Shanna Swendson's Blog, page 138
February 18, 2016
Good, Bad, and Blurred Lines
I had an absolutely insane night with the children's choir. I don't know what was in the water, but they were really crazy. We had to go to the sanctuary to practice for singing in church Sunday, and there we had to keep one kid from trying to jump from the chancel to the ground, bypassing the steps. Meanwhile, another kid started undressing himself. Later, we had to put tape on the floor to make kids stand in a spot where everyone could see the poster we're learning the song from. They were all pressing right against the wall, and I was afraid that someone was going to end up suffocated, while nobody could actually see the poster.
I was still feeling so frantic that I felt like I couldn't get a good breath during the adult choir rehearsal, which got interesting because the first few things we sang all had long, sustained phrases, and I could barely get enough air to sing a measure. I also got a surprise solo, so I got to more or less sight read it in front of the choir (though I'd sung through the piece on my own at home). But since I sounded pretty good for that, I think stage fright won't be much of an issue when it comes time to sing the piece, even though the piece is essentially a soprano solo with the choir coming in for one verse. It's a pretty early-American piece that has a bit of a Sacred Harp vibe to it.
Meanwhile, I'm still working on the Rebel Mechanics sequel, and something I'm finding interesting about this series is that there isn't a clear good/evil divide. Yeah, we want the rebels to succeed, and it's bad that people are being oppressed, but the individuals involved in the oppressive regime aren't mustache-twirling villains. One on one, as people, they're decent sorts much of the time. There are not-so-nice people doing questionable things among the "good" guys, and some of the better people are part of what might be thought of as the "bad" faction. I was working on a scene yesterday in which the lines got really blurry, and that got very interesting. I don't know if this is too nuanced for young adult, but I think we could all use a reminder that someone isn't necessarily evil for disagreeing with you, and cruel actions are wrong, even if they're in support of a good cause. Being "right" doesn't give anyone a license to do whatever they want. People can have similar goals but with different ideas about how to get there, and neither side is necessarily wrong or bad.
Of course, that makes it a bit more challenging to write and may be why the book didn't take off like crazy. There wasn't anyone we could all get together in enjoying hating.
I was still feeling so frantic that I felt like I couldn't get a good breath during the adult choir rehearsal, which got interesting because the first few things we sang all had long, sustained phrases, and I could barely get enough air to sing a measure. I also got a surprise solo, so I got to more or less sight read it in front of the choir (though I'd sung through the piece on my own at home). But since I sounded pretty good for that, I think stage fright won't be much of an issue when it comes time to sing the piece, even though the piece is essentially a soprano solo with the choir coming in for one verse. It's a pretty early-American piece that has a bit of a Sacred Harp vibe to it.
Meanwhile, I'm still working on the Rebel Mechanics sequel, and something I'm finding interesting about this series is that there isn't a clear good/evil divide. Yeah, we want the rebels to succeed, and it's bad that people are being oppressed, but the individuals involved in the oppressive regime aren't mustache-twirling villains. One on one, as people, they're decent sorts much of the time. There are not-so-nice people doing questionable things among the "good" guys, and some of the better people are part of what might be thought of as the "bad" faction. I was working on a scene yesterday in which the lines got really blurry, and that got very interesting. I don't know if this is too nuanced for young adult, but I think we could all use a reminder that someone isn't necessarily evil for disagreeing with you, and cruel actions are wrong, even if they're in support of a good cause. Being "right" doesn't give anyone a license to do whatever they want. People can have similar goals but with different ideas about how to get there, and neither side is necessarily wrong or bad.
Of course, that makes it a bit more challenging to write and may be why the book didn't take off like crazy. There wasn't anyone we could all get together in enjoying hating.
February 17, 2016
Pivotal Reading
They're doing a reread of the Katherine Kurtz Deryni novels over at tor.com, and that's spurred me to dig them up and join in. Those were my absolute favorite books when I was in high school and had a lot to do with me wanting to be a fantasy novelist (up to that point, I was mostly trying to write space opera-style science fiction). My earliest attempts at writing fantasy were hugely influenced by those books. I was also rather in love with most of the characters and that world. I got the chance to meet Katherine Kurtz at a convention back in 2010, and there was some serious fangirl hyperventilating, especially when I ended up seated next to her at an autographing. Having one of your idols pick up your book to read the back cover is one of those golden career moments. I did get to hang out with her for a bit, though I mostly ended up hanging out with her husband for most of the convention. She was guest of honor, so she was busy a lot, and her husband and I discovered that we had similar backgrounds as military brats and had even lived in some of the same places, though at very different times. I sort of ended up being the designated Guest of Honor Spouse Sitter for that convention.
I don't think I'd read the original Deryni trilogy since the early 90s, so this is my first time to re-read it after becoming a fantasy novelist in my own right and since meeting her. I liked the Camber era better, so those are the books I've reread more often. It's a little weird to be looking at what was very early work with the eyes of someone who is more accomplished a writer now than she was at that time. There are some obvious early novel signs, but my mental critic ended up getting sucked back into that world almost as deeply as I went back in my teens.
That's made me think about other books that were pivotal for me as a reader and as a writer and whether I should try revisiting them.
In elementary school, I went through a phase in which I'd go around the library shelves, looking for books with key words relating to whatever my obsession at the time was. The children's section of the post library put fiction around the perimeter, so I could walk around the room scanning for things I might find interesting. There was the horse phase in second and third grades, but no one book stands out there. That switched to the witch/magic phase in third grade, probably influenced by the daily syndicated reruns of Bewitched. Oddly, no one book from that stands out. The book that caught me from that phase turned out not to be a witch book at all. It was The Mystery of the Witch Tree Symbol, a Nancy Drew book that was actually about the Amish. But I checked it out because of the "witch" in the title, and then I got hooked on Nancy Drew and mysteries in general. "What Would Nancy Do?" became my mantra in getting through elementary school. I think one of my very first attempts at writing fiction was a spooky mystery story for a class essay. I re-read some of those books in my mid-20s when I was helping collect book donations to start a new library in my hometown, and someone donated a nearly complete set of Nancy Drew books. I picked up a few to read before I delivered them to the library, and while I could see what my 8-9-year-old self loved, they weren't very satisfying to an adult reader. Still, it made for a fun nostalgia trip (though perhaps not the best airplane reading for a business trip -- try reading Nancy Drew in public as an adult, and you get some funny looks).
