Curtis C. Chen's Blog, page 14

I Did Not Understand This Metaphor in 1982

But I'm, y'know, older now. And when McCoy says "It never rains but it pours" to Kirk in Wrath of Khan, I know exactly what he means.

Skip to 1:11 for the relevant dialogue:


youtu.be/jRYlPifDUBg

It's also appropriate for this week, since I now have no fewer than four different editors waiting for my revisions to various fiction pieces. Which means I need to prioritize my work schedule for the next few weeks. Meta-work!

As
Meanwhile, somewhere in America...


youtu.be/cmSbXsFE3l8

I'm Leaving, on a Jet Plane

But I do know when I'll be back again, so don't worry about that.

Meanwhile, in orbit around Alpha Omicron VII...


https://youtu.be/DIw690VGt70

I Have a Voice Too

Dear Pitch Perfect movies,

I love you, but we need to talk about diversity.

Let me start by saying that I harbor more affection for both of you than a straight man in his forties probably should. Yes, I'm a weirdo: I sang choir in high school, was an a cappella groupie all through college, performed with The Richter Scales for eight years, and actually watched an entire season of The Sing-Off . It's kind of in my blood at this point.

Now, I do appreciate the presence of so many non-white faces in your cast, but I wish that at least one of them—any of them—was more than just a punchline.

I really wanted one of those persons of color to have a character arc in Pitch Perfect 2. Lilly seemed like a perfect candidate, since her personal growth was actually a plot point in the first movie; but no, she was rolled back to the old "I can't hear you" joke, which stings more than it evokes knowing laughter for some of us. And the new "ethnic" character, played by Chrissie Fit, is little more than a series of one-liners which feel exploitative even as they poke fun at #FirstWorldProblems.

It's doubly ironic that as an actress, Elizabeth Banks' commentator character hangs a lantern on every one of fellow commentator John Michael Higgins' blatantly insensitive on-air remarks, but as director, Banks seems to have a blind spot for the subtle but constant affronts suffered by all of PP2's non-white characters. I know, it's a very broad comedy (no pun intended), but still. Some of us don't get to laugh about certain things.

Here's what Wesley Morris had to say in Grantland:

The movie invites you to celebrate its diversity. The Bellas are, indeed, not all white. But none of the characters of color has been promoted to do more than act like a weirdo. The other new addition, besides Steinfeld, is a Guatemalan named Flo (Chrissie Fit), who caps every exchange with a tale of poor-migrant suffering. Hana Mae Lee returns as the mousy Japanese girl, Lilly, with no scatological boundaries. The songwriter and producer Ester Dean plays the black girl and lesbian, who, when she isn’t flirting aggressively, actually has to quip, “What kind of white shit is this?” Asking a question like that in a film about a cappella singing is like working in a barn and complaining about the hay.

There are other issues with PP2, to be sure: the whole thing is scattershot, what with having to work in characters who are no longer in school and wanting to play up romantic storylines at the expense of other, arguably deeper themes. Personally, I would have loved more of the "legacy" story between newcomer Emily and her mother, especially since (no spoilers) it figures into the musical finale. That payoff would have played even better if there had been more setup for it.

It's like Atomic Fangirl says:

Halfway through I felt like someone had slipped E into my water bottle. I knew where I was, I knew I was having a good time, but I didn’t understand a bloody thing that was going on.

On that level, it's about good storytelling, plain and simple. But at this point, at this moment in 21st-century America, consider that including token minority characters without being mindful of their place in the overall narrative can be more damaging than not including POCs at all. Are you thinking of those characters as fully realized people, or are you only using them to prop up some other part of your story?

Yeah, yeah, I know, Kobayashi Maru. No matter how sensitively you handle it, somebody's always going to complain that you did something wrong. But at least make the attempt and learn something from it.

