NaNoWriMo

I have been participating this year! Thus far I'm on target (slightly ahead of target actually) and have kept up word count every day. I've been in a slump for the past year, and I pretty much had a writing slump the year prior too so... Meh. So, in hopes of getting out of said slump and kicking my creativity back on, I decided to wait until day one and then pulled an idea out of thin air and started working on it.

Generally I try to use Nano to finish stalled projects and the like, write the next book in a series or some other such use. This year, I went in with the spirit I had the first time I participated and gave myself a blank page and spent the first several hours of Sunday brainstorming. Spent much of Monday that way too actually. But in the end I managed a viable idea and am sort of plodding away at it hopes of greater things.

We all use Nano for different things, I think. Some us are first timers just trying to finally get that novel on the page. Some of us are old hats delighting in the camaraderie that comes from the challenge, the social exercise that we, as writers, rarely get to participate in from our desks. It's a group effort with cheering and new friends and chance to help other authors flourish and grow.

It's a month where we don't have to keep to ourselves. More importantly, it gives us a goal to strive towards. A finish line we can accomplish. 50,000 words can seem like an unreachable goal to someone who had never done it. And only a month to do it in? Impossible.

And then you do it, and you realize, hey, this wasn't as bad as I thought. Or, inversely, this is awful and I never want to do this again.

But either way, you learned something about yourself. For instance, I learned in my first year that I could write everyday while attending college full time. I learned I could juggle a fledgling writing career with another thing.

As I continued to grow as an author, as I continued to do Nano, I realized that I had words to offer in encouragement and I really found enjoyment in helping my fellow writers learn and grow.

I found new ways to tell a story. I found confidence. I learned what kind of writer I am.

Nano isn't just about word count. It just just about the story. It's also about what we, as writers, learn about ourselves during the process. It's about becoming better writers. Learning the habits required to write daily and how much time it takes to get that writing done.

I'm so glad I signed up that first year. I'm so glad I've kept doing it, even though I've not won every year, the important thing was that every year I've done this, I've learned something. I can't wait to see what I learn this year.

The Debacle

This article (and the comments to said article) are so infuriating. The “fill-in-the-blank” remark by the author is condescending and smacks of the typical patriarchal attitude towards books written for/by women. We should be focusing on the fact that this author plagiarized books, not the genre those books fall under.

Moreover, equating romance novels, and especially M/M romance novels (as is so often the case) to pornography is infuriating. The tone deaf commentary of some commenters “I don’t understand why a woman reads M/M romance” and similar remarks really makes it clear that since this is an issue of plagiarism regarding what women read, it’s not as important.
One person even remarked that if the plagiarist had ripped off a well known male author, then of course we would have discovered it quickly, but in the dearth of romance novels, how were we supposed to?

I’d like to know if the person in question has ever looked at the quantity of books written by and for men and compared them to the books written by and for women. Somehow, I doubt they are similar. Moreover, comparing romance as a genre to pornography is a trite, often used cry to minimize female works as a whole.

Funnily enough the Guardian ran a rather similar article (sans the patronizing tone) yesterday. Does that mean all news articles are just “fill in the blanks”?

Happy Me Day

Today I celebrate my birthday. Well, celebrate is a strong word. So far today I have slept in, cuddled with my usually prickly cat, watched the rain, had a cup of good tea and answered well-wishers on the FB.

My dear friend gave me the 1944 Random House edition of the Collected Works of Edgar Allen Poe, in green. I love green. The conservator in me couldn't help noting the water damage on the spine and the dusty-slight-mildew aroma. But I can fix that.

On the whole it's in good condition, perfectly readable with some interesting etchings inside. I'm not precisely sure how I'm going to spend my day, but I've got a coupon for a free popcorn and the local ice cream place gives a free scoop to birthday celebrators so... Free stuff could be the way to go.

Of course, my biggest hope for today is the one thing all authors wish for. A yes.

