Mette Ivie Harrison's Blog, page 100

self-publishing

I have done a number of self-published projects over the years, I remind myself sometimes when I feel a bit anti-self-publishing. I thought I would mention some of them:

Honors Thesis
Masters Thesis
Dissertation

All bound in hard cover, about ten copies each, at my own cost, and now sitting in libraries. If you google my name at the appropriate universities, you will see the incredibly long-winded and boring-sounding titles listed.

The Best Days
Memories of Dad

About twenty to thirty copies each at the local Kinkos, in spiral bound variety with some pictures. Done for my parents' 50th anniversary and my father-in-law's 70th birthday, gathered memories from various family members and collated and edited them. Not for profit, but for posterity. An extremely limited audience.

And, if we include music self-publishing, my daughters to-date 2 CD's, which were done at mostly professional studios at my own expense and given away as gifts simply because we love her and want to encourage her talent. Dealing with copyright issues would be a hassle anyway.

I suppose if you stretched, you might include as "self-publishing" the handful of books my kids have had hard bound and glossy-paged in elementary school. We have a few copies of those and they are hilarious to look back at. 16 explained for the first time this year why some of the drawings looked as they did. Since they had been mysteries to me for some time, this was awesome.

I think self-publishing is great for these limited purposes, and for a few others, like publishing a manual of some kind for a business purpose. I don't believe it is useful for fiction that you intend to sell at bookstores and certainly not for national publication. While it is sometimes hard for me to admit, there are some projects of mine which are not going to be published (even if superbly written) by the current publishing market. I tend to feel like I should wait for the market to change. However, this may change as I get older. I don't know.

thoughts on talent, music and writing

Yesterday and today I spent about 10 hours in a recording studio with 15 cutting a CD that is her Christmas present to friends and family (and I suppose, in a way, my present to her). It was interesting talking just a little with the audio guy there about talent. He thought at first that 15 was a college student, home for the Holidays, and when I told him she was a sophomore in high school, he mentioned several times how impressive both her voice and her sense of style. She recorded about 12 songs, 5 with cello and piano, and ended up improvising a bunch of the music on the spot, or simply transposing it as she went for her voice. Maybe I will put up one of the songs later on youtube and link to it from here.

I told AG that I tried to emphasize with 15 the importance of working hard and not get too caught up in whether or not she had more "talent" than other people. I think his reaction to this was somewhat similar to my agent's when I talk to him about talent versus hard work. Just head shaking and surprise that anyone else in an artistic career could dismiss so easily the importance of talent. AG tried to explain to me how many times he had had people in his studio who had worked very hard, but did not have the talent to get where they wanted to go. Of course, this would be very painful, and he said there was a point at which he just wanted to tell people to find something else they could be good at and not waste anymore time on what they couldn't.

So, apparently, I am refusing to see what everyone else does. Nonetheless, I think I am going to continue to do this because I still want 15 to work hard and to answer the question, "Why am I not famous yet?" with "Because I am not good enough yet."

My attention for listening carefully to music production is about an hour. After that, I went glassy eyed and silent. I just couldn't care about anything big or small after that. AG mentioned when he found out that I was a writer that he couldn't imagine spending day after day for years working on one book. You see the parallel? I spend hours every day sometimes on the same opening paragraph or just thinking up possible titles for a book. I love the painstaking work of copyediting. I love the details. There is nothing that is more like a treat for my brain and my talent.

15 said as we finished up, "This is my favorite place ever. I want to do this every day." So I guess she has found what she loves, and that is an amazing thing as a parent to watch and connect with.

Top 13 Reads of 2010

The Replacement by Brenna Yovanoff
In The Company of Angels by David Farland
White Cat by Holly Black
Thief Eye by Janni Lee Simner
Mr. Monster by Dan Wells
Mistwood by Leah Cypress
Shades of Milk and Honey by Mary Robinette Kowall
Marcelo in the Real World by Francisco X. Stork
The Clockwork Three by Matthew Kirby
Zombies vs. Unicorns ed. by Justine Larbelestier and Holly Black
The Dead-Tossed Waves by Carrie Ryan
Pegasus by Robin McKinley
Freak Magnet by Andrew Auseon

And Favorite On-going Series:
Harry Connolly
Connie Willis
Ruth Downie
Sarah Rees Brennan
Megan Whalen Turner
Seanan McGuire
Patricia Briggs
Jim Butcher

listening to feedback and rewriting

After you have been in a writers group for a while, you realize one really important thing. Some people rewrite well. Some people don't. I'm not sure I can explain what makes the difference, but I saw it over and over again. You are there one week, reading a first draft, and then at the next meeting, that draft comes back and you hear it again. Your reaction is one of the following:

1. This is completely different, but has all the same problems as the old draft.

2. This is completely different, and has all NEW problems compared to the old draft.

3. This is not different at all. I think the writer changed two commas and a sentence somewhere and that's it. Didn't she hear anything we said?