At the beginning of fourth grade, I saw Star Wars, which got me into science fiction. I started with the novelization, and then my parents gave me the Flinx books by Alan Dean Foster as something similar that I might like (we didn't know until much later that Alan had ghost-written the Star Wars novelization). I read and re-read those books, and also the Icerigger books and his Spellsinger fantasy series, and I branched out from there to other science fiction. I continued on with all those into adulthood, so I think they still hold up.
I got the fantasy bug in sixth grade when my mom gave me a copy of The Silver Chair, part of the Chronicles of Narnia. I ended up inhaling the series, up to a point, when I realized I was almost out of them, and I rationed the last couple of books, which was easier because I also discovered The Lord of the Rings around that time. I'd read The Hobbit in fourth grade, around the time the animated movie came on TV, but while I liked it, it didn't quite hook me the way the big trilogy did when I discovered it. I branched out to whatever other fantasy I could find at that time, like the Lloyd Alexander books and the Oz books. I've re-read the Narnia books as the new movies have come out, and I was surprised by how much detail I seem to have filled in for myself because the books themselves are sparse at times, and the characters aren't exactly three-dimensional. I seem to have used the books as a framework to build my own mental stories upon. I re-read The Lord of the Rings trilogy in college and found it a tough slog, so I'm not sure how my 11-year-old self tore through those books. I liked The Hobbit when I re-read it a few years ago.
Seventh grade was when I got into suspense thrillers and World War II stuff, possibly because we were living in Germany and had visited the Obersalzburg area on vacation the previous summer. Jack Higgins was my favorite author overall in that genre, and I've re-read some of those books recently, but my favorite single book was Call it Treason by George Howe. I had dreams of turning this book into a movie, and I've only just now discovered by searching for info on this book that it was made into a movie called Decision Before Dawn back in 1951, and now I must find it (it even won some Oscars). I haven't re-read it in a long time. I checked it out of the library repeatedly, then we moved and I didn't find it again until I located a disintegrating copy in a used bookstore. I'd have to read it very carefully.
And then I discovered the Deryni books, mostly because the covers jumped out at me. They were by the same artist who'd done the covers of most of the Flinx books, Darrell K. Sweet (someone I've also met), and that caught my eye. I devoured the first trilogy, was madly in love with the characters, and so when I looked at her other books and found that they were set in a different time with different characters, I resisted reading them. Then I was at a flea market with a friend, who was very excited to show me the used book stall there, and I wasn't interested in anything at the stall but felt like I should buy something because my friend was so excited, and they had a copy of Camber of Culdi that I bought. It was months before I read it, and I discovered that I liked those characters even better. After that, I went on to buy her books new or even in hardcover. And now I'm delving into them again after all these years.
In writing news, I made good progress yesterday, still rewriting some existing stuff, but adding words, and it already feels better.
I don't think I'd read the original Deryni trilogy since the early 90s, so this is my first time to re-read it after becoming a fantasy novelist in my own right and since meeting her. I liked the Camber era better, so those are the books I've reread more often. It's a little weird to be looking at what was very early work with the eyes of someone who is more accomplished a writer now than she was at that time. There are some obvious early novel signs, but my mental critic ended up getting sucked back into that world almost as deeply as I went back in my teens.
That's made me think about other books that were pivotal for me as a reader and as a writer and whether I should try revisiting them.
In elementary school, I went through a phase in which I'd go around the library shelves, looking for books with key words relating to whatever my obsession at the time was. The children's section of the post library put fiction around the perimeter, so I could walk around the room scanning for things I might find interesting. There was the horse phase in second and third grades, but no one book stands out there. That switched to the witch/magic phase in third grade, probably influenced by the daily syndicated reruns of Bewitched. Oddly, no one book from that stands out. The book that caught me from that phase turned out not to be a witch book at all. It was The Mystery of the Witch Tree Symbol, a Nancy Drew book that was actually about the Amish. But I checked it out because of the "witch" in the title, and then I got hooked on Nancy Drew and mysteries in general. "What Would Nancy Do?" became my mantra in getting through elementary school. I think one of my very first attempts at writing fiction was a spooky mystery story for a class essay. I re-read some of those books in my mid-20s when I was helping collect book donations to start a new library in my hometown, and someone donated a nearly complete set of Nancy Drew books. I picked up a few to read before I delivered them to the library, and while I could see what my 8-9-year-old self loved, they weren't very satisfying to an adult reader. Still, it made for a fun nostalgia trip (though perhaps not the best airplane reading for a business trip -- try reading Nancy Drew in public as an adult, and you get some funny looks).
At the beginning of fourth grade, I saw Star Wars, which got me into science fiction. I started with the novelization, and then my parents gave me the Flinx books by Alan Dean Foster as something similar that I might like (we didn't know until much later that Alan had ghost-written the Star Wars novelization). I read and re-read those books, and also the Icerigger books and his Spellsinger fantasy series, and I branched out from there to other science fiction. I continued on with all those into adulthood, so I think they still hold up.
I got the fantasy bug in sixth grade when my mom gave me a copy of The Silver Chair, part of the Chronicles of Narnia. I ended up inhaling the series, up to a point, when I realized I was almost out of them, and I rationed the last couple of books, which was easier because I also discovered The Lord of the Rings around that time. I'd read The Hobbit in fourth grade, around the time the animated movie came on TV, but while I liked it, it didn't quite hook me the way the big trilogy did when I discovered it. I branched out to whatever other fantasy I could find at that time, like the Lloyd Alexander books and the Oz books. I've re-read the Narnia books as the new movies have come out, and I was surprised by how much detail I seem to have filled in for myself because the books themselves are sparse at times, and the characters aren't exactly three-dimensional. I seem to have used the books as a framework to build my own mental stories upon. I re-read The Lord of the Rings trilogy in college and found it a tough slog, so I'm not sure how my 11-year-old self tore through those books. I liked The Hobbit when I re-read it a few years ago.
Seventh grade was when I got into suspense thrillers and World War II stuff, possibly because we were living in Germany and had visited the Obersalzburg area on vacation the previous summer. Jack Higgins was my favorite author overall in that genre, and I've re-read some of those books recently, but my favorite single book was Call it Treason by George Howe. I had dreams of turning this book into a movie, and I've only just now discovered by searching for info on this book that it was made into a movie called Decision Before Dawn back in 1951, and now I must find it (it even won some Oscars). I haven't re-read it in a long time. I checked it out of the library repeatedly, then we moved and I didn't find it again until I located a disintegrating copy in a used bookstore. I'd have to read it very carefully.