I would like a yes for my birthday. A positive. A little thing to show me that the past two weeks of misery are coming to an end.

Also cake.

The Doubt

When you begin the process of querying agents, you start with a list. That list is generally long, varied and full of mistakes. You then cross people off the list, send out start query letters, get rejections, rewrite your query letter and continue on your way.

But then, what happens when you start to get...noticed? When not one, but two and then three different agents over the course of a year have requested more material. You wait anxiously for news. You wait. You wait.

You wait.

And then rejection.

I have received somewhere in the neighborhood of fifty rejection letters throughout my querying. I can chalk some up to weak query letters I suppose but the rest of them always make me question not only myself, but my voice as a writer. I find  myself asking, what am I doing wrong? Is my voice too this or too that? Should I be funnier? Should I be more serious? Should I change the focus audience? Do I even know the focus audience? Do I even know what I'm doing here at all?

The demons of doubt occupy the head of every person, but I sometimes think the creative community gets the worst of it. It's always there, at the corner of the eyes and the back of the mind: Doubt.

Picking away at what confidence you got from that rather nice and helpful rejection last week. Undermining what you are certain you know. It's hard to push past that. It's hard to pick yourself back up again and say, "I'm going to keep trying. I'm going to do this." You see a lot of people saying it's hard to make a living as a writer, or that you won't get rich doing this. I have no ambitions to "get rich" as a writer.

I want to write full time, of course, because telling stories is the thing that drives me. It's my passion. Whether through art or words, I've always found myself telling stories. I love it. It is driven by my insatiable curiosity and wonder at the world around me and it is dampened by doubt and uncertainty. Some days I go to my day job and wonder if it is all I will ever have.

But I can't give up, because I love this too much. Once, in college, I was told I couldn't do Study Abroad in spite of being accepted at the study-abroad program, because my GPA was .005 under what it was "supposed to be". I had been toying with transferring schools and this study abroad was going to be my way of taking a break from the culture of my college and coming back fresh. I was devastated. I had already gotten my VISA, I was ready to go. But without the school's rubberstamp, I would have no financial aid.

So I told them I was going anyway. I would find a way without them. I held my head up and told my adviser that not only was I going abroad, but if they refused to finance me I would be seeking a new institution for my final year of college. I would transfer to our "rival" school if that's what it took. I was done.

I got a meeting with the provost. It turned out, she was the wife of one of the professors who recommended me in glowing terms to the program. I'd no idea at the time of course. I walked into that meeting prepared to be told no, but hoping, just hoping, that I would get a yes. We talked for a bit about why I wanted to go. About what I would do if I didn't go.

My dad had driven me there and was waiting in the car outside. I was in that meeting for about ten minutes. I walked out of it, walked down to the car and looked at my dad. "I'm going to Italy."

I got to go because A) I refused to take no for answer. I didn't give in to doubt. I knew I deserved to go and B) I got a little lucky. The professor thought I was amazing and I have a feeling he talked me up to his wife.

I went to Italy and I found something there I didn't know I would find. My voice. My writer's voice. It was that elusive thing I didn't know I was really missing until it clicked. I found it because I fought to do something. I'm going to keep fighting for my voice. I'm going to keep trying to put my voice out in the world. I'm going to defeat doubt.

It doesn't matter how many no's you stack up. It doesn't matter how many rejections you pin to your wall, because it only takes one yes from the right person to set you on your way. 

Most Valuable Reads

My dear friend did a post with this title the other day, so I thought I would jump on and answer her. The question, what five books had the greatest impact on you as a person, reader and writer? Well, I did get nine books permanently tattooed onto my flesh, so I have a fair idea where to start. It's just a matter of narrowing it down a smidge.

 This will surprise few people, but I have a minor obsession with Alice's Adventures in Wonderland. It was a story that resonated with at an early age. A little girl going on an adventure. By herself.