4. This is better. Not perfect, but farther along than it used to be.

5. This is different, but it's worse than it was before. Somehow, what we told the author actually made him ruin what was good about it before.

Of course, just because one of these things happens once doesn't mean you're going to be either brilliant or utterly unsuccessful. If it happens over and over again, however, a pattern emerges.

I'm afraid that for a long time I tended toward #2, occasionally hitting #4. Sadly, there were times for me still when I am #5 and that usually means it's time for me to put the book in the proverbial drawer and never look at it again.

I see the same thing when I am at conferences or when I do critiques, though on a more limited plain. Some people ask a question and then shut up while you answer. They nod, maybe make a note, and then ask a question as a followup that shows they heard you. Other people ask a question that shows they misunderstood completely, probably willfully. And still others ask a question that veers off in another direction. I always wonder from my side what this means about people in real life. If you are a good listener and a good rewriter, are you better in a relationship? If you are a bad rewriter and obstinate, do your relationships fall apart? I have no data to suggest this is true, but I wonder it nonetheless.

In defense of season 6

of Buffy.

15 and I were talking recently about our favorite season of Buffy. We both like season 6 the best. But why? I know there are many people who think the series died after season 5 or earlier. 16 only really likes the first 3 seasons of Buffy, until Buffy gets out of high school (and Joss Whedon seemed to get some distance from the project). The early seasons are more campy, and I have some episodes I truly love from among them.

Do I love season 6 because of Spike the Bad Boy? I don't know. I'm not generally a fan of bad boy characters. I like Spike and I think I'm more of a sucker for the doomed love story (because we all know Buffy will never love Spike back) than I am of the bad boy thing. I think that for me, I love the idea that Buffy has been snatched from heaven back into this world. And I love the dark Willow arc. I love the episode TABULA RASA. And also, I love the villains in season 6 best of all. I love to hate Warren, who is truly evil in the way that I find the stepmother in the Disney Cinderella evil--in a way that is utterly real and needs no magic. The villains in season 6 are also perhaps the silliest, the one note of humor that continues through the season, or most of it.

I also love THE BODY, which is from season 5. I love the final episode of season 5. The rest of season 5? Good, but not my favorite. Season 4 is mostly not very interesting, except for my favorite episode, BEER BAD. I have watched it numerous times with my kids and insist that it is a great episode to be seen in LDS church youth classes. If you want to know why you shouldn't drink, here it is in a funny way. Also, from Season 4--SOMETHING BLUE. Of course, I love the same episodes others love from the first three seasons.

on the importance of editors

At a book signing a few months ago, I was seated next to a couple of writers who were published locally. I like hearing publication stories, so I asked the two of them how they had found their publisher. One told me the editor was a friend of a friend, the other said that he had submitted to a handful of publishers and been accepted by this one.

Then they told me that their manuscripts had been printed within a number of weeks from the day they were accepted. I asked how many rounds of revision they had gone through. The answer: essentially none. The manuscript was ready to go as written in first draft form, and they seemed surprised that I didn't go through the same process with a national publisher. Why on earth would it take me two full years from first draft to publication? Wouldn't a national publisher move more quickly than a local one? The answer, rather simply, is no.

I think there are lots of good books that get published through a local publisher for numerous reasons. But I think that because these authors had never gone through a long editing process with a true professional, they had no idea of how their manuscript would be shaped and vastly improved. Let me tell you, there is a huge difference between my first draft and what is published. There is a pretty big difference even between the second-to-last and the last draft of a manuscript. And I am not talking about spelling corrections or changing words around in a sentence. I am talking about plot changes, character changes, inventing new chapters, cutting out swathes of boring parts, and on and on.

