Reading, Writing, and Publishing Links: 12/26/12

Since all the cool kids have been doing it, I thought I'd put together a little Wednesday links post every week. I'll keep it short, since the big news roundups tend to cover the major stuff. These are just favorite posts I've come across in my day-to-day surfing.

While you're reading, here's a song I revisited last week. Isn't it lovely?

"Soul Meets Body"--Death Cab For Cutie

1) Brilliant author/blogger Foz Meadows wrote a guest post for The Book Smugglers, which is one of my favorite book blogs.  The post is about literary bad boys, and astutely explains the difference between the "Classic Bad Boy" (the literary equivalent of Danny from Grease and Johnny from Dirty Dancing) and the more problematic kind that's become popular lately. This type--which Meadows describes as the "New Abuser"--includes specimens like Edward Cullen and his spinoff, who are bad not because they reject the status quo, but because they're actively dangerous for the (usually female) protagonist. Here's a snip:

And by abusive behaviour, I mean behavioural patterns which are listed by domestic abuse authorities as warning signs that you’re in a toxic or dangerous relationship. These are all clear indicators that something is seriously wrong, especially when they appear in confluence; and yet these are exactly the same characteristics which, time and again, I see being displayed by the male love interests in YA, PNR and urban fantasy novels, as though aggressive behaviour somehow becomes sweet and acceptable when the abuser loves their victim, or vice versa.

For those who are interested in trends and patterns in YA literature, this is definitely worth a read.

2) In a post called "Ladders," accomplished fantasy author Patricia Wrede reminds us that publication is not the end of a writer's journey.


3) In a brief post called "What's Not Working," agent and blogger Wendy Lawton considers whether several popular marketing techniques are really effective.  

4) China Miéville rants brilliantly against Belgium's reaction to the blatantly racist Tintin in the Congo. This post is from February, but still worth reading. I got it from a year-end link roundup on a great blog I recently started following, Things Mean A Lot. 

5) "Stories Are Genderless," another post by Foz Meadows, is another one from the link roundup in #4. It's from April, but an excellent read. It deals with the oft-cited conceit that boys won't or can't enjoy books by female authors. 

And that's it for right now! I had a wonderful holiday--quiet, at home, with family--and, hope you all did, too. New Year's is coming up! I have a "Favorite Books of 2012" list almost ready to post (that's read, not published, in 2012), and am working slowly on my winter story. I hope you have a safe and happy New Year!

XOXO
Kate

Overall, 'The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey' Was Pretty Fabulous

Note: I had the chance to see The Hobbit at 12:00 a.m. Friday with some of my friends. I saw the movie, and wrote this post, before I'd heard about the Newtown shooting, and so this post has nothing to do with that. There's not really anything I can say about that that hasn't been said already. It's horrible, and I wish it hadn't happened, and I'm firmly on the side of increased gun control. Fin.

Moving on:

Before I start, I have to admit that I'm not really that familiar with Tolkien's canon. I read The Hobbit in elementary or middle school, attended a panel on its literary roots at Dragon*Con in 2011, and, at the panelist's suggestion, begged a copy of The Annotated Hobbit for Christmas that year. Didn't really get into it until a few weeks a go, when I skimmed the book and looked at a number of the footnotes in preparation for a book club meeting. I have a pretty good idea of the story, but not a firm grasp on the specifics. As for The Lord of the Rings, I slogged through it in... high school?... and watched the first two movies when they came out. Yes, I know. If it makes you feel better, I'll surely be returning to it after this.

Anyway, the point is that I'm not a purist. This is atypical for me, actually, as I usually feel the neurotic need to see the story represented in its entirety. If you are a purist, and don't like things added or subtracted, then you will probably take issue with this movie. However, I felt as if... Episode I... kept to the spirit of the story remarkably well, and felt the changes made were understandable.

More specific reflections (and a number of spoilers) are under the cut.

2012 Halloween Story: Over the River

Over the River

by Katherine Traylor

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Sabrina couldn’t sleep with the moonlight shining in her eyes.

Her friends were having no such trouble. Jenny and Mark were sound asleep, cuddled up in their zipped-together sleeping bags. Brian had been snoring for half an hour. But Sabrina, pressed against him, was as alert as ever.