As a young girl with a brother and parents who could be frustrating to the point of insanity, I fell in love. I wanted to fall down a rabbit hole and find a magical land where animals talked and mushrooms could make you grow. I don't consciously recall when I first read or heard the book. I feel like it's just always been there at the back of my mind.

These days I collect copies and consume just about any related media meta or otherwise I can related. The story of a little girl's adventure into nonsense has certainly effected my work.

The Pawn of Prophecy... It seems quite a jump, I know, from Children's fiction to adult fantasy but here's the thing--I did. After picture books and some young reader things I dove headfirst into Adult Fantasy novels. In the Pawn of Prophecy I found that age old story of a child becoming an adult while at the same time struggling with fantastical forces and a fate he couldn't outrun.

  

Garion became a man in those books, a hero. I wanted to be a hero.

I wanted to have people who respected me and looked up to me. 

I wanted a cool aunt who could cast magic spells too, to be honest. 

I spent a lot of time with Garion. (Sparkhawk too for that matter). 

I liked that I could predict what would happen next. I liked that I knew the good guys would win. It was a bit of a turbulent time in my life and the safe assurances of Garion's world made me feel better when my own world seemed to be falling apart. These books left an indelible mark in my preference for high fantasy, and a definite stamp on the way I write fiction. I read it almost once a year.

 Ah, good on Piers Anthony. At first blush, it was because Xanth was shaped like Florida, and I was born there. His series got me through Middle School traumas, broken friendships and the inevitable bullying that seemed to follow me throughout it all. Here was a strange, bizarre place (Much like wonderland) full of puns and dragons and... I wanted to go there. (Escapism is clearly a driving force in literature for me.)

But it was Man from Mundania that definitely left the greatest stamp. A seemingly ordinary man turns out to be something extraordinary. He uses common sense and general know how against this world he doesn't understand and I related so much to that. I can be impractical but I've always believed that common sense was the most important thing a person could learn to have and Grey had it.

He also had a snazzy magical power. I've re-read this too many times.



Now we get into MG fiction. I was an odd sort of child. I started getting into MG books in high school, which I refer to as my MG Renaissance, spurred on by a stint as a library aide and a great deal of free time my Freshman and Sophomore years.

The Blue Sword was the book that reminded me of my love of girl heroes and knights all in one fell swoop. It was a masterful thing that led me to read many other books. Harry was this fantastic, brave girl thrown into circumstances she didn't understand and still she kept her head high and didn't falter.

I love her immensely. It was this book that brought me back to writing to honest. Made me remember what I wanted to write. I definitely have Robin McKinley to thank for inspiring me. I don't know if I ever would have written much of things I have, if not for this book. Which I read over and over again to this day.


Now for the wildcard. I read Dracula on a self-assigned book report project my senior year of high school. I am a fast reader. I can read a novel in a few hours. I was known for reading three or four books a day on weekends.

It took me a month to finish Dracula. Granted, the first weeks were spent laboring at the initial chapters, getting bored, and setting it aside but still. Not my usual. It took me a lot of time to get into this book. Took me time to acclimatize to the weather, as it were. But when I did--I found in myself a love for the romantic I had no idea was there. Classic literature was never really my thing but Dracula... It changed me. It changed the way I wrote. It changed the way I thought about character construction and story telling.




It was this amazing story and I couldn't believe it took me so long to fall into it and fall in love with the hero of the book: Mina. I actually can't watch any of the films because I haven't seen a single one that does Mina justice the way the book does.

So, that's my list. Who's next?

A Confirmed Bachelor: Writing Queer Characters

I make no secret that I publish what some would refer to as m/m romance. I don't actually consider that to be my genre, as the sexuality of my characters has always been secondary from the actual story. I happened to write about a detective, and he happened to be gay. He happened to have a love interest, but that was secondary to the murder mystery.

But, when one writes such books, inevitably one gets lumped to m/m romance, as the genre-makers don't seem to realize that gay characters do not a genre make.