And then I discovered the Deryni books, mostly because the covers jumped out at me. They were by the same artist who'd done the covers of most of the Flinx books, Darrell K. Sweet (someone I've also met), and that caught my eye. I devoured the first trilogy, was madly in love with the characters, and so when I looked at her other books and found that they were set in a different time with different characters, I resisted reading them. Then I was at a flea market with a friend, who was very excited to show me the used book stall there, and I wasn't interested in anything at the stall but felt like I should buy something because my friend was so excited, and they had a copy of Camber of Culdi that I bought. It was months before I read it, and I discovered that I liked those characters even better. After that, I went on to buy her books new or even in hardcover. And now I'm delving into them again after all these years.
In writing news, I made good progress yesterday, still rewriting some existing stuff, but adding words, and it already feels better.
February 16, 2016
Sidetracked
I got sidetracked from working yesterday (probably caused by con brain holdover) with the thought that I really need to go to New York. Well, maybe not "need," because I don't have any meetings I need to make or specific research I need to do. But I could always stand to visit and refresh my research, and I haven't gone for more than about 24 hours in more than six years. And that thought started me down a rabbit trail of hotel searching. That then continued this morning. But hey, I said I was going to be traveling this year.
In other news … I'm starting to see why they needed me for the chorale doing this Requiem. There isn't actually a second soprano part, but there are first and second tenor parts, and there's a tenor shortage, so in those parts, they're moving altos to first tenor and second sopranos to altos, and most of the strong singers are the second sopranos, which means they needed a strong first soprano. So they have me. But I have a bad habit from being in solid choirs of being more of a follower than a leader. I match what's around me, but you can't do that if the people around you aren't quite right, and I tend to assume that if I'm different from the others, I'm wrong. It doesn't help that this isn't my normal choir, so I hesitate to jump out in front and take charge as a leader, and I don't know enough about these other singers to know whether I can assume that I'm right or wrong. The director was really yelling at our section last night, and I had major high school flashbacks to when a teacher would yell at the class and I'd assume he was talking to me and just about kill myself to try to do better when really I was already doing it right and he was yelling at the others but didn't want to single me out. I'm pretty sure I was mostly right and the others were wrong, but I still felt like I was being constantly criticized.
So I've realized that it's going to be on me, so I need to know it really well and be confident. That may help the others with me.
But all this is really making me appreciate my usual director in my choir. This guy has an … unusual directing style. I now know for sure I won't be trying to join this choir on an ongoing basis.
And there's just one more Monday-night rehearsal, then the following Saturday I'll be spending most of the day on this leading up to the performance, and then I'm done. It is pretty music, but the Faure isn't my favorite Requiem.
Now, though, I need to write so I can justify rewarding myself with a vacation/research trip. I'm also contemplating a short trip back to the state park in Oklahoma as a quasi writing retreat/relaxation between books.
In other news … I'm starting to see why they needed me for the chorale doing this Requiem. There isn't actually a second soprano part, but there are first and second tenor parts, and there's a tenor shortage, so in those parts, they're moving altos to first tenor and second sopranos to altos, and most of the strong singers are the second sopranos, which means they needed a strong first soprano. So they have me. But I have a bad habit from being in solid choirs of being more of a follower than a leader. I match what's around me, but you can't do that if the people around you aren't quite right, and I tend to assume that if I'm different from the others, I'm wrong. It doesn't help that this isn't my normal choir, so I hesitate to jump out in front and take charge as a leader, and I don't know enough about these other singers to know whether I can assume that I'm right or wrong. The director was really yelling at our section last night, and I had major high school flashbacks to when a teacher would yell at the class and I'd assume he was talking to me and just about kill myself to try to do better when really I was already doing it right and he was yelling at the others but didn't want to single me out. I'm pretty sure I was mostly right and the others were wrong, but I still felt like I was being constantly criticized.
So I've realized that it's going to be on me, so I need to know it really well and be confident. That may help the others with me.
But all this is really making me appreciate my usual director in my choir. This guy has an … unusual directing style. I now know for sure I won't be trying to join this choir on an ongoing basis.
And there's just one more Monday-night rehearsal, then the following Saturday I'll be spending most of the day on this leading up to the performance, and then I'm done. It is pretty music, but the Faure isn't my favorite Requiem.
Now, though, I need to write so I can justify rewarding myself with a vacation/research trip. I'm also contemplating a short trip back to the state park in Oklahoma as a quasi writing retreat/relaxation between books.
February 15, 2016
Convention Inspiration
I've made it through a convention weekend, and in spite of having a "normal" Sunday, I'm still having a typical post-convention Monday in which I'm inspired and motivated to write but utterly lacking in energy. It helped, though, that I didn't have yoga today because of the holiday, so I may have a bit more oomph by this afternoon. I've also taken care of the morning grocery errands (with bonus cheap post-Valentine's chocolate!).
Most of my panels this weekend were on various aspects of history, which of course ended up generating a lot of ideas in my crazy brain.
Current fictional universes/story ideas developing themselves in my brain count: 8
I had one of my more interesting reading sessions at a convention. I was paired up in a slot with Stephen Sanders, a steampunk poet. He writes Victorian-style narrative adventure poetry and performs it, which matches my performance reading style and my subject matter. Since his pieces were rather short, we went back and forth, trading off. I think that made things interesting for the audience rather than listening to one person drone on and on.
I should probably come up with more performance aspects for my readings. I incorporate singing into some of my Rebel Mechanics-related readings because of that Yankee Doodle song, but maybe I should come up with more. I actually have the song that's pivotal to the Fairy Tale series plot written and could sing that. I have the voice, so I may as well use it.
For now, though, it's all about the writing. I have my work plans for the next few months, and I need to get busy. Fortunately, I have a mostly free (aside from some extra music stuff) weekend ahead, and it may even be cloudy/rainy. That means a good chance of a writing marathon.
Most of my panels this weekend were on various aspects of history, which of course ended up generating a lot of ideas in my crazy brain.
Current fictional universes/story ideas developing themselves in my brain count: 8
I had one of my more interesting reading sessions at a convention. I was paired up in a slot with Stephen Sanders, a steampunk poet. He writes Victorian-style narrative adventure poetry and performs it, which matches my performance reading style and my subject matter. Since his pieces were rather short, we went back and forth, trading off. I think that made things interesting for the audience rather than listening to one person drone on and on.
I should probably come up with more performance aspects for my readings. I incorporate singing into some of my Rebel Mechanics-related readings because of that Yankee Doodle song, but maybe I should come up with more. I actually have the song that's pivotal to the Fairy Tale series plot written and could sing that. I have the voice, so I may as well use it.
For now, though, it's all about the writing. I have my work plans for the next few months, and I need to get busy. Fortunately, I have a mostly free (aside from some extra music stuff) weekend ahead, and it may even be cloudy/rainy. That means a good chance of a writing marathon.
February 12, 2016
Romantic Stuff
I've got to get geared up for a convention this weekend, and then there's that Valentine's thing. I actually don't care about Valentine's Day one way or another, and that's not just me being bitter and single. It just seems odd to have a random day designated for romance, whether or not that day is meaningful to you. Each couple should have their own day that means something to them and their relationship, not something dictated by a bunch of corporate marketing departments. Really, when you think about it, Valentine's Day is like the least romantic thing ever because it's romance on demand, without meaning. It's obligation rather than sincere sentiment.
But it is a handy time to discuss what is and isn't romantic and to make lists, and such. Earlier this week on NCIS, one character was facing her first Valentine's Day after a divorce and said she wanted to just stay home and watch a movie that night. One of her co-workers gave her a Valentine's Day gift: the DVD of Aliens for a movie to watch that night. That cracked me up because of a discussion here a few years ago, in which I declared my view that Aliens is actually a very romantic movie. Seriously, that scene where Hicks teaches Ripley how to use the gun is totally swoonworthy (and there are no other movies -- Hicks and Ripley got married and adopted Newt and lived happily ever after, with the occasional alien incursion to battle because they need a bit of excitement in their lives, so there).
For more recent movies, I guess Stardust would be high on my list where I actually like the relationship and feel like I could imagine the couple really working on a long-term basis. And, yikes, even that isn't truly recent. I liked the way the relationship was developed in the recent version of Cinderella, and Far from the Madding Crowd was a nice one. Mostly, though, romance in movies has been pretty awful lately.
On TV, my current favorite relationship is Emma and Hook on Once Upon a Time. That show is such a hot mess in so many ways, but this is the one thing they seem to be getting mostly right. Yeah, they started as enemies, so there was some bickering, but then he quickly realized that his life had gone down a bad path if someone as awesome as she is thought he was a jerk, and he made a sincere attempt to change. He's gone through goodness knows how many portals to other worlds on her behalf. Once thing I like is that it's been mostly a slow build (well, from our perspective. In the show timeline, it's been months, even though it's taken years for us). They went from enemies to allies to friends, to closer friends with a bit of flirtation, to actually being romantically involved while still being friends. It wasn't one of those TV "I hate you/kiss/bed" relationships. Now that they're together, it isn't always smooth sailing (there's the minor issue right now that he's dead, but she's planning to do something about that), but most of the conflicts they're dealing with are external, and they're facing them together. It's proof that the Moonlighting curse doesn't have to apply if you do it well. You can get together a couple without it sapping all energy from the show.
For music, I have to share this:
Sigh. This is from the Broadway show The Scarlet Pimpernel, as performed by the divine Terrence Mann. I suppose it's not entirely a happy song, as it's about a relationship that has ended, and it is sung by the villain, but remove it from context and it sounds like someone who believes in what the other person can be and hopes for her to be able to live up to that potential. I have this as the alarm for my cell phone alarm clock. If you have to wake up, you may as well wake up to something like this. Also, it starts softly and builds, so it's not jarring, and I want to listen to it, so I don't hit snooze.
But it is a handy time to discuss what is and isn't romantic and to make lists, and such. Earlier this week on NCIS, one character was facing her first Valentine's Day after a divorce and said she wanted to just stay home and watch a movie that night. One of her co-workers gave her a Valentine's Day gift: the DVD of Aliens for a movie to watch that night. That cracked me up because of a discussion here a few years ago, in which I declared my view that Aliens is actually a very romantic movie. Seriously, that scene where Hicks teaches Ripley how to use the gun is totally swoonworthy (and there are no other movies -- Hicks and Ripley got married and adopted Newt and lived happily ever after, with the occasional alien incursion to battle because they need a bit of excitement in their lives, so there).
For more recent movies, I guess Stardust would be high on my list where I actually like the relationship and feel like I could imagine the couple really working on a long-term basis. And, yikes, even that isn't truly recent. I liked the way the relationship was developed in the recent version of Cinderella, and Far from the Madding Crowd was a nice one. Mostly, though, romance in movies has been pretty awful lately.
On TV, my current favorite relationship is Emma and Hook on Once Upon a Time. That show is such a hot mess in so many ways, but this is the one thing they seem to be getting mostly right. Yeah, they started as enemies, so there was some bickering, but then he quickly realized that his life had gone down a bad path if someone as awesome as she is thought he was a jerk, and he made a sincere attempt to change. He's gone through goodness knows how many portals to other worlds on her behalf. Once thing I like is that it's been mostly a slow build (well, from our perspective. In the show timeline, it's been months, even though it's taken years for us). They went from enemies to allies to friends, to closer friends with a bit of flirtation, to actually being romantically involved while still being friends. It wasn't one of those TV "I hate you/kiss/bed" relationships. Now that they're together, it isn't always smooth sailing (there's the minor issue right now that he's dead, but she's planning to do something about that), but most of the conflicts they're dealing with are external, and they're facing them together. It's proof that the Moonlighting curse doesn't have to apply if you do it well. You can get together a couple without it sapping all energy from the show.
For music, I have to share this:
Sigh. This is from the Broadway show The Scarlet Pimpernel, as performed by the divine Terrence Mann. I suppose it's not entirely a happy song, as it's about a relationship that has ended, and it is sung by the villain, but remove it from context and it sounds like someone who believes in what the other person can be and hopes for her to be able to live up to that potential. I have this as the alarm for my cell phone alarm clock. If you have to wake up, you may as well wake up to something like this. Also, it starts softly and builds, so it's not jarring, and I want to listen to it, so I don't hit snooze.
February 11, 2016
Convention Schedule and the No-Whining Season
It's a convention week, so I seem to be getting very little done other than preparing. Today I need to work out my reading and bake some cookies for the FenCon party. In case you're in the north Texas area and are planning to come to ConDFW, here's where you'll find me:
On Friday:
4 p.m. -- World Building in Steampunk
6 p.m. -- 2016 Movie Forecast for the Geek Nation
On Saturday:
11 a.m. -- Unlikely Heroes, Worlds, and Wars
1 p.m. -- Reading (I'm probably going to preview the Rebel Mechanics sequel, and there might be cookies)
3 p.m. -- Autographing (copies of A Kind of Magic will be available, either through me or one of the dealers -- I haven't worked that out yet)
6 p.m. -- Choose Your Destiny: Researching Alternate History
I don't have any Sunday programming, so I probably won't be at the convention on Sunday. There's nothing on the grid that really grips me to attend, and the con hotel is charging for parking. It'll be kind of nice to spend part of the weekend at a convention, then get a real rest and recovery day before I dive into a new week in which I have a lot of stuff I want to get done. I had a chat with my agent yesterday and now have a list of projects to work on. No announcements yet until I see where they go, but I need to start developing.
Meanwhile, I've decided what to give up for Lent: griping. I'm classifying that as unproductive complaining. You could probably also call that whining. Constructive criticism to someone who can do something about it is allowed, as is critique of entertainment stuff. I'm talking more about that "woe is me, my career is hard" kind of stuff. I think I can manage not to do that "out loud," either to people in person or on social media. The real trick will be stopping it in my head. When I catch myself doing it, I need to make myself do something positive that could change things because just complaining isn't helping.
And now I'm positive I need to figure out what to make for lunch.
On Friday:
4 p.m. -- World Building in Steampunk
6 p.m. -- 2016 Movie Forecast for the Geek Nation
On Saturday:
11 a.m. -- Unlikely Heroes, Worlds, and Wars
1 p.m. -- Reading (I'm probably going to preview the Rebel Mechanics sequel, and there might be cookies)
3 p.m. -- Autographing (copies of A Kind of Magic will be available, either through me or one of the dealers -- I haven't worked that out yet)
6 p.m. -- Choose Your Destiny: Researching Alternate History
I don't have any Sunday programming, so I probably won't be at the convention on Sunday. There's nothing on the grid that really grips me to attend, and the con hotel is charging for parking. It'll be kind of nice to spend part of the weekend at a convention, then get a real rest and recovery day before I dive into a new week in which I have a lot of stuff I want to get done. I had a chat with my agent yesterday and now have a list of projects to work on. No announcements yet until I see where they go, but I need to start developing.
Meanwhile, I've decided what to give up for Lent: griping. I'm classifying that as unproductive complaining. You could probably also call that whining. Constructive criticism to someone who can do something about it is allowed, as is critique of entertainment stuff. I'm talking more about that "woe is me, my career is hard" kind of stuff. I think I can manage not to do that "out loud," either to people in person or on social media. The real trick will be stopping it in my head. When I catch myself doing it, I need to make myself do something positive that could change things because just complaining isn't helping.
And now I'm positive I need to figure out what to make for lunch.
February 10, 2016
Problem Characters: The Good Guy
I'm continuing my series of writing posts about writing problem characters, and this time I have one that may seem odd: the good guy hero. This is more of a recent issue, in which writers seem more fascinated with the bad guys or the bad boy type protagonists, so the good guys come out bland, and that makes audiences not like them while they adore the bad boys, and it creates a downward spiral. They're even trying to make Superman darker and grittier these days because they think that's what's required to make him interesting.
But it is possible to write good guys that people like (at least, according to my reader mail about my good-guy characters). Here are some ways to go about it (and by "guys" I mean both male and female characters, and a "bad boy" can also be a "bad girl"):
You can give good guys a sad or difficult backstory. This seems to have become the trademark of the woobie bad boys/villains whose sad stories are the excuse for their villainy, but it wasn't always the case. We used to like rags-to-riches heroes or those who overcame something. In real life, the people who accomplish a lot of great things usually came from a place of adversity or even trauma. Put as much effort into figuring out the past of your good guys as you do your villains.
Don't try to make good guys perfect. Perfect characters are boring, and all people should be allowed to be human. People can lose their temper, have a bad day, get frustrated, make mistakes, and make bad choices and still be good guys. The difference between bad guys and good guys is that good guys can pull themselves together and get back on track. They recognize where they went wrong and try to do better. They take responsibility for their actions instead of blaming others. And they're usually not deliberately harming others with their mistakes or missteps.
Good guy heroes can also have character flaws and blind spots, like any person. This gives the characters room for growth. If they're already fully realized, mature human beings at the start of the story, they don't have anywhere to go. If they have a weakness at the start of the story, they can grow and change, and that painful process of growth helps us cheer for them.
Let the good guys have a sense of humor. You can be a nice person fighting for the greater good and still be sarcastic or tell jokes. A good guy can make quips and see the irony in things. If the bad guy gets to make witty, sarcastic quips while the hero has to remain stoic, of course the bad guy is going to be more interesting.
It's important to let the good guys' actions speak for themselves. If you keep telling readers how great the good guys are, readers are likely to resent them or start looking for flaws. Let them figure out for themselves how good the characters are. It's even more powerful if you show the characters being good while they're being looked down upon and misunderstood by other characters. Let the readers be the ones to decide who's an awesome person, but give them the evidence they need to come to that conclusion in the characters' actions.
You don't absolutely have to make your protagonist be of the good guy sort, but if you're tending to write bad boys and antiheroes just because you don't think good characters are interesting, maybe you need to adjust your thinking about how you create your characters.
But it is possible to write good guys that people like (at least, according to my reader mail about my good-guy characters). Here are some ways to go about it (and by "guys" I mean both male and female characters, and a "bad boy" can also be a "bad girl"):
You can give good guys a sad or difficult backstory. This seems to have become the trademark of the woobie bad boys/villains whose sad stories are the excuse for their villainy, but it wasn't always the case. We used to like rags-to-riches heroes or those who overcame something. In real life, the people who accomplish a lot of great things usually came from a place of adversity or even trauma. Put as much effort into figuring out the past of your good guys as you do your villains.
Don't try to make good guys perfect. Perfect characters are boring, and all people should be allowed to be human. People can lose their temper, have a bad day, get frustrated, make mistakes, and make bad choices and still be good guys. The difference between bad guys and good guys is that good guys can pull themselves together and get back on track. They recognize where they went wrong and try to do better. They take responsibility for their actions instead of blaming others. And they're usually not deliberately harming others with their mistakes or missteps.
Good guy heroes can also have character flaws and blind spots, like any person. This gives the characters room for growth. If they're already fully realized, mature human beings at the start of the story, they don't have anywhere to go. If they have a weakness at the start of the story, they can grow and change, and that painful process of growth helps us cheer for them.
Let the good guys have a sense of humor. You can be a nice person fighting for the greater good and still be sarcastic or tell jokes. A good guy can make quips and see the irony in things. If the bad guy gets to make witty, sarcastic quips while the hero has to remain stoic, of course the bad guy is going to be more interesting.
It's important to let the good guys' actions speak for themselves. If you keep telling readers how great the good guys are, readers are likely to resent them or start looking for flaws. Let them figure out for themselves how good the characters are. It's even more powerful if you show the characters being good while they're being looked down upon and misunderstood by other characters. Let the readers be the ones to decide who's an awesome person, but give them the evidence they need to come to that conclusion in the characters' actions.
You don't absolutely have to make your protagonist be of the good guy sort, but if you're tending to write bad boys and antiheroes just because you don't think good characters are interesting, maybe you need to adjust your thinking about how you create your characters.
February 9, 2016
The Second Coming of Mary Stewart
It appears that I wasn't selected for the local teen book festival (yeah, in spite of being local and having a book on the library association's list of recommended reading) because they've announced all the attendees. Not that they've notified me either way, which I believe is rather rude. I had a long bout of feeling sorry for myself yesterday because it's already being a very tough year, career-wise. My agent actually forgot about me (well, something I'd sent months ago), it's not looking good about my publisher picking up my option book, royalties are way down across the board, and now this. Oh, and an out-of-town for-profit convention that invited me out of the blue (but for which I'd have to pay my own travel expenses) is only planning to put me on three panels for the whole weekend -- basically, they're paying in "exposure" without providing the exposure, so I'm considering backing out because I can't justify the considerable time and expense for so little payoff.
It's enough to make me wonder if this business is worth it and if I even have a future. But then I remembered that quitting would require getting a regular job, and that would probably require leaving the house, and I hated my old job, and I'm probably unemployable at my age with my last real job being more than a decade ago, and it would take a lot of retraining to do anything else. So I guess I'll just have to make this work and become really successful, and then when this book festival wants me, I'll laugh and tell them that I'd rather not deal with them after the way they behaved the last time I dealt with them.
Which means I'd better get busy writing. "Success is the best form of revenge" schemes require so much work.
In other news, in my day of lazy reading this weekend, I found a new-to-me author who seems to be basically the Second Coming of Mary Stewart -- contemporary, sort of Gothic romantic suspense. The author is Susanna Kearsley, and the book I read was The Splendour Falls. A young Englishwoman is invited by her cousin to join him for a holiday in a French town with a famous castle. The cousin is an academic who studies the Plantagenets, and this town and castle were held by them. There are legends about a great treasure the wife of King John hid there when the castle was under siege, and the cousin thinks he's found a good local source to discuss this. But when the heroine arrives, her cousin isn't there to meet her at the train station as promised. He's a notorious flake, though, so she doesn't think much of it and makes friends among the other guests at the hotel while she figures he'll eventually show up after he's done being sidetracked. Then she learns about a recent suspicious death and another local legend related to treasure, and she discovers something that leads her to believe that her cousin has actually been in town.
There are all the things that I used to love in the old Mary Stewart books -- picturesque setting (I even looked it up, and now I want to go there), a couple of possible love interests, but you don't know which one she'll end up with, secrets and mystery, a tie to history. And it doesn't have some of the stuff I used to dislike in those books. The heroine is a lot stronger and less of a victim, and the "dark, dangerous" man who treats her like a child isn't shown as all that appealing. This book was originally published in 1995 (this seems to be a newer edition, published in 2013), so in a lot of respects it's not that different from the Mary Stewart books. It's before the age when people would have just Googled to get information and before cell phones were so ubiquitous (it would have ruined the plot if she'd been able to just call her cousin and say, "I'm at the train station, where are you?"). This one was modern, but not too modern.
And the wonderful thing is that there are lots of books by this author, so next free weekend I get, I'll have to stock up from the library.
I will confess that ever since I started thinking about doing some traveling, when I read a book set in a hotel, with the guests as characters, I find myself thinking about how I'd be described as one of the guests. Probably that quiet one who keeps to herself and is prone to long, solitary walks and is therefore the first suspect.
It's enough to make me wonder if this business is worth it and if I even have a future. But then I remembered that quitting would require getting a regular job, and that would probably require leaving the house, and I hated my old job, and I'm probably unemployable at my age with my last real job being more than a decade ago, and it would take a lot of retraining to do anything else. So I guess I'll just have to make this work and become really successful, and then when this book festival wants me, I'll laugh and tell them that I'd rather not deal with them after the way they behaved the last time I dealt with them.
Which means I'd better get busy writing. "Success is the best form of revenge" schemes require so much work.
In other news, in my day of lazy reading this weekend, I found a new-to-me author who seems to be basically the Second Coming of Mary Stewart -- contemporary, sort of Gothic romantic suspense. The author is Susanna Kearsley, and the book I read was The Splendour Falls. A young Englishwoman is invited by her cousin to join him for a holiday in a French town with a famous castle. The cousin is an academic who studies the Plantagenets, and this town and castle were held by them. There are legends about a great treasure the wife of King John hid there when the castle was under siege, and the cousin thinks he's found a good local source to discuss this. But when the heroine arrives, her cousin isn't there to meet her at the train station as promised. He's a notorious flake, though, so she doesn't think much of it and makes friends among the other guests at the hotel while she figures he'll eventually show up after he's done being sidetracked. Then she learns about a recent suspicious death and another local legend related to treasure, and she discovers something that leads her to believe that her cousin has actually been in town.
There are all the things that I used to love in the old Mary Stewart books -- picturesque setting (I even looked it up, and now I want to go there), a couple of possible love interests, but you don't know which one she'll end up with, secrets and mystery, a tie to history. And it doesn't have some of the stuff I used to dislike in those books. The heroine is a lot stronger and less of a victim, and the "dark, dangerous" man who treats her like a child isn't shown as all that appealing. This book was originally published in 1995 (this seems to be a newer edition, published in 2013), so in a lot of respects it's not that different from the Mary Stewart books. It's before the age when people would have just Googled to get information and before cell phones were so ubiquitous (it would have ruined the plot if she'd been able to just call her cousin and say, "I'm at the train station, where are you?"). This one was modern, but not too modern.
And the wonderful thing is that there are lots of books by this author, so next free weekend I get, I'll have to stock up from the library.
I will confess that ever since I started thinking about doing some traveling, when I read a book set in a hotel, with the guests as characters, I find myself thinking about how I'd be described as one of the guests. Probably that quiet one who keeps to herself and is prone to long, solitary walks and is therefore the first suspect.
February 8, 2016
Mixed-Up Movies
I had an absolutely delightful lazy weekend. I went to bed early Friday night, for plenty of reading time before turning out the light (still earlier than normal). Saturday, I slept late, had a leisurely breakfast, then spent the day reading. I got through a whole book that afternoon. I think the last time I did something like that, it may have been a holiday. I also managed to get to a couple of HBO movies I've been planning to watch.