She’d tried snuggling closer to Brian, and moving farther away. She’d unzipped the bag for a breath of air, and zipped it back up when she’d gotten too cold. She’d rolled over, covered her eyes, counted sheep, and tried to meditate. But wherever she turned, the halogen light of the full white moon shone through her eyelids, keeping her wide awake.  

At last she couldn’t take it any more. She eased herself out of the doubled sleeping bag she shared with Brian, patting his shoulder when he whimpered in his sleep. Shoving her feet into her old yellow Crocs, she walked to the edge of the woods.

The air was cold tonight. Shivering, she rubbed her arms and stomped her feet. She’d put on sweats over her flannel pajamas, and the socks she wore were the fluffy SpongeBob ones her sister had given her for Christmas, but the wind cut through everything like scissors through gauze. Strange that it should be so cold: usually it didn’t get below fifty this time of year.

She supposed she could go into the house. It would be warmer. But the door was probably locked,and she didn’t want to wake Jenny for the key. Anyway, what if she encountered Jenny’s parents? They seemed like nice people, but she hardly knew them, and she didn’t feel like making small talk. Better to stay out here.

She could stir up the coals and roast some marshmallows, but she’d already brushed her teeth. She hadn’t even brought a book. 

Frustrated, Sabrina stared into the forest. The moonlight fell in broad beams through the leafless trees, chasing the shadows from the underbrush. Far below, at the bottom of the hill, the Little River glittered like tinsel. They had walked along the shore this afternoon, before sunset, but the place looked very different at night--fairy-haunted; forbidden.

She paced restlessly around the edge of the campsite, peering through the trees for a better look at the water. Every few steps she saw a flash of moon-bleached sand, a twinkle of water. Then, suddenly, a path came into focus.

She didn’t know how she had missed it. It was a wide, straight track between the trees, leading right down to the water. It looked much more passable than the glorified deer-trail they’d followed that afternoon. She could probably make it in her Crocs without twisting an ankle. And it wasn’t that far: the murmur of the water carried clearly over the chilly night air.

She could go down now, have a little walk, and come back without waking anyone. It would only take a few minutes. She might even be tired enough to sleep when she got back. Still, it seemed wrong to go off and leave her friends without saying anything.

Sabrina turned to wake them--let Jenny or Brian, at least, know where she was going. But they were all sleeping so peacefully--and she knew they’d tell her not to go. It wasn’t safe to wander by herself at night.

Making a quick decision, Sabrina shoved her hands in her pockets and started down the trail.

How Can You Tell if a Series Has Jumped the Shark?

Eyyy!

There's a certain series of books I've been reading for about six years now. They're terrific, usually-- exciting, touching, fascinating. The protagonist is smart and literate, and the fictional world gets better with every book. I usually hold this series up to friends as an example of its subgenre Really Done Right.

However, I read the latest book in this series last night, and it's... really not good.

Maybe the author's just had a rough season. It happens sometimes, and I know s/he's prolific, so maybe s/he just got really busy. The book felt underdone, as if not enough time had been applied to it: it needed to be rewritten and then spend a couple of months marinating in a drawer, in my not-so-humble opinion.

The thing is that until now, these books have been an auto-buy for me. I am by no means able to buy all the books I plan to read, but I do try to support my favorite authors with royalties when I can. Unfortunately, after the disappointment that this book was, I'm thinking of kicking the series off the auto-buy list.

That's why I'm wondering: when can you tell if a series has really jumped the shark?

Pixar's Brave is Cool and Sweet and Funny, and You Should Go See It.

Like it says in the title. There are spoilers below the cut, so if you don't want to know anything about Brave before you see it, then you'd better click away now.

22 Brief Reactions to Snow White and the Huntsman

I  saw Snow White and the Huntsman with a friend this evening, and had a number of thoughts about it. Here they are, in no particular order. Be ye warned: spoilers abound.

State of the Book #4: April 13, 2012

Hello, and happy Mother's Day! I hope most of you were able to see and/or talk to your mothers today (or at least kept them in your thoughts). I'm lucky enough to live with mine right now, so I get to see her every day! It's a lovely change from the last four years, when I lived overseas and saw her only on vacations.  She's a tough, smart, fantastic lady, and I love her to pieces. XOXO, Mum!