And by the way, please own up to your mistakes when you make them. (Yes, I said when, not if. We're all human.) Don't double down on defending a weak position just so you can claim righteousness. No criticism is fatal, and growing as an artist is more important than sales "velocity" on release day or appealing to the "real fans" who worship with blinders on.

There are seven billion people on this planet. Don't you want more of them to love your work?

I'll let Geoffrey Stueven deliver some closing thoughts:

The tentative promise of that scene reaches its fulfillment a bit later, when the group gets its groove fully back, seated around a fire with each member declaring her plans for the future, then harmonizing with her comrades. Crucial moments of self-actualization follow. “I never pictured myself running a retreat,” says group alum Aubrey (Anna Camp), happy in her post-grad job, the implication being that she did picture it, eventually, and was pleased with the image. And future music producer Beca might be awaiting the validation of her boss, but her relationship with her muse, new a cappella recruit Emily (Hailee Steinfeld), is much more meaningful. Here’s the rare recent movie, mainstream or otherwise, that not only passes the Bechdel Test but also fails the opposite of the Bechdel Test: There’s no conversation between the film’s male characters that isn’t about a woman or at least seen through the prism of a woman’s aspirations.

It's true, by the way: Girls run the world. And watching these characters find themselves, realize their own unique abilities, and combine to form a winning team—that's as powerful as any superhero origin story.

I still love you, Pitch Perfect movies. But I'm not in love with you.

Let's just be friends, okay?

Hugs and kisses,
~CKL

I have another deadline this week

Which means I don't have the time/brainpower for a thoughtful, well-researched blog post today. So instead, here's a roundup of some interesting stuff I tweeted or retweeted in the past week:

My pals @TheDoubleclicks are making a new album: PRESIDENT SNAKES! Back their @Kickstarter : http://t.co/JAsOFux5UV pic.twitter.com/pDED235Qsm

— Curtis 小說作家 Chen (@sparCKL) May 8, 2015

#DiversifyAgentCarter because black people had, in fact, been invented. pic.twitter.com/o8Sh0XBDLh

— Sunil Patel (@ghostwritingcow) May 8, 2015

Yay! Today's video is up! "Avengers Age of Ultron: All Snarked Up" https://t.co/7vfBI1X1hS

— snarke (@snarke) May 10, 2015

"Drawing on empirical research, eight principles to get more happiness from money" [pdf] http://t.co/OMTo6erxty pic.twitter.com/8ev5qUXA7U

— Chris Dixon (@cdixon) May 11, 2015

No YOU'RE weeping openly during the entire last minute of that Supergirl trailer SHUT UP https://t.co/bT7uyMWY4w

— Curtis 小說作家 Chen (@sparCKL) May 14, 2015

And before you ask, yes, I do have a goddamn Tumblr. But I don't use it that much, because I am not actually a twelve-year-old girl. It just seems that way.

I am no longer eligible for WOTF

That would be the Writers of the Future contest. Because their rules specify:

5. The Contest is open only to those who have not professionally published a novel or short novel, or more than one novelette, or more than three short stories, in any medium. Professional publication is deemed to be payment of at least six cents per word, and at least 5,000 copies, or 5,000 hits.

Now, I've only made two professional short fiction sales. But this other deal went public on Monday...


(thanks to Query Shark for forwarding the PW announcement)
So, to use the parlance, I've "pro'd out" of WOTF. Which is a bit of a bummer, as I've been submitting to them on and off since high school... but overall, I can't really complain about selling two novels to a major publisher!

Aside from the obvious, here are more reasons I'm excited about signing with Thomas Dunne Books in particular:
They recently published my fellow Portlander Benjamin Dewey's Tragedy Series in a beautiful hardcover editionThey're also publishing my VPXII classmate Claire Humphrey's debut novel next yearMy editor is the same guy who published David Wong's novel John Dies at the End (and its sequel, This Book Is Full of Spiders: Seriously, Dude, Don't Touch It )
Long story short: SQUEE.

