Jenn Reese's Blog, page 15

Play time: Favorite Lines

When we write, we have favorite lines, lines that make us think we're awesome. Maybe even brilliant. For me, these are inevitably the lines I end up removing during the editing process. You've heard of "kill your babies" or "kill your darlings"? I'm basically a mass murderer.

But occasionally a few lines survive the brutal editorial process and make it into the final book. They're almost always the quiet moments in the story — my favorite moments. No one else may even notice them at all, but I know they're there.

Today, I want to see your favorite lines. Not necessarily your best lines, just the ones that speak to you. That make you warm inside. Try to keep them short — just a few sentences or one short paragraph if you can.

If you're not a writer, feel free to pick lines from a book you love. (Not the best, most famous lines, though — unless they're also your favorites.)

From Above World, here's a quiet moment I added during a revision that, for some reason, I love. It's from Hoku's point of view:

At night, they cooked and ate around their campfire. He loved the flames. Not just the flickering light, but the way it drew them together around its circumference. Fire had a gravity all its own.

Come, play with me!

Anne McCaffrey: Gone away, gone ahead

Anne McCaffrey has died.

It's moments like these that I'm grateful for the Internet and for services like Twitter that make it easy to see that McCaffrey affected other people as profoundly as she affected me. I don't know if I could adequately describe her impact on me otherwise. But you know. Most of you already know.

I devoured the McCaffrey's Pern books in high school and continued to re-read them through college and beyond. The first three books plus the three Harper Hall books were my favorites. And because I wasn't a writer then, I expressed my fannish adoration with art.

From Old Art

Later, in college, I became engrossed in the (unsanctioned) Pern MUSH, my first massively multi-player online game. I still remember those evenings hunched over my amber and black monochrome monitor programming a little mechanical butterfly that would open its wings and flutter in the game if you gave it the right command.

I even dated a guy who loved Pern, and I made him this present one year: the two of us as harpers. I've kept this crude photocopy for 23 years now.

From Old Art

I will always remember F'lar and Lessa, Ruth and Jaxom, Masterharper Robinton and Menolly. I will remember Thread and the between. Anne McCaffrey taught me that science fiction can feel like fantasy, an idea that eventually inspired me to write Above World.

She's the reason I've dreamed of having a fire lizard for the last 30 years, and I'm sorry she's gone. What a life, though. What a legacy! The harpers will be singing her praises for generations to come.

ARCs, Catalogs, & QR codes

Things have been happening! Wonderful things!

ARCs

Advance Reading Copies are a major milestone. I wasn't sure what to do with my ARCs since I had six and about ten people/places requested them. (Not to mention a whole list of other places I wanted to send them.) First, I panicked. Second, I asked a particularly wise woman to just tell me what to do, and she did. (Thank you, Ello!)

Recommendation: If you're not sure what to do, get a trusted friend to tell you. You can't be expected to exhibit strategic thinking in the face of ZOMG ARCS!!!1!

Catalogs

Candlewick's spring catalog is out, and it includes Above World! There is a particular joy in seeing your book in a catalog for the first time. At this point, given all the evidence, I'm almost positive this whole book thing isn't just a huge hoax.

QR Codes

Have I mentioned that Candlewick Press is on Google+? Well, they are! That's how I found this awesome image today (click to enlarge):



(Cheaters and luddites can click here.) If you go to Candlewick's G+ page, you'll also find QR codes and first chapters for the rest of their upcoming books. FUN.

What's Next?

Well, I just got bookmarks yesterday! Awesome bookmarks covered in awesome Above World things. But since I haven't photographed them yet, they get to be a separate entry. I'm also listening to a potential voice actor for the Above World audiobook (!!!) and… oh, geez. I have about a million emails to write and people to talk to. Life is fun, fast, and frenetic — just how I like it!

This Thanksgiving, I'm incredibly grateful for Candlewick and all the amazing people who work there. They're making my publishing journey feel magical.

My Social Media Survival Guide

What this post is: my guidelines for navigating the social media waters.

What this post isn't: a set of instructions or guidelines for anyone beside me. We all use social media differently, use it for different reasons, and expect different results. I would never presume to tell anyone else how to achieve their specific goals.

Social media I use: Blog, Twitter, Google+, Facebook, Pinterest

Social media goals: Enjoy myself. Connect with existing friends. Make new friends. Laugh. Learn. Share opinions and links to things that inspire, tickle, intrigue, or outrage me. Goof off.