I sometimes have a bit of a chip on my shoulder when it comes to locally published stuff in Utah. But when reading these locally published novels, I have decided that I need to be a lot more sympathetic. These are first drafts. If my first drafts were published, they would have a lot of problems, too. I think the editor of a book should get a credit somewhere inside the text of the book. Maybe on the cover of the book. It's not that I feel like my editor writes my book for me, but she "gets" my book in a way that pushes me to make it *more* the book it was meant to be.

Local publishers here in Utah want to get books out immediately to deal with a perceived demand, so they don't have time to wait for a full editing process. But sit back and think about it--your first draft, published. Some people certainly have cleaner first drafts than mine, but everyone needs feedback. The most brilliant authors are made more brilliant by brilliant editors. It's like the difference between youtube video quality and something on TV, or between your sixth grader making smores and you making gourmet brownies.

copyright and fan fiction

A friend recently told me about an argument with her husband in regards to copyright. He felt that artists owned the copyright to their own work for far too long, and it should be cut down to 15 years from date of publication. Of course, to those of us who spend our lives in the creative arts, this suggestion is very disheartening, to say the least. Copyright was originally created in order to encourage artistic types so that they had a financial incentive to be creative. And it has worked.

What would the world be like if there were no copyright at all? I think that I would still write if there were no financial incentive to do so, but I don't know if I would write as much or even the same things. I would write more private things that I did not care if anyone ever appreciated. I also think that the sense of "legacy" would be missing in my work. I wouldn't be trying to build a brand of "Mette Ivie Harrison" who writes fantasy for YA with romance and thinking and strong plots. I would feel like I could scatter myself over whatever canvases I wished.

What would the world be like if there were only a 15 year copyright? Well, then you would have to think short term all the time. I've heard some people give the advice that writers should never quit their day jobs until they are earning enough to survive from royalties only, from backlist, not from advances. Because advances might be wonky one year, and royalties tend to be more stable. But if there were no back list? I think in this case, the pressure would be simply to produce what is hot RIGHT NOW. I think there is already a lot of pressure to produce something that is the latest trend. You end up getting a lot of imitations. But who would be brave enough to write something new? I don't know.

There are some dangers in this world, not just to the artists, but to the audience. I think that Hollywood is already on this model, and that is why most movies are unwatchable. That may sound harsh, but honestly I watch 1-2 movies a year in the theater, and not that many more at home. TV is more on the long term model where what matters isn't the front list, but the back list. From what I understand, you make more money in TV on reruns than you ever did on the first run of the show, so that's what everyone involved in a TV show is hoping for. And IMHO that is why TV is more interesting and dynamic (by and large) than Hollywood.

On this point, I also thought I would admit to having written several fan fic pieces as Christmas gifts this year. I think I might eventually be able to sell most of them, if I erase the fan fic part and get to the core of the story which is my own weirdness. I think most authors have the view that fan fic is fine, so long as it isn't being sold for money and isn't competition for the author's original work. Nonetheless, I feel the tiniest bit guilty for writing fan fic. Also, tremendously nervous about what the result will be. Because no matter how much I love these authors, I cannot write like they do. And of course, the readers I offer my stories to will be able to tell.

unhappy love endings

So, after spending all weekend watching Dr. Who Season 4 (and knitting 5 hats for Christmas--so I wasn't being lazy!), I am thinking about the importance of not having a happy ending for a love story. I don't know why this hasn't occurred to me before, or if it has, why I feel like it is new. It is the lesson from Moonlighting, Bones, Dr. Who, Twilight, and The Time Traveler's Wife, and a thousand other stories. What the audience wants is not a happy ending, but a suspended moment of anticipatory love.

We don't really want Booth and Bones to get together because that would end our delicious feeling of hoping that they do.

And when Rose gets the human doctor instead of the real Dr. Who, there is something of a disappointment there--which is absolutely vital, because it keeps us focused on our obsession with the doctor. He can never fall in love. He has to go on, finding new companions, saving the world--that's what makes him the doctor. So some part of us must enjoy that sad feeling that he is always going to be lonely. Is it because it gives us the chance to hope for someone even better in the future? I think it is. We like the feeling of hope better than the fulfillment itself.

Twilight book 4 is a huge disappointment for many readers, and I thought for a while that this was because of bad writing. In fact, it is simply because Twilight readers wanted to go on watching Bella and Edward anticipate their love forever, not consummate it. Consummation is icky. It's the continual drama of more problems to be faced, more obstacles to be overcome, for the eternal love that makes it so special and eternal. Any happy ending is in fact a disappointment.