The book is continuing apace. I'm on the last edit of Chapter 3 now-- that's the read-aloud stage I find so vital for a coherent final project. This chapter started at about 10,000 words, but I had to cut a lot of them when I realized they weren't adding enough to the story. Now the chapter clocks in at about 8,000 words, which puts the entire manuscript around 29,000-- about half the expected total.

Meanwhile, I've been reading some fabulous books. Just today I finished The Time Traveler's Guide to Medieval England, which was an impulse buy I'm quite happy I found. It's exactly what it sounds like-- a fairly comprehensive look at the day-to-day workings of life in medieval England. It's been quite helpful already-- I was using it as a reference for a story I was writing, before I decided I didn't know quite enough about the period to do it convincingly and changed it to a modern piece. With all the "medieval-type" fantasy stories I've read, I was surprised by how many little details about the period I didn't know. For example, did you know that carrots, in their modern form, weren't known in Europe until the 17th century? It's a small thing, but if your characters are eating in a tavern and you put carrots in the soup, you've just committed the sin of anachronism.

Of course, a lot of people think that the "medieval Europe" setting has been way overused in fantasy, and to a certain extent I agree with them. I'm really interested in finding historical fantasy settings inspired by other parts of the world. Saladin Ahmed's Throne of the Crescent Moon and N. K. Jemisin's The Killing Moon are two I've got on my to-read list, and I'd love to hear about others if you can recommend them! However, I'm also sure that the faux-medieval-European setting isn't going anywhere for a long time, if every, and there are some fantastic stories written in those kinds of worlds. If that's where your heart lies-- or if you just happen to be interested in the period-- then The Time Traveler's Guide to Medieval England might be a really good resource for you.

*Edit: I just learned that there's another one! Will definitely have to get my hands on a copy of The Time Traveler's Guide to Elizabethan England, as well.

I was going to post about another book I'm reading right now, Zadie Smith's On Beauty. I've had a really hard time with it so far-- not because it's hard, but because it's intensely, mercilessly honest. I think it's going to be one of the ones that really stays with me. I think I'm going to have to wait till I finish to post about it, though, so that I can make sense of what I read before I try to talk about it. Until then, have a lovely week!

State of the Book #3: April 29, 2012

Hello again! I hope you're all doing well out there in the ether. It's been a lovely day here in Piedmont North Carolina-- clear skies, sunshine, warm but not too warm. Since I'm a bit of a vampire, I mostly kept to the shade-- got to preserve my ghastly pallor, after all. I did drag myself to the Y for a Zumba class, though, and while I was there I saw a food-truck festival, part of our local campaign against Amendment 1. I had all my gym stuff with me, so I couldn't stay long, but I did have a  Locopop and a nice little walk.  I'd like to live closer to downtown someday, so I could get to stuff like that more easily.

As for the book, you'll be happy (I hope) to know that I'm now editing Chapter 3. The new working title is THE WOODS AND THE CASTLE, though that might very well change when I get closer to the end. The manuscript now weighs in at about 31,000 words-- around half the projected total. So far I've been putting out about a chapter a month, but I'd like to do better than that-- it would be great if I could finish before the end of July. 

After WOODS/CASTLE is finished, I have decided to get started on the SNOWBERRY rewrite. It looks like it'll be a trilogy-- there seems to be a natural law that requires every YA fantasy writer to produce a trilogy. It's much easier coming up with titles for this project, for some reason: the second book will keep the title of SNOWBERRY, and the first will be called PUCK'S LUCK. 

I've also been working on the short story I mentioned last time. I'm on the second draft now. You may recall that I was supposed to have it done three weeks ago? I seem to have a much harder time writing short stories than I do novels-- which is unfortunate, because they're extremely educational. You can read two of my earlier stories here and here. 

I'm off to Game of Thrones night now-- missed last week and immediately regretted it-- so that's all she wrote for now. Have a great week!

--Kate

State of the Book #2: April 9, 2012

Sorry, you guys! I did mean to update last week, but Sunday ended up a little busier than I expected. Actually, it looks like that's going to be a regular thing: some friends of mine are hosting a regular Game of Thrones night at their house, and now that I'm actually in the right country to watch it with them I'm happy to spend my Sunday evenings that way! I'll try to do my Sunday updates a little earlier in the day so there won't be a problem. Today was a bit of an exception, since it was Easter: we had a nice (secular) family dinner, and there was a lot of cooking and cleaning and general puttering to be done. Delicious food, though!