This is, of course, not the end by any means: I hope to write more than two Kangaroo books, and I have no idea what to expect when the first one hits next year. But I've got plenty of work to do in the meantime.

I Have Set a Dangerous Precedent

I missed blogging last Wednesday because I was driving to a writers' retreat, but nobody complained. (Maybe you were all distracted by the awesome new Puzzled Pint blog?) I will continue to make my best effort to blog weekly, but no promises, Mister Scott.

Anyway. A lot of terrible things have been happening lately, and we (as individual people) can't really do much about most of it. The world is full of systemic ills that require long-term solutions.

I can't tell you how to fix racism or improve disaster relief. But I can tell you how to make ringtones in iTunes, because I had to do this myself recently, and it was a bit of a pain to figure out.

1. Follow these instructions to change your import settings from MP3 to AAC.
2. Follow these instructions to create ringtone files, BUT...
3. ...BEFORE step 7 above, FIRST delete the .m4a library tracks (keep files on disk), THEN import the .m4r files

That's it.

I know, it's a tiny, small, insignificant thing, but the tallest dune begins with a single grain of sand. And it doesn't help with the problems of the day per se, but I appreciate anything that makes life a little easier. Even if it's a tiny, small, insignificant thing.

Big things take a long time to build. Big changes take a lot of little actions to bring about.

Meanwhile, as Abraham Lincoln once said: "Be excellent to each other... and party on, dudes!"

I Have Rendered Unto Caesar

And this year, my wife and I--both of us being essentially freelancers--will be filing quarterly estimated taxes. It's the first year we've really needed to do it, now that we're (A) no longer full-time employees and (B) actually making enough annual income that it matters (i.e., no longer just living off our savings--which, BTW, is a weird loophole in pretty much all US finance regulation, but that's another story).

Chances are you've never cared about estimated taxes, because you're a W-2 wage earner whose paycheck includes automatic withholdings for various taxes (Social Security, Medicare, etc.). Well, when you're a freelancer, those things don't get automatically withheld when clients or customers pay you, but the IRS wants their money all the same. And, as Scalzi says in his excellent "Unasked-For Advice to New Writers About Money" blog post, "the government quite sensibly doesn't trust freelancers to pay their taxes in one lump sum."

So how does it work? Well, I'm sure not qualified to explain it to you, so I'll let my friend Nicole tell you in her well-researched "Surefire Tax Estimating Process for Freelancers" article on The Billfold. And after you absorb all that great information, follow up with The Billfold's other articles on estimated taxes.

It's not actually that much more work, especially since the system is designed to make it easy for you to plan for the coming year when you file your previous year's tax returns; though it's "quarterly," the first deadline of the year is actually April 15th, the same as your federal and state returns. So you can do all the math in one fell swoop, which is what my wife and I did this week. (It helps that she actually enjoys doing taxes, and we live in Washington state, which doesn't collect state income tax.)

Finally, the Treasury Department offers an Electronic Federal Tax Payment System (EFTPS) which lets you pay your taxes online without going through a fee-charging third-party payment service. And for more info on estimated taxes from the horse's mouth, see the IRS's Estimated Tax FAQs and Publication 505: Tax Withholding and Estimated Tax .

I Want You to Do Two Things

HELLO READERS

I DO NOT NORMALLY ASK VERY MUCH OF YOU

BUT TODAY

 I WANT YOU

TO DO TWO THINGS

 NUMBER ONE

BUY FONDA LEE'S DEBUT NOVEL, ZEROBOXER



 NUMBER TWO

VOTE FOR LAURA J. MIXON TO RECEIVE THE BEST FAN WRITER HUGO AWARD THIS YEAR

[View the story "Why I am supporting Laura Mixon-Gould for Fanwriter" on Storify]
BECAUSE FONDA AND LAURA ARE BOTH AWESOME PEOPLE DOING AWESOME THINGS

THAT IS ALL

Review Roundup: ZUGZWANG

Posting this to track reviews for a former 512 which became a longer story, and was published last September! You might see some ETA's below as time goes on...

