Charlie Jane Anders's Blog, page 46

readaroundtherosie:Currently Reading → A Darker Shade of Magic...

readaroundtherosie:

Currently Reading → A Darker Shade of Magic by V. E. Schwab 

I’ve heard nothing but fantastic things about this book since it’s release back in February, and the hype certainly holds true. I’m only about a third of the way through but the world building is incredibly interesting. I’m already looking forward to the sequel! 

Co-signed.

2003 was a high water mark for speculative literature

This Saturday we’re featuring Andrew Sean Greer at Writers With Drinks, the monthly spoken word night that I organize. (It’s 7:30 at the Make Out Room on 22nd street, and you should all come!) And that started me thinking about how for me, that moment 10 years ago when Andrew published The Confessions of Max Tivoli was so important for the literary-genre crossover thing.

There had been so many great lit-genre stories before then, and I remember Infinite Jest had rocked my world among others. Plus so much stuff by Doris Lessing, Don DeLillo and Kurt Vonnegut. But Confessions of Max Tivoli was released around the same time as The Time Traveler’s Wife by Audrey Niffenegger. (And they were both just a year before Cloud Atlas.) And Kelly Link and Aimee Bender were exploding onto the scene. For a little while, it felt like literary spec fic was finding ways to tell brand new stories about people, using things like time travel and backwards-aging. It wasn’t just clever spins on SF ideas, or postmodern lit that used SF trappings, but really good solid SF storytelling.

Since then, literary genre fiction has exploded—and Greer’s recent books have included The Impossible Life of Greta Wells, which is another great personal story with SF ideas. And David Mitchell continues to be incredible. But a lot of the lit genre stuff is more post-apocalyptic, or out-and-out fantastical. Or pomo, again. I’m just thinking aloud here, but I was really inspired by Time Traveler’s Wife and Max Tivoli, and a few other books around that time. They had a huge influence on All the Birds in the Sky, and my writing in general. I would love to see more personal/intimate takes on speculative stuff again. What do you think?

The Importance of Jumping the Shark as Early as Possible

With TV shows, “jumping the shark” refers to some change in the status quo, or some kind of event that is so outlandish, it wrecks your belief in the characters or their world. But when you’re writing a novel where some crazy stuff happens, it’s important to jump the shark as early as possible. Preferably on page one, if you can manage it.

That’s one reason why a lot of the craziest stuff in All the Birds in the Sky happens in the first couple chapters—by the end of chapter two, we’ve had talking animals, a miniature time machine, and some other insane stuff. Partly this is about establishing the main characters, Patricia and Laurence, and the world they live in. But I also wanted to make sure that people wouldn’t feel freaked out later in the book, when things start getting wilder and more out of control.

There’s also the fact that my main characters are kids for the first 1/3 of the book, and then they become grown ups, which was something I tried to figure out a way to telegraph on page one or two. Originally, I experimented with having more explicit foreshadowing, like having the narrator butt in and say something about the dark, adult weirdness Patricia was going to have in her life when she was in her twenties. Writing about Patricia’s sister, Roberta, I tried having the narrator drop a huge hint about how messed-up Roberta gets as an adult. I wanted to signal that the book wasn’t always about kids, and that the narrative gets a bit tricksy at times. But no matter how I tried it, this just did not work. So I had to stick to just jumping the shark in the most obvious way: by throwing in some of the most outlandish elements of the story right at the start.

So what I’m saying is, if you gotta jump the shark, make sure you’re in shark-jumping position from the very start. To mix metaphors horribly, a key part of shark-jumping is just ripping the band-aid off.

WOW the Library Journal review of All the Birds is so lovely. I...

WOW the Library Journal review of All the Birds is so lovely. I am glowing and levitating a little.

No Shenanigans! Violators will be glitter bombed (@ Haight and...

No Shenanigans! Violators will be glitter bombed (@ Haight and Masonic)

Walt Whitman, Werewolf!

Several years ago, I was taking part in some kind of literary fantasy mashup contest. I don’t remember the exact details, but I did well enough to win a bottle of absinthe that I still haven’t opened. I just came across my entry, “Walt Whitman—Werewolf.” And here it is…

The spotted hawk swoops by and accuses me, he complains of my gab and my loitering.
So I bite him, his head displaced with one snap of my wolf jaws. I snap! I tear! I eat!

A child said  What is the grass? fetching it to me with full hands,
How could I answer the child? I do not know what it is any more than he.
So I bit him, my wolf fangs tearing into his childlike throat, his last cries flowing out of him as his blood flows into me. The blood is my ocean, it is my laughter of democracy.

There is none more democratic than I, when I surrender to the beams of the moon.
Rich and poor, I bite them.
White and black, I bite them, their ligaments sweet in my mouth.
Men and women, I bite them equally, I make no distinction.
I bite the quakeress in her bonnet. I bite the lovely and the homely. I bite the foreign. I bite the native. I BITE YOU.
Young and old, regardless of philosophy and disquisition, I bite them.
Kanuck, Tuckahoe, Congressman, Cuff, I bite them the same, I eat them the same.
Ocean, I bite you, your waves are meat in my mouth. Trees, I bite you. Houses, I bite you. Mountains, I bite you. Railroad trains, I bite you. Manhattan and all the townships of New Jersey, I bite you and taste your blood.
There is nothing that is not unbitten. Or should there be, I will bite it now.
There in the beams of the moon they surrender to me.

I think I could turn and live with animals, they’re so delicious.
I too am not a bit tamed, I too am untranslatable,
I sound my barbaric YAWP over the roofs of the world.
Alone far in the wilds and mountains I hunt,
Wandering amazed at my own lightness and glee,
Do I contract myself? Very well, then, I contract myself. I am full, I have eaten multitudes.

I hear America singing; the varied carols I…arrrrrggg…aaaaaaaarrrrrrrooooooooooooooooo!

"It’s called Akounak Tedalat Taha Tazoughai – which translates to “Rain the Color..."

“It’s called Akounak Tedalat Taha Tazoughai – which translates to “Rain the Color of Blue with a Little Red in It.” That’s because there’s no word for “purple” in Tamajeq, the language spoken by the Tuareg. Like the original, this version of Purple Rain, directed by Christopher Kirkley, tells the story of a guitarist and songwriter who battles his musical rivals, his conservative father — and eventually, his own ego. Those struggles are every bit as resonant in Niger’s desert community as they were in Prince’s Minneapolis.”

- ‘Purple Rain’ — As Retold In A Language Without A Word For Purple | The Current from Minnesota Public Radio

I somehow convinced my cat Boyo to wear an #AlltheBirdsintheSky...

I somehow convinced my cat Boyo to wear an #AlltheBirdsintheSky T-shirt for the Titan Books holiday calendar. He’s since agreed to forget this ever happened.

Downtown SF used to have a ton of bookstores. So glad...

Downtown SF used to have a ton of bookstores. So glad there’s still one left . And it’s a beauty.

"She spent a couple hours trying to compose a letter to the Parks Department on behalf of some..."

“She spent a couple hours trying to compose a letter to the Parks Department on behalf of some gophers whose burrow was being disturbed, pointlessly, by some inept landscaping in Golden Gate Park. It took a lot of concentration to translate from gopher language into bureaucratese.”

- All the Birds in the Sky, p. 187