That said, I have a lot of experience writing LGBTA characters, and everything book I write tends to have diversity of sexuality, race and culture because of this. Today though, we're going to focus on sexual diversity in steampunk fiction.


The estimable Gail Carriger gave us delightful creatures in The Parasol Protectorate like Lord Akeldama and Biffy...and Lyall, and lest we forget, Madame Lefoux. These characters were not ashamed of who they were, and no one really seemed to mind who they chose to be bedpartners or lifepartners with. After all, it would be rude to ask about such things.

As such, Charlotte's world went a similar fashion without any prompting really. You are introduced to Lord Niall Rathbone, whose students whisper about being a confirmed bachelor in teasing tones, and who later does take on a partner of the same sex. Except, that's just a piece of who he is. Niall is also commanding, intelligent, tricky and petulant. Charlie is actually a bit afraid of him when they first meet, though the two do become friends later.

Niall is a complicated man, a cousin to the queen, commander of a regiment and head of the Lochlan Officers Academy. Him being gay doesn't change any of that.
As of yet, there have been few other queer characters introduced, as much of the story has been internally focused, and teenagers can be rather self-involved. As I continue to work on the series and Rule of Steel, I am making a conscious effort to include more characters. There's a certain lady with a bit of a pining for our leading lady--though she doesn't know it yet.

It isn't difficult to introduce this sort of thing. You don't even have to be explicit. A casual reference to someone's partner, or former partner is more than enough to establish interests. There's no reason to stop there either. There are few enough asexual characters in fiction, and if you're writing during the sexual oppression of the Victorian era, it's not as though a man or woman with no interest in sex or romance or both would be looked upon with any more oddity than any other spinster/bachelor of the time. We can't forget about bisexual characters either, and a case could be made for Alexia (The Parasol Protectorate) being bisexual, though she is firmly married when she realizes this about herself.

I've written one transgender character in my career, and tried to do so with as much sincerity and care as I could. If you're going to write a transgender character, you have to treat them as you would any other. Make them genuine and don't back down.

I think there are authors out there that shy away from this kind of diversity because they are afraid they'll do something wrong. But really, you should try anyway. Let people from the community you are writing about do a read-through, listen to them when they tell you what they thought worked and what didn't work.

The bottom line is, diversity makes a story richer. Don't be afraid to let your characters be themselves.

Knowing When to Break

When one is writing historical fiction of any kind, there comes a point in our research and decision making where it becomes time to deviate from history. The inspiration for this post came from a conversation with my roommate, who is currently writing a 1920's steampunk piece and was getting rather bogged down in inconsequential details.

At more than one point I looked at her and said, "You do know you're writing alt. history, right?"

I am an advocate of accuracy, good research and backing up your decisions with facts. That being said, when it comes to areas I am familiar with, I tend to write from that experience. Sometimes though, history does not cooperate with us. Either someone isn't where they need to be, something hasn't been invented yet--or you can't find any information to back up something you heard from your third-cousin six years ago.

In the roommate's case, it was difficulty confirming asthma medications in the 20's. She wasn't having any luck with specific ingredient lists, and was instead getting bogged down in the minutiae of it. She needed to move on from it, she needed to break from history. Especially given how much she had already changed historical events.

When you change historical timelines in anyway while creating your work, it's a bit ridiculous to assume that nothing else would change within that. So yes, perhaps that particular shade of yellow dye wasn't used until 1875 in our time, but whose to say some lab assistant is Sussex didn't spill something and accidentally create said dye four years earlier in your timeline?

When small details get in the way of the story, it's time to let go a little. I've been known to leave words out completely when I'm uncertain. Usually I'll plug in something like this (Insert X Here) so I can search for this missing area later during re-writes.

Don't be afraid to make changes. Don't be afraid to choose new paths. History, in this case, is your playground. Have fun with it.