The Time Traveler's Wife is a little different, but we know pretty early on that there is a sad ending, that whatever happiness the couple finds is brief. It is the frame of that known death that keeps us rooting for them to defeat it.

Oh, how crazy we romance readers are. I know there are readers for whom this simply does not work and they get bored and annoyed. All of us get bored and annoyed, actually. But the solution is never the happy ending. The solution is killing off the doctor and getting a new companion, and not touching the perfection of the anticipation. Do not give the audience what they say they want.

And now, thinking about how to write a book that I would be proud of that capitalizes on this . . .

conversation with Mrs. Music

Friday evening at one of 15's many musical lessons/rehearsals, I was talking first with another member of her group, and then the wife of the teacher.

Music Girl: My dad loves music so much. He wants all his kids to make an orchestra and play for him all the time.
Mrs. Music: Is he musical, too, then?
Music Girl: Oh, not at all. He just wants us to be. He's on us all to practice all the time.
Me: Really? I tend to wish 15 would practice less. And well, watch TV more. (To myself I am wondering why parents try to make their children do things that they don't do. I guess they're trying to help. But doesn't it feel to the kids like they are reliving their childhoods through the children? And isn't there hypocrisy in making kids take lessons when you don't? Adults can take music lessons, even if they've never learned before. Really, I know.)
Mrs. Music: So are any of your other children musical?
Me: Not really. A couple play, but 15 is the most talented and dedicated.
Mrs. Music: Boy, you're a harsh critic.
Me: (Shrugging) My other kids are going to make real money at real jobs, so I think in the end it will all work out.
Mrs. Music: You know, kids who are serious about music--that's one of the things that recruiters from Harvard are looking for.
Me: (Thinking, who cares about Harvard? I'm a Princeton girl myself--and wasn't all that impressed even with it) I'd never heard that before.
Mrs. Music: A number of my students have gotten into Harvard and some even majored in music performance, but then went on to Law School or Medical School. Doing music shows you can concentrate.
Me: (With a laugh) Could you tell 15 this? She is determined she will do music and only music. I think she would practice 10 hours a day but we tell her we have to have time for quiet.
Mrs. Music: Well, have to go now.

What in the world was I thinking when I talked like this? I guess I take pleasure in pricking other people's assumptions and playing the "bad mom," and perhaps 15 could get some sympathy out of this since she obviously has such uncaring parents. But I do get tired of people treating teenagers all the time like they are lazy. I just haven't seen that with my kids. They would work themselves into the ground every day unless I encouraged them to watch TV now and again. I know not all teenagers are like this, but still, there have to be others out there.

I wonder if parents see that what their kids are already doing is helping them to be fit for a job in the future. Yes, video games, too. My husband worked as a video game artist and programmer, and it pays quite well. (Hours suck, but that's true of a lot of computer programming jobs.) Also, why is it that we as parents are supposed to "make" our children do what is good for them? Why don't we figure out what they want for their futures and then help them make that possible? If your child doesn't love music, are those lessons really useful? I just don't believe in making kids practice if they aren't motivated to do it on their own. Music is lovely, but there is some weird cultural/historical thing going on that makes people think it is THE best way to make children into better people.

YA voice

I've been thinking lately a lot about what makes the difference between a YA voice and an adult one. There are certain novels with a YA protagonist, even ones not written with that looking-back adult tone, that are still not YA novels. The Warrior's Apprentice is one example in genre. The Secret History of Bees, To Kill a Mockingbird, Cold Sassy Tree examples in more literary fiction. And then there are some of my unpublished attempts at adult novels, which have too much of a YA voice to be published on either end (or possibly are bad for other reasons--that's another post). So what is it that makes the difference and how do you cultivate one or the other?

Honestly, I do not know if you can cultivate a YA voice if you don't naturally have one. In fact, I don't think you can. I think it's far more useful for you to figure out what voice you have naturally and then hone that. That's a big enough project as it is. Some writers never seem to figure it out. But there are writers who seem to be able to switch seamlessly from one voice to another, like say, Jane Yolen, so I'm not saying it's impossible. But how many Jane Yolens are out there?

I think it is useful, however, to think about what about makes a YA voice. Here's a list (I love lists--can you tell?!)