"Zugzwang"

Games with aliens. The sort of story that's not in the least bit groundbreaking, but still enjoyable.

— Psocoptera, "2014 online short fantasy and science fiction recommendations, part 6"

A middle-aged woman is challenged to a game of alien chess to save the crew of a spaceship. This story could’ve been bleak, but instead it made me happy and hopeful.

— Sara Norja, "Sunday recs: Fairytale, memory loss, alien chess"

[T]his story is about an alien encounter and it hooked me in right from the beginning. Its writer’s name is Curtis [C.] Chen. As a big fan of Ted Chiang and Ken Liu (if you haven’t heard of them, you’re missing out on some awesome stories!), I was curious to see another Chinese American name.

And I wasn’t disappointed. The story was excellently crafted. The plot had tension and several layers of things going on, yet no word seemed redundant and all of the sentences were simple-yet-varied.

— Natso, "A Cool Sci-Fi Short Story, A Question That Sprouted From It"

(original 512: "Zugzwang," posted 29 Mar 2013)

Thanks for reading!


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Review Roundup: IT'S MACHINE CODE

Hello there, readers! It's been a while. Hope you've been well.

I meant to do a "one year later" sales/stats post about Thursday's Children , but clearly that hasn't happened. I have good excuses, though, and I'll be able to talk about them soon. SOON™

Meanwhile, I'm posting this to track reviews for a former 512 piece which became a longer story and was published this February! You might see some ETA's below as time goes on...

"It's Machine Code"

[This] is a light-hearted piece without much literal ass-kicking nor anger, but Julie Nickerson is great fun anyway. She’s a bored techie, a new Portland Deputy Police Officer (this issue of Unlikely Journal contains a disproportionate number of police procedurals) and small-time criminal who, in the course of a simple data-mining investigation, stumbles upon the machinations of a much more ambitious criminal.

Julie starts out as a bit a shlubb, the sort of civil servant who is made lazy by her intelligence and has very little interest in her job or her coworkers. She has an antagonistic relationship with her friend Victor that provides some funny lines and good banter, but there’s no real loyalty or affection between the two. Julie solves the story’s original case incidentally, off-page between scenes, while focusing her real energy on a very interesting data packet she found in the course of the investigation.

Julie’s not interested in catching any criminals: she’s much more interested in the crime. She’s casually competent, having “learned how to use military-grade encryption before learning how to ride a bicycle,” but stuck in the comfortable rut that casually competent people often get stuck in. In trying to solve the mystery of her data packet, she stumbles across a much more interesting character and some inspiration to become more interesting herself.

It wouldn’t be any fun to give away the mystery’s solution, but suffice to say this is a story that gets best right at the end. Julie, Victor, and their rather hapless department are fun in a bumbling kind of way, but they aren’t particularly motivated people. It takes a criminal mastermind to show how much fun it can be to go off script and just flip off the system. This story’s real star is the criminal.

Yah, you could be a comfortable civil servant. Or you could kick ass. “A clean desktop, a blank slate, a new life.”

— Charlotte Ashley, Clavis Aurea #25 (Apex Magazine)

Julie Nickerson works in the IT Department of the Portland Municipal Police. She is assigned a request that came to them from the FBI. A traffic bot had stopped a car speeding almost fifty kilometers an hour over the speed limit. The bot pulled the car over but was put out of commission just as it had activated facial recognition overlay just as it approached the driver's side of the car. Along with another techie, Victor, they check a Universal Internet broadband router in a house (owned by a sweet grandmotherly type named Margie Fisher) near the incident. It might have recorded sensor reading from the downed bot. She discovers evidence of a felony by dear sweet Margie. But things take a wild turn at this point and make for a fun story.

— Sam Tomaino, SFRevu

(original 512: "CSI: Computer Science Investigation," posted 11 Jan 2013)

Thanks for reading!


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