MY SOCIAL MEDIA SURVIVAL GUIDE

1. Respect that everyone's Social Media Survival Guide is different.

We're all different, want different things, have different lives and different tolerances for technology and being social. Don't expect other people to share your goals and priorities. (This should be the Golden Rule of social media, in my opinion. Maybe this plus the next one…)

2. Be yourself.

Life's in the details, and that's what you get. Quirky passions, interests, foibles, and bad jokes. What I ate for breakfast, what I should have had for lunch, what my cats are doing RIGHT AT THIS MINUTE. These are the things that make us unique, even in the vast ocean of people who, on paper, look exactly like us.

3. Never track friends/followers/subscribers.

This isn't a videogame or a race and I'm not judging success by numbers. Friends and acquaintances aren't commodities and the only metric for success is if I'm having fun (see goals, above). Some corollaries:

Never use any service that tells you when someone stops following/subscribing/friending you. That way lies madness, heartache, and unnecessary hurt. Don't do it to yourself.
Never get upset if someone stops following you. They've got their own Social Media Survival Guide and you should let them do what they need to do, guilt-free.
Never beg for followers. This makes the people who follow you already feel like livestock.
Don't expect people you follow to follow you back. If you're following them because they're interesting, then it shouldn't matter if they don't follow you back. Again, they've got their own Guide.
You don't need to follow everyone who follows you. Do whatever works for your life and lifestyle.

4. Don't create social guilt or impose on others.

This goes back to respecting other people's Survival Guides. People who care about you will try to please you even if it causes them stress. Just don't put them in that position in the first place.

Don't ask people to retweet, blog, or share anything. If they want to, they will. Asking them to creates obligation.
Don't get upset if your friends don't retweet, blog, or share something you wanted them to. You don't know what's going on in their lives, and you don't know their Survival Guide. Don't take it personally.
Don't expect people — even close friends — to read all of your tweets, blog posts, status updates. If they don't, for whatever reason, don't take it personally. Their lives are about them, not about you.
Don't expect people to respond to your comments all the time. It's great if they do, but sometimes life gets in the way. It's not always easy to respond to every tweet, blog comment, or "Like" of Facebook. Some people don't even check their social media every day, and that's fine. Respect other people's Survival Guides.

That's pretty much it: respect that we all have different Survival Guides, don't take anything personally, don't create obligation, and be yourself.

Feel free to share your Survival Guide tenants with me, but please remember that my list isn't intended as an attack on your list. Unless we have exactly the same goals and the same lives, there's no reason for us to have the same Survival Guide.

(And if none of you read this, share it, or retweet it, that's perfectly okay.)

Young Doctor Dolittle & Me

Do you remember last year when I got my first SAG-qualifying voice acting job? (If not, here's a reminder about My First Movie.) The movie was supposed to go direct to DVD, but the producers lost their original distribution deal. Eh. These things happen all the time in Hollywood, and I barely thought about it at all.

Flash forward to last night, when I was checking out the new arrivals on Netflix instant streaming, and WHOA! There it was:

The Voyages of Young Doctor Dolittle

The movie stars Tim Curry, Jane Seymour, Jason Alexander, and Tom Kenny (Spongebob). Understandably, my name isn't mentioned on Netflix or IMDB because I'm nobody. (It's particularly Hollywood and funny because I did the voice of Young Doctor Dolittle, the title character.)

I will also point out that this was ADR — automated dialogue replacement. Another actor read my part first and his intonations were animated. I had to match his reading in order to get the words to work correctly with the mouth animations. In some ways this is easier than being the original actor, but in most ways it's harder. (I think they left one of his lines in the trailer.)

If you don't have Netflix streaming or, let's face, you don't feel like watching a direct-to-DVD kids' movie, you can still listen to an MP3 of the closing credits. I'm singing the main voice. If you make it all the way to the end, you'll hear me singing with Jane Seymour.

Animals Make the Very Best of Friends

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If you've got a few minutes, though, check out the opening credits of the movie. They're amazing and were done entirely by Cosmic Toast Studios. My buddy David scored the entire movie (with help from Max!) and wrote the lyrics to the opening/closing song. Those guys ROCK.

My WFC Schedule

I will be at many fine events during WFC, just not as a participant. It's been a crazy year, and I'm looking forward to sitting back, hanging out with friends, and enjoying a much-needed vacation.

Wednesday

Mysterious Galaxy Meet-and-Greet

Thursday

Lunch with my brother

Diversity in YA event at Poway Library

Aussie Party

Friday

Clarion Party

Daryl Gregory's Unpossible Party

Agency dinner

Saturday

Booked for breakfast, lunch, and dinner

Unnamed parties

Sunday

Recovery

Drive home

Hopefully I'll find time between all the eating and partying to get to some readings, but I dare not plan those in advance.