First, there was Kingsman. This is the one with the team of "gentleman" secret agents. You may recall the trailer with the scene of Colin Firth very politely beating up a gang of street toughs without wrinkling his bespoke suit. The concept of this movie, an updated and high-tech Knights of the Round Table, had a lot of promise, and it has a great cast. But I felt like the whole thing was mishandled. The story focuses on a young street punk who gets recruited to try for an open spot on this modern Round Table. These operatives are usually recruited from among the upper crust, but his father had once saved the life of Colin Firth's character, so he's being considered for the role now.
One of the issues I had with this movie was that it didn't seem to know if it was trying to be a spoof of secret agent movies along the lines of Austin Powers, playing with the idea of dapper gentlemen kicking ass, or if it was meant as a serious secret agent movie. Another issue was that it was a transformation/coming of age movie that skipped the actual transformation process. They established that this kid had the physical skills already -- he'd been a champion gymnast, had served briefly in the military, and grew up in a tough neighborhood -- but what he was lacking was social graces. They even mentioned Eliza Doolittle. But we never saw him learning any of this stuff, even though in the final confrontation he's there in his nice suit, with his posh accent, and knowing all about the finer things. It's not helped that they seem to have conflated testing and training. We see the trials the candidates for the one open slot go through and those are kind of training-like, but we don't see them actually being trained as one of these operatives.
My other issue is that they don't seem to know what a gentleman is and don't really seem to have made any effort to come up with their own definition. They mostly seem to have settled on a vague "wears nice clothes and knows about good drinks" rather than dealing with a code of chivalry and behavior. That gives the sense that this movie was written by and for 13-year-old boys. These gentleman agents swear like sailors, so there's little contrast other than accent between the way the agents speak and the way the street toughs speak. The final test for which candidate is chosen is something no true gentleman would do. And yet a lot of the main character's strengths seem to come from the fact that in spite of his rough upbringing, he has instincts that tend to lead him to behave in a chivalrous manner, though it doesn't seem like the script is aware of this. Then we also have the treatment of women, which was bad enough that I noticed and was bothered by it. One of the candidates for the open slot is a girl, and she seems to step right out of the "how not to write a strong female character" playbook. For one thing, she's "the girl," with that being her defining trait. They seem to be trying to write her as a Strong Female Character, so she's the one who's most capable in the group while also being the only one who's nice to the hero. Except then the way they pave the way for the hero to win in spite of her awesomeness is to tear her down. She's whiny and afraid and only gets through some of the tasks because of a pep talk from the hero. She plays a role in the final showdown, but it's off to the side, and her "enemy" is her own fears. She doesn't have any other antagonist to fight or deal with. And then there's the princess -- the one person who stood up to the villain and refused to go along with his scheme, so she's been held prisoner, something right out of my "strong female character" guide. But then at the end of the movie she's literally given to the hero as a reward. I wanted to throw things at the screen.
So, if it's on TV and you like secret agent movies, there are some amusing moments and a good cast (yes, that is Mark Hamill playing a British professor). But it's not what it should have been.
On the extreme other end of the spectrum, I watched The Water Diviner, which is not what you'd expect of a Russell Crowe film (he stars in it and directed). It's sort of an artsy period piece about the aftermath of World War I. An Australian farmer who lost all three of his sons at Gallipoli heads to Turkey after the death of his wife to see if he can find his sons' bodies and bring them home. Surprisingly, he gets the most help from a Turkish officer who's now being made to help the British catalogue the battlefield. The fate of his sons isn't entirely what he'd been led to believe, and so he has to go on a dangerous journey to find the truth.
I recall that there were some criticisms that this movie didn't quite know what it wanted to be, and I might agree, because it's a lot of things all at once. I just happen to like those things and the way they were put together. It's got mystery, adventure, romance, plus a lot of philosophical musing about war and grief. There are dashes of magical realism in that the main character is a diviner, someone who can find the right place to dig a well, but that also helps him find other things. It's probably tied up too neatly for those looking for more of a philosophical art piece, but it moves a little too slowly for those looking for an action film. I liked it, though. The cinematography is absolutely gorgeous. Whether it's a wide shot of the Outback or an image of a man sitting alone at a table in a hotel dining room, every shot looks like a work of art, and the film lets these shots linger so we can enjoy them. There's no MTV-like quick-cutting. And it must have haunted me because I think it inspired some dreams last night. The war scenes are pretty vivid, as is the aftermath, but I don't think it's to the violent extremes of a lot of movies these days. It's an odd little movie that may only be to some tastes.
First, there was Kingsman. This is the one with the team of "gentleman" secret agents. You may recall the trailer with the scene of Colin Firth very politely beating up a gang of street toughs without wrinkling his bespoke suit. The concept of this movie, an updated and high-tech Knights of the Round Table, had a lot of promise, and it has a great cast. But I felt like the whole thing was mishandled. The story focuses on a young street punk who gets recruited to try for an open spot on this modern Round Table. These operatives are usually recruited from among the upper crust, but his father had once saved the life of Colin Firth's character, so he's being considered for the role now.
One of the issues I had with this movie was that it didn't seem to know if it was trying to be a spoof of secret agent movies along the lines of Austin Powers, playing with the idea of dapper gentlemen kicking ass, or if it was meant as a serious secret agent movie. Another issue was that it was a transformation/coming of age movie that skipped the actual transformation process. They established that this kid had the physical skills already -- he'd been a champion gymnast, had served briefly in the military, and grew up in a tough neighborhood -- but what he was lacking was social graces. They even mentioned Eliza Doolittle. But we never saw him learning any of this stuff, even though in the final confrontation he's there in his nice suit, with his posh accent, and knowing all about the finer things. It's not helped that they seem to have conflated testing and training. We see the trials the candidates for the one open slot go through and those are kind of training-like, but we don't see them actually being trained as one of these operatives.
My other issue is that they don't seem to know what a gentleman is and don't really seem to have made any effort to come up with their own definition. They mostly seem to have settled on a vague "wears nice clothes and knows about good drinks" rather than dealing with a code of chivalry and behavior. That gives the sense that this movie was written by and for 13-year-old boys. These gentleman agents swear like sailors, so there's little contrast other than accent between the way the agents speak and the way the street toughs speak. The final test for which candidate is chosen is something no true gentleman would do. And yet a lot of the main character's strengths seem to come from the fact that in spite of his rough upbringing, he has instincts that tend to lead him to behave in a chivalrous manner, though it doesn't seem like the script is aware of this. Then we also have the treatment of women, which was bad enough that I noticed and was bothered by it. One of the candidates for the open slot is a girl, and she seems to step right out of the "how not to write a strong female character" playbook. For one thing, she's "the girl," with that being her defining trait. They seem to be trying to write her as a Strong Female Character, so she's the one who's most capable in the group while also being the only one who's nice to the hero. Except then the way they pave the way for the hero to win in spite of her awesomeness is to tear her down. She's whiny and afraid and only gets through some of the tasks because of a pep talk from the hero. She plays a role in the final showdown, but it's off to the side, and her "enemy" is her own fears. She doesn't have any other antagonist to fight or deal with. And then there's the princess -- the one person who stood up to the villain and refused to go along with his scheme, so she's been held prisoner, something right out of my "strong female character" guide. But then at the end of the movie she's literally given to the hero as a reward. I wanted to throw things at the screen.
