it was a great success. It wasn’t all about how much or what I wrote. What I’m happiest about is that it forced me to hammer in a writing routine in my usually pretty chaotic life (primarily due to my inability to manage time; otherwise, it’s a pretty laidback existence), thanks to which I managed to finish writing one book and work out a serious change in the direction of the plot in the other.

The other thing that the month of April and Camp NaNo did for me was put me on a “writer’s high” for much of the month. That feeling of really having got your teeth nicely in a plot was something I’d been missing for over a year. So, I have to admit, it’s done wonders for my confidence.

~PD

Week #16: A mini-crisis

This is going to be quick and dirty because I’m currently involved in some fire-fighting. I’m sure there’s a lesson in this for all of us, I’m just not sure what it is yet.

This is what happened:

I usually password-protect all my writing work. Even on my own computer. I don’t know why—it’s a habit from the days I used to share my computer and I still do it. This evening, I found that the ODT file containing the manuscript of my latest novel wasn’t opening. The error message OpenOffice kept giving me was that my password was wrong. After a few minutes being convinced that I was losing my mind, I had the brainwave of trying another file, also password-protected, with a different password. And sure enough, same problem.

That’s when I realized that my brain was intact. But something else was Very Wrong.

I started to retrace my steps. The file had been accessible in the afternoon, so in what way had I tinkered with my machine since then? The answer: installed a new printer, including printer software, and when a message from Keychain popped up, I remember not paying too much attention to it and allowing it to go ahead

There was no need to panic too much since I Dropbox my work files every night and periodically take other sorts of back-ups. So I’d lost a maximum of half a day’s work, but it was still annoying (not to mention a jolt to the ego). In order to check if my files were okay, I went to Windows, copied the files over there and tried to open them. It worked. Phew. So I haven’t lost any of my work, just some time.

Now I’m off to figure out how to sort out the mess on Mac OS. I’m blaming the HP software for messing with it and find myself in the unlikely position of being grateful to Windows for keeping me sane.

Maybe that’s the lesson! And of course, there’s no excuse for not paying attention when messages pop up on your screen.

~PD

(Photo credit: ba1969)

Week #15: The best ebook deals

There is a Kobo in the house, and while I’m now convinced that ebooks are not Terrible Things, given the choice, I’d still reach for a ‘real’ book. The only times I prefer an ebook is when I have to travel for a long period of time and when I just have to have a book right now. (Disclaimer: though I don’t mind an ereader, I still find reading on the computer screen or tablet uncomfortable.)

One must admit that going the electronic route has its advantages, mainly in the form of having access to books that may not be available in the market otherwise. This doesn’t just include the latest from my favourite authors (I’m still waiting for Val McDermid and Ian Rankin’s newest novels to grace the shelves in India, which in any case I wouldn’t buy e-versions of since they are more expensive than the paperback is likely to be), but also books from smaller publishers and self-published works.

Time for another disclaimer: quite a bit of the latter is of questionable quality—though sometimes you spot a great idea that is let down by a lack of editorial input—but it is possible to come across a fair variety. Having said that, you do need a lot of patience to trawl through the rubbish-type-stuff, for which you may be rewarded with some amount of decentish free or very cheap reads.

So how do I find ebooks? One way to do it is to haunt Amazon’s Kindle store or Smashwords.com. The other way is more efficient: signing up for book recommendation services. I use three of them:

Book Gorilla

Though, of course, there must be many others out there.

The way it works is simple. You sign up with your email ID and then select the genres and subgenres that float your boat. There may be options to filter explicit results. That’s it. Now you can expect a daily digest to grace your mailbox with the day’s recommendations and most exciting deals. While Book Gorilla only caters to the Kindle market, the other two will recommend reading options for almost any reading platform. And yes, it is possible to get some really good deals, including great discounts from the bestseller lists.

~PD