Stuff I Love: Sharpie

If I had to choose one brand of pen to use exclusively for the rest of my life, without even a moment's hesitation, my answer would be Sharpie.

It's not even a question, really. I've been using Sharpies my whole life. They're the pens I reach for to address envelopes, to label boxes, to scribble on CDs, to leave tiny love notes on the counter for my partner. They come in a multitude of shapes and sizes, some with delicate points for drawing, some with wide tips for coloring the world.

As a writer, I have two staples besides my computer: my moleskine notebook and my Sharpie pen. (Okay, usually I have multiple Sharpie pens in different colors because MORE PENS ARE ALWAYS BETTER.) Nowadays, I am in love with this model:

Not only does it have a deliciously smooth feel on paper, the pen itself is sleek and well-shaped for the hand. The nib is fine, but the ink flows with a beautiful density, creating wonderful contrast on the page. I don't have to worry about smearing when I (inevitably) drip coffee, water, or ice cream on my words.

Were I to count the Sharpies in my house right now, the number would be in the dozens. Three dozen? Four? Five? I have ten of the "Pen Grip – Fine" alone. (There are six different colors, after all.) But it's not enough. It will never be enough. That's the problem with love.

So tell me: what pen has stolen your heart?

Haiku Your Novel!

Yes, I did just use "haiku" as a verb and I promise you, things are only going to go downhill from there. (Warning: Real poets may wish to avert their eyes.)

A few years ago, I wrote a post for SF Novelists called "Novel Haiku" where I suggested the game of summarizing one's novel in the form of a haiku. Back in 2008, I described my novels like this, and shockingly, they both still work:

JADE TIGER

Kung fu goddess seeks

Five ancient jade statues and

Falls for geeky guy

ABOVE WORLD

Failing tech sends two

mermaids to find answers, and

their place in the world.

It's Friday, and this is your challenge: Summarize one or more of your books in the form of a haiku. If you don't have a novel of your own, pick any book to summarize.

Bring on the 'ku!

Above World Cover!

Well, here it is, the cover of Above World. The art is by the amazing Alexander Jansson, and the jacket design is by the uber-talented Kate Cunningham of Candlewick. Many thanks to my editor Sarah Ketchersid for giving me a cover that far exceeded my expectations. I love, love, love it.

Above World

Candlewick Press

ISBN: 9780763654177

Coming February 14th, 2012!

10 Years of Martial Arts

I've been studying martial arts for 10 years now. I hit the milestone back in June. My studies have been erratic over the years — sometimes I was taking 7 classes a week, sometimes I was skipping classes for months at a time because of work or a writing deadline. Sometimes classes were fun, and sometimes they were miserable. They were always hard.

Sifu Carrie once noted that I'd been studying for a long time. I said, no, that I'd missed so many classes over the years. She waved me off. She said some people come in and take classes, and that's it. Kung fu is something they do two or three times a week. But some people are thinking about martial arts all the time, during class and outside of it. They're martial artists even when they aren't in class. Martial arts transforms their lives.

And yeah, that's me. Martial arts has changed my life in immensely profound ways. It's given me a philosophy of living and believing — which is astounding, really, when I had made such a point of believing in nothing before I started.

The whole idea of Mind, Body, Spirit and how they're interwoven, part of the same system, has opened my eyes. Before martial arts, I'd exiled Body. I considered it a lesser thing, thought of it as separate from me. A prison. Now I feel whole.

Most of the things martial arts has given me have nothing to do with punching and kicking… although really, punching and kicking are terrifically fun. Before martial arts, I had no idea how hard I could work, how hard I could push myself. I have no doubt at all that martial arts has made me a better writer and a better human being.

I have colored sashes and belts, and some of them are even black. They're reminders of years of hard work. But if I never got a new one, I'd be fine. I just want to keep learning, to keep practicing mindfulness and focus, to keep discovering new things about myself, to keep pushing.

In martial arts, maybe more than in another other field, it's about the journey. Ten years aren't nearly long enough, but they're a start.

I don't have any blog posts prior to 2007 on this site, but here are some of my favorite martial arts entries from the last few years:

11.02.2007 – Yes, I pay to do this

01.22.2009 – Meet Whisper

04.07.2009 – Meet Mr. Pointy

09.22.2009 –
01.01.2010 – Tiger, Dragon

06.10.2010 – Ode to Bruises

Soon, I will import my old journal entries and find the picture of me getting my first yellow belt, back in the summer of 2001.