The book: she is progressing. Not as fast as I'd like, of course, but slowly and steadily is better than nothing (and probably better than quickly and sloppily, in the end). I mentioned last week that I'm now on the third-- and, I hope, the final-- draft of this story (which still doesn't have a permanent title. Waiting for inspiration!). Tonight I finished Chapter 2-- which doesn't sound like much, but it's out of a projected five or six (I write long chapters!). According to Scrivener, my total word count so far is exactly 20,750, which puts me about a third of the way to where I want to be.

I've also started a couple of side projects. One of them is secret-- you'll find out about it if it works out the way I hope it will. Or if it fails, I guess-- that way I can tell you what not to do if you're attempting a project like this one. The other one is a short story, which I was "ordered" to have finished and submitted by Tuesday night. The order came from a friend of mine-- another writer who knows about my productivity issues and lack of self-confidence. I hope I'll have it at least most of the way finished by the time our writers' group meets on Tuesday!

I've used a lot of exclamation points tonight. I think I'd better go, before the punctuation police show up and tell me not to write anything else when it's so clearly past my bedtime. Happy vernal equinox to all of you, and have a lovely week!

Book Review: The Hunger Games

I finally read The Hunger Games last week. I’m so glad I did.

What follows will contain some spoilers, so be aware.

State of the Book #1: March 25, 2012

Hello, my dears! I've decided to start posting weekly updates on the State of the Book, starting tonight, which is Sunday night. Well, actually it’s Monday morning, but as far as I’m concerned “night” means “the time before I go to bed.” So:

Yesterday (Saturday) I read an interesting post on how to write engaging query letters. Naturally that’s a topic near and dear to my heart, as I hope to begin querying this book in the next few months or so. Therefore, though the novel’s not nearly finished yet, I worked up a bit of query copy: 

For thirteen years, eccentric outcast Addie Allen has shared her head with an invisible friend: the brilliant and devoted spirit she calls Julian. Julian is everything she could wish for in a companion: wise, charming, and fiercely protective of her. Every night they meet in a vast and complex dreamworld, where they have adventures the waking world could never compete with.

When an old enemy starts persecuting Addie at school, Julian reveals a disturbing new talent: he can possess the bodies of other people. Unfortunately, sharp-eyed Hector Reed is watching him, and guesses immediately that Addie’s not alone in her mind. 

No one has ever guessed the truth about Julian before, so Addie is instantly intrigued. She can’t get him out of her mind, and Julian quickly grows jealous. He imprisons Hector’s spirit somewhere in the dreamworld, then takes over his body. With Hector’s life at stake, Addie is forced to follow Julian to an abandoned house deep in the forest. Now her dearest friend has become her nemesis, and she must fight with everything she has to save a boy she barely knows. 

The title should come next, of course, but unfortunately that’s an element I’m still stuck on. As you may remember if you’ve been following for a while, the original title of this project was CREATURES OF THE MIND. It was a very different story then, and the name was appropriate, but since then the novel’s undergone some drastic changes. I thought about ANIMUS, but it didn’t seem quite right. Then I hit on INCARNATE, but it turns out that one’s already been taken. (It looks like a great book, though, and I definitely want to read it!)

So the title is still a blank. Nevertheless, the story is definitely taking shape-- which is good, since depending on how you count it this is either the third or the fourth time I’ve written it.

RTW #119: Best Book of February

Road Trip Wednesday is a ‘Blog Carnival,’ where YA Highway's contributors post a weekly writing- or reading-related question that begs to be answered. In the comments, you can hop from destination to destination and get everybody's unique take on the topic.

We'd love for you to participate! Just answer the prompt on your own blog and leave a link - or, if you prefer, you can include your answer in the comments.