So, if it's on TV and you like secret agent movies, there are some amusing moments and a good cast (yes, that is Mark Hamill playing a British professor). But it's not what it should have been.
On the extreme other end of the spectrum, I watched The Water Diviner, which is not what you'd expect of a Russell Crowe film (he stars in it and directed). It's sort of an artsy period piece about the aftermath of World War I. An Australian farmer who lost all three of his sons at Gallipoli heads to Turkey after the death of his wife to see if he can find his sons' bodies and bring them home. Surprisingly, he gets the most help from a Turkish officer who's now being made to help the British catalogue the battlefield. The fate of his sons isn't entirely what he'd been led to believe, and so he has to go on a dangerous journey to find the truth.
I recall that there were some criticisms that this movie didn't quite know what it wanted to be, and I might agree, because it's a lot of things all at once. I just happen to like those things and the way they were put together. It's got mystery, adventure, romance, plus a lot of philosophical musing about war and grief. There are dashes of magical realism in that the main character is a diviner, someone who can find the right place to dig a well, but that also helps him find other things. It's probably tied up too neatly for those looking for more of a philosophical art piece, but it moves a little too slowly for those looking for an action film. I liked it, though. The cinematography is absolutely gorgeous. Whether it's a wide shot of the Outback or an image of a man sitting alone at a table in a hotel dining room, every shot looks like a work of art, and the film lets these shots linger so we can enjoy them. There's no MTV-like quick-cutting. And it must have haunted me because I think it inspired some dreams last night. The war scenes are pretty vivid, as is the aftermath, but I don't think it's to the violent extremes of a lot of movies these days. It's an odd little movie that may only be to some tastes.
February 5, 2016
Driving Authors Crazy
I got word yesterday that I will be on programming at the next WorldCon, MidAmericaCon2, which will be in Kansas City in August. I'm pondering next year's WorldCon, which will be in Helsinki. I'm not entirely sure what business advantage I'd have of going there, as my books aren't published in that end of the world, other than my English-language e-books, but it would be a tax-deductible trip to Finland and a chance to visit some of the other Nordic countries along the way, and maybe exposure to a new audience of people who might pick up the e-books.
Meanwhile, I'm still waiting to learn whether or not I'll be at the regional teen book festival that was started by my local library system. Unless I missed an e-mail along the way either of the "thank you for your interest, but there were so many authors and we only have so many slots" or the "yes, we want you, but please keep this under your hat because we're doing dramatic revelations" variety, they're letting authors know they were selected at the same time they're notifying the public, a few at a time via clever social media reveals. They put together teaser pictures with just a word from a book cover and have people guess the authors. And if there was no definitive yes or no message to the authors at any time, this seems like a surefire way to drive people insane. Maybe I should have a chat with my local librarian about this. I don't know if they realize just how annoying this is for authors to have to wait and watch for the information to trickle out and not being able to make plans for that weekend one way or another until they get around to announcing all the participants who were selected. I think they're down to their last few authors, so I'm getting the impression I wasn't selected, but if they weren't notifying people and verifying that they were still interested before making the public announcement, I don't dare accept other events for that weekend, which is possibly going to shut me out of those other events. It is possible that any notification went to my publisher rather than to me (though the confirmation that they received my application went to me), and my publisher doesn't seem to remember I exist, so they may never have passed any news on to me, one way or another. If it went to the publicist, I'll never know about it. And I wasn't part of this week's revelations, so I think there's one set to go.
This is when I vow that I'm going to go out and write another book that will end up being so successful that one day they will beg me to come to their event, and I will laugh at them because I no longer need it.
As I said on Facebook yesterday, this business is like getting a public performance review on every single project, where everyone else not only watches what the "boss" says to you but also gets to chime in with their own comments and then decide how much you get paid. It's not a business for thin-skinned people or wimps. Even tough people who are good at tuning out the rest of the world get discouraged every so often.
On the up side, I have a free weekend ahead of me, a convention next weekend, and I just came up with an idea for what I think will be a cool short story.
Meanwhile, I'm still waiting to learn whether or not I'll be at the regional teen book festival that was started by my local library system. Unless I missed an e-mail along the way either of the "thank you for your interest, but there were so many authors and we only have so many slots" or the "yes, we want you, but please keep this under your hat because we're doing dramatic revelations" variety, they're letting authors know they were selected at the same time they're notifying the public, a few at a time via clever social media reveals. They put together teaser pictures with just a word from a book cover and have people guess the authors. And if there was no definitive yes or no message to the authors at any time, this seems like a surefire way to drive people insane. Maybe I should have a chat with my local librarian about this. I don't know if they realize just how annoying this is for authors to have to wait and watch for the information to trickle out and not being able to make plans for that weekend one way or another until they get around to announcing all the participants who were selected. I think they're down to their last few authors, so I'm getting the impression I wasn't selected, but if they weren't notifying people and verifying that they were still interested before making the public announcement, I don't dare accept other events for that weekend, which is possibly going to shut me out of those other events. It is possible that any notification went to my publisher rather than to me (though the confirmation that they received my application went to me), and my publisher doesn't seem to remember I exist, so they may never have passed any news on to me, one way or another. If it went to the publicist, I'll never know about it. And I wasn't part of this week's revelations, so I think there's one set to go.
This is when I vow that I'm going to go out and write another book that will end up being so successful that one day they will beg me to come to their event, and I will laugh at them because I no longer need it.
As I said on Facebook yesterday, this business is like getting a public performance review on every single project, where everyone else not only watches what the "boss" says to you but also gets to chime in with their own comments and then decide how much you get paid. It's not a business for thin-skinned people or wimps. Even tough people who are good at tuning out the rest of the world get discouraged every so often.
On the up side, I have a free weekend ahead of me, a convention next weekend, and I just came up with an idea for what I think will be a cool short story.