1. Never growing up.

I mean this in both ways. Some of us never grew up and we still hate the dreary adult world, same old same old, responsibilities, and so on. And there are also those of us who for one reason or another maintain in our minds and hearts quite clearly what life was like at a particular age. I don't know what does this, but from talking to other authors, this seems a real phenomenon, a moment in the past that is so perfect that it remains. I think that when I talk to my teenagers, I realize that I am still 16 at heart. I am still angry at that adult world I am now grudgingly part of. I still ache at the 16 year-old trials that I had. Just never got over it, I guess.

2. Uncertainty, open-mindedness.

If you KNOW what the answer to everything is, I don't think you're going to have a good YA voice. I'm afraid you will end up sounding condescending. I sometimes wish I had the answer to anything, really. And then I hear people who say they have the answers, and shake my head. There aren't any answers. If you believe that, you may have a YA voice.

3. Everything is new.

I think Orson Scott Card told me once that for kids, there are no cliches. I'm not saying this means that you are allowed to write badly in YA. I think this means that there are not the same rules about what you can write about or how to write it. It's part of this impulse that makes people retell fairy tales, but it's not just fairy tales. Anything can be rewritten in YA because it's never been done before. There's a sort of perpetual blank slate.

4. First love.

And first everything else. The first time your best friend betrays you. The first time a teacher you loved lets you down. The first time you skip school and get away with it. The deliciousness of it, the importance of it, the big stakes, the newness and pain of all those emotions that feel like they will never let go.

5. Naivete.

Rushing in where angels fear to tread. You can even have an adult protagonist or some kind of pseudo-adult alien/fantasy character so long as that character is thrust into a situation in which they are not good at anything and are forced to be a kid again.

6. Powerlessness--

that turns into power, because no one wants to read a YA novel where it turns out that the whole book has been a waste of time, and it took Mom/Dad to fix it all. Everyone tells the YA protagonist that she has now power, but she has to figure out the hidden power and take it for herself.

7. Dreams.

Not literally, although occasionally there are books that do dreams well. I mean, dreaming for the future, believing in it, seeing it and reaching for it. I think this is part of the reason that science fiction was for many years the fiction of young adults. I heard quoted somewhere that the average age of the science fiction reader was 16. The new worlds, the vastness of the imagination, stretching out to infinity.

8. On the cusp.

The sense of being on the brink of the beginning of the rest of your life is very much a part of YA writing, and not part of adult writing. You have to believe that this is the moment when everything matters, and it hangs on a single person's choice in one moment, not on a series of people (that would be adult). It's one of the reasons that YA literature tends to have a single viewpoint character, often a first person narrator.

9. Language.

Now, I don't mean the coy stuff where you try to imitate what teens are saying now. I even get annoyed at made up lingo if it goes too far. A sprinkling is plenty. I want it to still be in English. (Then again, I'm an adult. Actual teens are probably not bothered as much by going overboard on this.) But the attention to language is part of what makes a YA book. There is often a lot of dialog because that's where important interactions happen, in talking. Also, lots of head stuff, though not necessarily described in detail. Sharp language, sharp detail.

10. Immediacy.

While I don't think that a great YA book has to be set in the present, it has to have a sense of immediacy. It can be combined with a timelessness if you are a perfect writer, but otherwise you have to just go for immediacy. This is happening right now. This is what matters. Present tense works in YA when it doesn't in adult because even if it's a hundred years in the past, it is happening right in your face, like a vlog posted every day. Captain Horrible--that's YA, if you want my opinion. Joss Whedon is the perfect YA writer.


11. Impatience.

There is no time in a YA novel for a long prologue. I think middle grade tolerates it better than YA, actually. You've got to get right to what is happening, and while there are times for beats, they are quick ones. Something has to happen in every scene, no time for reflections on scenery or the state of the world. Occasional navel gazing is allowed. For some reason, this makes me think of Back to the Future. Definitely a YA movie. Marty McFly is a classic YA protagonist. Everything has to be done right now or he's going to disintegrate, and it will be the end of the world.

12. Humor.

What did Joss Whedon do wrong with Dollhouse? No humor. It's just unrelenting, and I needed that humor to relieve things, and then tighten them up again. Humor, which I do so badly, is an essential part of YA. I think teens take themselves less seriously and more seriously than adults do.