This Week's Topic:What was the best book you read in February?Road Trip Song of the Week:


I'm glad YA Highway and Suze Reese are doing these blog carnivals, since I rarely seem to post unless someone gives me a prompt to write on. This one turned out to be easy, since as it happens I finished seven books in February. Not that I read them all in the course of the month, of course: I usually have about four books going, and finish them whenever I finish them. The ones I finished this month, in chronological order, were:

1. The Year's Best Science Fiction and Fantasy: 2010 (ed. Rich Horton).
2. Death Comes to Pemberley, by P.D. James
3. The Stranger Beside Me, by Ann Rule
4. Sinful in Satin, by Madeline Hunter
5. Pirate King, by Laurie R. King
6. Anna Dressed in Blood, by Kendare Blake
7. The Hinge Factor, by Eric Durschmied

Most of these were really good, so the decision is a bit harder than it was last month. In the end, I'd call it a toss-up between Anna Dressed in Blood and The Year's Best Science Fiction and Fantasy.

RTW #116: Stolen Ideas, and Why They're Okay

This is a post for YA Highway's Road Trip Wednesday. I am posting it late because I am a lazy ass and didn't get out of bed until *mumble* o'clock this afternoon. However, there's still time: if you're interested in the topic and want to have your own say, then write your own post and post the results here.

This Week's Topic:

What SNI [shiny new idea] were you psyched to work on, but discovered it was too close to something already done?

Let me start with a story: When I was in middle school, I fell in love with Patricia Wrede's Enchanted Forest Chronicles. If you don't know them-- and you should!-- they're a delightful quartet of YA novels set in and around the mythical Enchanted Forest. They're full of fractured fairy tales, but the characters are smart and sympathetic and have real, perilous adventures-- and, also, they teach you that you can melt a wizard in soapy water with a little bit of lemon juice.

RTW #115: Best Book of January

(Mandatory plug: Check out my new short story!)

Two posts in one day? Surely the world is turning on its head. It's Road Trip Wednesday, though, and I actually have something to say about today's prompt, which is: "What is the best book you read in January?"

There's not much of a choice: I only finished three books in January. One was a romance novel, which was okay but only just. One was Gavin de Becker's The Gift of Fear, a very informative book that I definitely recommend. The third was Robert Penn Warren's All The King's Men. Not surprisingly, the third one won hands-down.

Warmth in Winter (Winter Story 2011-12)

Here is my much delayed winter short story, "Warmth in Winter." It's about sentries, spies, snowshoes, and hungry ghosts. I hope you enjoy it! (You can read my Halloween story, "Under Glass," here. That one is about a girl terrorized by something that lives in her mirror.)

Warmth in Winter

Jenna was glad they’d taken Peter’s body back to town to bury. Eerie as the silence was, the moaning of his ghost would have been much worse. Even so, she wasn’t sure how much more of this cabin and this winter she could stand.  

Dangerous confidence

I went to a book signing tonight. Marissa Meyer was at Flyleaf Books in Chapel Hill, promoting her novel Cinder.  I unfortunately missed the reading, due partly to my propensity for tardiness and partly to a wrong turn at Albuquerque, but it seemed to have been a very nice reading, and the bookstore was lovely. The author herself was sweet and charming and well-spoken, and her signature message is adorable: "May the glass slipper always fit." (The book is now on my shelf, trying to cut in front of the other books on my to-read list. I think it's about to get into a fistfight with my copy of Anna Dressed In Blood.)

---

Seeing people promote their books-- hearing authors talk about their careers-- inevitably makes me desperate to be one of them. I feel like telling people, I'm like you! I'm an author, too! You can't see it, but I'm almost done, and soon my book will be published and it will be on the shelf like yours! Even though it's not finished yet. But it's almost there, and it makes me crazy with anticipation sometimes. And ambition, as well. 

The thing about writing is that until you are published-- until you have an actual, physical, beautifully-bound book with your name on the cover-- authorial ambitions are generally seen as empty daydreams. "Yes, dear, you want to write a book, just like everybody else. Maybe you'd better do something else in the meantime-- you can always write in your spare time!" 

And I want to say, No! Not me. I can do this. Other people might give up, but I'm going to make a career as a writer. Someday I'll have a whole row of books on the shelf, each more beautiful than the last, and people will see them in the bookstores and point them out to their friends. And then their friends will pick up one or two of them and take them to the register, and maybe read them and fall in love with them and point them out to their friends, later. And all the while I'll be writing more.

And on that note: