storytelling

Bunny didn't have his surgery yesterday. They decided to wait a few more days, so now he's scheduled for Friday.

He's still looking a little big like Frankenstein's dog, but his spirits and energy level are fine.

Posted by at 6:11 PM | Permalink | Comments (1) | TrackBacks (0)

At one point in my life I was a full time faculty member at a high powered Big Ten school, with administrative, teaching and research expectations. I had graduate students writing doctoral theses under my direction, and others who I advised. I attended conferences and gave papers two or three times a year, I wrote articles, I edited volumes of articles, I published two full length books. All of this between the years 1987 and 1997.

During that same period I had a baby, and two years later, I went into treatment for secondary infertility. After four losses over a two year period, we decided to stop trying. We had a healthy, bright kid, and we were lucky to have her.

When the Girlchild was about three, I started writing fiction more seriously. I joined a group of writers, we met every other week and I worked hard on a series of short stories that eventually became Homestead. At one time I was writing Homestead, Into the Wilderness, and English with and Accent simultaneously. I was up for tenure that year. At that point the turn down rate in the humanities (at UM/Ann Arbor) was eighty percent, so I also went on the job market in anticipation of not getting tenure. My first short stories were published. I got an agent. I got tenure.

My former PhD advisor called me a force of nature. My colleagues nodded in approval. Normal people asked in all seriousness how I got so much done. I would crack wise in response. I don't do windows. Sleep is highly overrated. In fact both of those things were true. We didn't have a lot of money, but we did have household help once a week for a few hours. And I got very little sleep. Insomnia was my self diagnosis. I went back to the reproductive endocrinologist who had treated me for secondary infertility and he checked me over. I was thirty seven at that point. He mentioned some possibilities: early onset menopause. Sleep apnea.

On winter break we drove from Ann Arbor to Lake Placid, so the Mathematician and the Girlchild could ski (or better said, he could ski and she could take ski lessons). I was going to use that time to do research for ITW. I had an appointment to meet with the archivist at the Schuyler mansion. There was a huge amount of snow, and it was very icy. Driving south on the North Road near Glens Falls, I hit a patch of black ice and drove into a cliff face at about fifty miles an hour. The car (three months old) was totaled. I walked away with a sprained wrist and a lot of colorful bruises from the airbag and safety belt. The rescue people kept looking at the car and then looking at me and shaking their heads in disbelief. You be glad of that airbag, one of them told me. Or we'd be scraping you off that cliff face. We had to rent a car to get home. The Mathematician drove the whole way. I kept falling asleep and jerking awake in a sweat.

Shortly after that, I began to develop a driving phobia. If there was any snow, if the road was wet, it was almost impossible for me to get on a highway or freeway. Once I got on, I would be tense to the point of lockjaw until I got off. Many times I took an exit and then realized that I was nowhere near where I needed to go, but in my panic I had convinced myself that it was the right exit to take.

We left Ann Arbor and moved to the Pacific Northwest. I had a new faculty position, the Girlchild had a new school. The Mathematician brought his job with him. My driving phobia got worse. It got so bad that more than once I almost caused an accident. I found it hard to concentrate, I was forgetful, I lost things constantly.

I went to the doctor. He asked me to fill out a depression evaluation. Which I flunked. I can't be depressed, I told him. I'm running as fast as I can, all the time. He suggested a therapist. I went home and wept for a day. Then I went to see a therapist. It took a couple months for me to see what was going on.

The first big revelation: You can be depressed and be productive. A-type personalities may slide deeper and deeper into depression going a hundred miles an hour and leaping buildings in a single bound. Which makes you harder to diagnose, my therapist told me, and it also pisses other the kind of depressed person. The guy who crawls under the covers and is immobilized.

Insomnia, forgetfulness, difficulty concentrating, weepiness, these are signs of depression.

But I wrote three books, I told her. I wrote dozens of articles and reviews. I got tenure. My daughter is healthy and well adjusted. My marriage is solid.

You lost four pregnancies and went through two years of medical hell, she told me. You went up for tenure in a Big Ten crucible. You had a near fatal car accident. You started sliding into depression during infertility treatment and down you went.

Looking back now it's obvious, but back then it wasn't. Back then it would have felt like whining or self indulgence.

One clinical definition of depression is anger turned inward. Sometimes there's no logical place to put your anger. Sometimes directing your anger where it belongs is something you can't let yourself do. It took a long time and a lot of therapy before some of that began to shift for me. After six months or so I went on medication as well.

You hear a lot of shit these days about people being overmedicated. Maybe that's true. Maybe doctors are too ready to hand out serotonin reuptake inhibitors, but then there's no blood test to tell them exactly what's out of whack with your brain chemistry, and so they err on the side of caution. Because when depression hits bottom and the bottom gives way, it's much harder to pull off a save. A doctor doesn't hesitate to give insulin, doesn't worry about the next big expose article and fad controversy. But depression meds -- that's fair game. It's an easy target. Rise up in outrage, all ye who have never missed an hour's sleep, or lost a loved one to suicide.

I started medication on a Monday. They told me it would take a couple weeks to kick in. I wasn't really expecting any change because at that point I still didn't really credit the idea that I was depressed. I was a preoccupied insomniac with a work ethic. Everybody had an acronym in those days. I was a PIWE, as were so many other academics.

And then about ten days after I started taking meds, I was walking down the street on a warmish morning in late January. Thinking about dinner or the parent-teacher meeting coming up or whether or not to give a pop quiz -- really, I don't remember. But I do know that I looked up and it struck me very suddenly that the world was in color.

Sometime over the last seven or eight years, all the colors had leeched out of the world, and I hadn't even noticed. Now suddenly it was all there again. How was such a thing possible? And where were my sunglasses? It occurred to me that the person who wrote the Wizard of Oz screenplay understood something about depression. Dorothy leaves gray-scale Kansas and opens the door into Technicolor Oz.

Within six weeks my driving phobia had pretty much disappeared, and I could merge onto the highway without breaking into a sweat. I started sleeping normally. I stopped getting weepy for no reason.

Why am I telling this story today, you're wondering.

I'm telling this story because today I realized that at some point or another I started down that old depression slide again, and I'm picking up speed. Insomnia, inability to concentrate, irritability, anxiety. Time to go back to the therapist, back to the doctor, fill a prescription, start talking. Time to turn up the color.

A few months ago I heard that the husband of a former student had committed suicide. I don't know what was up with him, if had been clinically depressed, if he had been diagnosed and treated, or if he had never found his way to the person who asked him the right questions. So this is also something of a public service announcement. Some things you may not know, from All About Depression:

• Major depression is the leading cause of disability in the United States
• Depression affects almost 10% of the population, or 19 million Americans, in a given year
• During their lifetime, 10%-25% of women and 5%-12% of men will become clinically depressed
• Women are affected by depression almost twice as often as men
• The economic cost of depression is estimated to be over $30 billion each year
• Two-thirds of those who are depressed never seek treatment and suffer needlessly
• 80%-90% of those who seek treatment for depression can feel better within just a few weeks
• Research on twins suggests that there is a genetic component to the risk of developing depression
• Research has also shown that the stress of a loss, especially the death of a loved one, may lead to depression in some people
• Up to 15% of those who are clinically depressed die by suicide.

If you need help, get it.

Posted by at 5:52 PM | Permalink | Comments (27) | TrackBacks (0)

When I first read The French Lieutenant's Woman, I was delighted and astounded by Fowle's willingness to communicate with the reader about the vagaries of his characters. In footnotes, sometimes. This woman insists on going down to the Cobb (or things to that effect).

This weekend I've been letting one of my characters take over. He's thinking a lot on the page, which is something I generally try to discourage or at least limit. But John Dodge wanted his autonomy and so he went jogging and I followed along listening to him think and taking dictation. Some odd things came out as a result. Not bad things, but surprising. At the same time I could feel Julia watching. Standing in the window of her apartment, arms crossed, humming with anxiety. Worried about what I was going to try to make her do.

So tomorrow I have this sense that she's going to want to take over. Her turn. I'm kind of curious about where she'll go and what will happen, and I'm trying to resist the urge to remind these two about deadlines and moving forward. Because they know all that. I don't need to tell them anything, I need to listen.

Do other writers have this same experience? Some of them obviously do, as was the case with Fowles. Stephen King has written about this same kind of experience. He said (and I'm paraphrasing) you push the story -- and sometimes it pushes back. King is also the guy who has written schizophrenic authors, authors with split personalities, and authors showing up as characters in their own novels (as he did in Song of Susannah).

It seems as though authors (or at least some authors) get more hung up in the creative process than painters or sculptors or composers. At least, I don't imagine that a painter stands there and waits for the painting to tell her things, or in that case, show her things.

Giving myself a headache here.

Posted by at 12:37 AM | Permalink | Comments (3) | TrackBacks (0)

Bunny Boy is hanging in there, and thanks for all the good wishes.

Yesterday our vet looked at him. She doesn't think he'll be able to keep the eye, but we'll know more tomorrow because they're taking him back into surgery. They'll take out the stitches and reevaluate.

The good news: if he loses the eye or the sight in the eye, he should be okay. He's pretty much adjusted already. The drunken sailor reel has given way to his more usual perky gait. He doesn't even seem to notice the e-collar. And today I caught him humping the George Bush voodoo doll. Good Bunny. Good Boy.

Finally, if he does lose the eye he'll be joining a very select club The Pirate Cat of Doom -- seen here -- has already sent Bunny a welcome note. We'd just have to come up with the appropriate pirate name for him.

Here's a funny fact about Bunny. When we first got him from the rescue people he was very protective of his food, which is only logical. After a few weeks he realized he would always get fed and never have to fight for his food, and he calmed down.

Except when it comes to bread.

Bunny adores bread in any form. If I give him the end piece from a loaf of rye, for example, he will carry it around in his mouth for hours, nibbling now and then and wagging his tail like he's got a side of beef tucked into his cheek. If he's got the choice between meat and bread, he'll take the bread (assuming this is post main meal). And here's the funniest part: Tuck doesn't like bread, shows no interest in bread, and doesn't care about Bunny's bread, not at all.

But Bunny can't quite believe that. So he tries to hide the bread. If he's outside he'll bury it (with disgusting results), but inside he'll prowl around the house trying to find a corner where it can be tucked away out of sight. He particularly likes the couch cushions (results only slightly less disgusting).

So wish the Bunny well, as he goes back into surgery tomorrow. When he's feeling better I'll give him a crusty chunk of day old pane rustica, his favorite.

Posted by at 3:26 PM | Permalink | Comments (10) | TrackBacks (0)

Here's the summary (and this is my take alone):

1. If you can afford to buy new books, that's an excellent way to support the work of authors you like best.

2. If you can't afford to buy new books, the next best way is to borrow from the library. Libraries deserve support. Libraries also support authors.

3. There are times and situations in which buying a used book is reasonable. If the work is out of copyright or out of print and/or if the author has been dead for a while.

If I buy a copy of a book new, I am then comfortable buying a second copy used if it's for my own use.

If the author is new to me, I will get his or her work out of the library until I decide whether or not I want to purchase the books new.

Once I decide to buy a used book, I will try to get it from a nonprofit. For example, a library or school sale. There are a number of organizations that collect and sell used books for non-profits. The most visible one is Better World Books.

These are my guidelines. Everybody has to decide for themselves how best to proceed.

Posted by at 1:45 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

I'm writing this post because I'm in real danger of falling asleep (at 9:30 in the morning) and missing Bunny's vet appointment. So if I'm a little disjointed, that's why.

Lauren's question:

I've got a question about book purchasing. I buy from everywhere (Amazon, B&N;, Borders, B.Daltons, Target, Costco, used bookstores, paperbackbookswap.com, library sales, ect, ect) but I never really gave thought to the author, I truly beleived that the publisher paid up front for the book, x amount of dollars, and then they paid to print, distribute, & advertise and the author didn't get paid residuals for each book sold. Was I incorrect in this? I know you went over this before, but I couldn't find it. I'ld love to know your take on this, in your opinion, wheres the best place to purchase?

I can only tell you about my own experiences, but I think they are pretty typical. Also, I can't tell you where to shop. Or at least, I don't think it would be right of me to try to tell you where to shop. Opinions? Sure. I'll share some of them.

So this is how it works.

My agent goes to a potential publisher with (a) a finished manuscript or (b) a partial manuscript or (c) an outline and story idea. She does this by approaching the editor in the house who she believes is most likely to respond to the book and fight for it.

If she's right, and the editor likes the book enough and finds it marketable enough, the editor goes to the editorial board and pitches the book. I don't have much insight into this part of the process, but I do know what comes out the other end: an offer, or nothing.

If the publisher wants the book they sit down and crunch numbers. Given the market, the author's Q factor, current production and distribution costs, how many copies of this book could they realistically sell? They come up with a number. On the basis of that number (10K or 50K or whatever number of book sales projected) they put together an offer and present it to the agent.

The agent looks at the numbers, talks to the author. they make a decision.

The deal will look something like this:

on signing of the contract, the author will get an advance. That advance is based on projected sales. It can be anywhere from $500 to millions (if you're a consistent number one NYT author). But the advance is just that: an advance on royalties.

The contract stipulates how much money you get for each book sold. Usually the arrangements are pretty complicated, depending on format, and often there's a sliding scale. The more books sold, the bigger the author's percentage. So when a book sells for a cover price of $25, where does that money go? About 12% of that $25 goes to the author (and 15% of the author's 12% goes to the agent). The rest of the money is the publisher's to spend on editing, book design, printing, marketing, promotion -- which a profit margin tucked in there too. Of course. This is a business.

The publisher makes deals with chain stories. Order xxxx copies of Book X and we'll lower the cost to you. This is how Amazon can offer 30% off the cover price of a brand new book, because they're buying bulk and they get a discount.

The author only gets money from the first sale of the book. The first time it's purchased at the full cover price, or at a discount, the author gets her 12% of the stated cover price of $25. This is why small bookstores complain about the chains: the chains can negotiate lower rates, and thus lower the cost of the book to the consumer. It's hard to pass up thirty percent off.

If a book is read and sold again as a used book, there's nothing in those subsequent sales for the author. In fact, the author won't get any more money at all until and less the advance "pays out". That means, if you took home an advance of $20,000, enough books have to sell so that the royalties that accrue to you meet that $20,000 mark. If the book flops and it doesn't sell at all, that's still your money -- the publisher takes the loss. However, you're unlikely to get another contract with that publisher. So you live off your advance in the hope that the book will move beyond the projected sales. If not, you have to produce another book, or go work as a bank teller. Something thrilling, and far more regular and easier than writing.

I know I've left questions unanswered I'm too sleepy to have possibly done everything that needed doing. So speak up if you've got more questions on this.

Posted by at 9:59 AM | Permalink | Comments (4) | TrackBacks (0)

I still have to answer the question about how authors get paid/earn money and respond to Robin's comment, both things I meant to do today, but then life got in the way.

Or actually Bunny did.

Odd little Bunny boy, our rescue dog. We've had him for three years now. He's quite the personality, which I suppose is part of how he survived on the streets until the rescue people picked him up.

At any rate, Bunny nearly lost an eye this evening. It just ... popped out, I guess that's the only way to put it. And yes, it is as awful as it sounds. It's almost two in the morning here and I just brought him home from the emergency vet. The surgery took a long time. The eye is back where it's supposed to be but there's only a twenty percent chance that he'll retain any sight on that side.

He looks so sad, his face all swollen and his eyelid sewn shut. And he's really, really pissed off (even dopey from the anesthetic he's pissed off) about the collar he has to wear so he can't scratch the injured eye. A bundle of emotions, is our Bun. I'm pretty shaky myself, to tel the truth, or I wouldn't be babbling on about this at two in the morning.

Posted by at 1:47 AM | Permalink | Comments (6) | TrackBacks (0)

With the Mathematician's (long distance) help, numbers were crunched and some how or another entries were heaped into an imaginary computational hat, one for each post on the forum. I don't really understand the technical end of things, because well, he's the one with the doctorate in pure math and I'm the one with the doctorate in squishy feely social sciences. So I'm trusting him with this and you have to, as well.

And so the winner is: Kathy J (her user name on the forum). I have to hear from Kathy by Monday with mailing instructions, and if I don't, I'll ask the Mathematician to pull another name.

In the next couple weeks I'll be drawing names for:

(1) a signed first edition/first printing of Queen of Swords (which should be showing up on my doorstep by the third week of September).

(2) a box o' books -- five or six of my all time favorite novels, most of which are out of print

Posted by at 3:38 PM | Permalink | Comments (10) | TrackBacks (0)

I've been writing all day, and I'm pooped. However, I wanted to point to PBW's post on personal ads for your characters.

As she points out, it is a revealing and fun way to figure some things out about the people populating your work, but personal ads often figure into storylines more directly. PPW mentioned Desperately Seeking Susan, but there's also Sea of Love (not nearly as much fun as DSS), and more recently the very regrettable Must Love Dogs (why, John Cusack? why?) I know there are others but they aren't coming to mind.

I believe there may also be collections of short stories that start with personal ads. Or if not, I dreamed it and I should probably put that project on my list of books to write down the line. Certainly I've read some personal ads that scream STORY. There are a number of books out there which provide a selection of the quirkiest such ads, for example:

Bitter, unsuccessful middle aged loser wallowing in an unending sea of inert drooping loneliness looking for 24 year old needy leech-like hanger-on to abuse with dull stories, tired sex and Herb Alpert albums.

To be truthful, this is not an exercise that works for me and my characters. I can't imagine John Dodge or Julia Darrow putting a personal out there. Same for Angie or any of the major characters in TTTT. Except maybe Patty Cake, but that would be far too easy.

Posted by at 1:31 PM | Permalink | Comments (2) | TrackBacks (0)

Q: How many Bush Administration officials does it take to screw in a
light bulb?

A: None. There is nothing wrong with the light bulb; its condition is
improving every day. Any reports of its lack of incandescence are
totally unfounded, and the result of delusional "spin" assaults from the fanatic, elitist, liberal media. That light bulb has served honorably, and anything you say undermines the lighting effect and dims its ego. Why do you hate freedom?

Q How many people in Marin County does it take to screw in a light bulb?
A. Silly! They don't screw in light bulbs in Marin County -- they
screw in hot tubs.

Q. How many Floridians does it take to change a lightbulb?
A. Don't know for sure, they're still counting.

Q: How many economists does it take to screw in a light bulb?
A: None. If the government would just leave it alone, it would screw
itself in.

Q: How many net.poets does it take to change a light bulb?

swimming
A: None, fish are through the of my conciousness,
and edges
I dark.
like the

Q: How many surrealists does it take to change a light bulb?
A: Two. One to hold the giraffe and the other to fill the bathtub
with brightly colored machine tools.

-----------

These are a few of my favorites, courtesy of the ultimate lightbulb joke collection.

Posted by at 7:31 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

Tomorrow in the early evening (Pacific Standard Time) I'll be drawing the name of the person who'll get the last available Queen of Swords ARC.

Just in case you forgot.

Posted by at 7:23 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

There's another (yet again) clash in one very small, limited corner of the internet, but as it happens to be the corner I inhabit, and as I would prefer this not blow out of all proportion, I am going public right here and now. My hope is that it can all be settled immediately. If you are tired of all this (and I am, so I wouldn't be surprised if you were) please feel free to pass on by. (WW, I'm looking at you.)

There's a Yahoo discussion group to discuss Diana Gabaldon's books. It's a great community of readers who like to talk about the Outlander series. I have been lurking on that board for years, but I've never posted, and there are also longer periods where I'm off doing other things and don't check in.

A few days ago somebody posted on the forum here to ask a question. I'll refer to this person as WB. It was a simple question. Had the title of the next book in the Wilderness series changed? Because there was a discussion to that effect on the Yahoo Gabaldon board. Also, the person who had started the discussion seemed pretty critical generally of my work.

So I popped over and indeed, the title of the thread included the words "Donati" "Body Snatchers" and "Spoilers". Once I read the post I understood: RK (as I'll refer to her here) had just finished Into the Wilderness, and she disliked it. A lot. She was voicing her opinion on the Gabaldon board, which of course is her right. The "Body Snatchers" reference had to do with her claim that ITW is populated by characters I have borrowed or stolen or adapted from other sources, mostly Diana's books, and that there's nothing original or interesting in my work.

Let me be clear: RK is entitled to her opinion. I can't pretend that it's nice to be accused of plagarism and lack of originality but I am also comfortable enough in my skin to let my work stand on its own merits.*** So let's take RK's opinion at face value: she prefers Diana's books for a lot of different reasons, one of them having to do with the fact that she feels my characters are uninteresting and recycled.

Back at this forum I answered WB's original question about the title confusion (no, Queen of Swords was not changing title to Body Snatchers). I clarified what I thought was going on, and I responded to the review, very briefly. As was my right.

Now this is where it gets messy. This is where you really need to pay attention. Fact: WB did not email me me the text of RK's posts or comments on my work. The Gabaldon discussion forum is public, and anybody who has a Yahoo identity can join the group and read the posts. It's true that WB mentioned RK's posts, but that's it. I see nothing wrong in that; she was asking for clarification, and I provided it. Some of the fen over at the Gabaldon forum were upset, however, and WB heard about it from RK and from others as well. I know this because WB told me.

I am a little confused why RK should be surprised that something posted on a public forum might indeed be more widely read. It also seems less than logical to me to accuse WB of bad etiquette for sharing posts from the Gabaldon forum. After all, RK got hold of my post on this whole mess somehow, most likely because somebody pointed her to it.

So let's be clear.

1. WB did nothing wrong. She likes Diana's books, she likes my books, she was confused and taken aback by the tone of something she read and so she asked about it. I went and had a look, and answered.

2. RK is entitled to her opinion about my work. The tone of her review is not what I would call professional or balanced or respectful, but it is certainly strongly emotive. Again: that is her right. She can be as vocally negative as she likes; she can stick her tongue out at me and blow raspberries, if it makes her feel better. Following from that, it's also true that other people are free to agree or disagree with her, on that board or this one. I have to point out though that anyone who publically reviews a book is in fact opening up a discussion, and that in judging, they will also be judged.

3. I defend RK's right to be negative about my books, just as I defended Beth's right to post a negative review of one of Diana's books. And I must point out again: Beth's review did not appear here. I did not endorse it because I haven't read the book. I did open up a discussion on the topic of negative reviews, pointing to Beth's website. I did make it clear that I admired her for her willingness to put her neck out, and for her obvious love and admiration of the early books in the Outlander series. Apparently some few Gabaldon fans are still angry at me for supporting Beth's right to post her opinions. I wonder if they will also be mad at me for supporting RK's negative evaluation of my work.

I harbor no deep resentment toward RK, no anger or need for revenge. On the other hand, I feel no need to try to win her over, as she suggests I should. If anything at all was offensive in her posts, it was this idea that it is somehow my obligation to convince anybody of the value of my work. I suppose I could email authors who have written books that didn't work for me. I could get in touch with John Updike or Nora Roberts or Jodi Picoult or Stephen King or Toni Morrison and offer them the opportunity to pitch their books to me, but then that would be presumptuous and less than respectful.

Finally, a point I need to make: In the course of all this back and forth, bits were copied from my website onto the Gabaldon forum boards. And I'm fine with that -- I make the material public, and people are free to share it as long as it's not done in a misleading way.

***I will point out that it has been postulated that there are only so many plots out there, and everything is a rehashing of something else. Certainly time travel has been done before, as have novels about Scotland, Revolutionary America, and the War of 1812. I have always said quite openly that I got the idea for ITW from an exercise where I put some of Jane Austen's characters in the same room with some of Fenimore Cooper's characters. Sparks flew, and ideas sprouted, and here I am five books later.

Posted by at 5:39 PM | Permalink | Comments (20) | TrackBacks (0)

A number of regular posters on the forum indicated an interest in having a place to put up their work in progress for feedback. I've taken some first steps in setting that up. Basic information is here, so please have a look if you think you might like to participate.

The actual workshop boards are only visible to registered users who have asked to be included and agreed to some very basic ground rules. The boards will be run by the participants, with little input from me.

This is all very new and experimental, but there seems to be real interest and potential.

Posted by at 7:12 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

Lynn Viehl has posted an embarrassingly glowing review of TTTT on her weblog, and if that's not enough, she's giving away a couple copies, so head on over there if you want to throw your hat in the ring.

Writers can be a difficult lot, surly and self protective. Or they can be wonderfully generous and supportive of one another. Lynn is the ultimate example of the second category. She certainly gave my confidence a boost today, and I am thankful.

Posted by at 6:09 AM | Permalink | Comments (2) | TrackBacks (0)

So here goes. I'm jumping on Beth's Smart Bitch Monday bandwagon.

1. I despise those on-the-fly dirt-cheap editions of out-of-copyright classics. The ones so poorly put together they won't last more than two readings. The ones with paper of such piss poor quality that as far as depletion of the forests is concerned? Insult to injury. I despise the way Barnes & Noble and the big publishers package up Austen and Dickens and Cicero and Moliere like trollops and send them out to make a quick buck.

If you're dying to read Anna Karenina, for dog's sake, don't waste your money on shitty editions that will sit on your coffee table and look like the worst kind of posturing.

Go to the library. You'll find a decent edition and you'll be supporting a community resource. Or, if you've just got to have a copy, this is the time to go to a used bookstore, one in your town or online. Tolstoy doesn't need the royalties anymore, and you might just find a really solid edition. For example, this ebay auction for the 1950 hardcover/dust jacket edition published by Modern Library. Right now the bidding is at $1.99, $4.05 to have it sent to you.

One advantage of finding an older edition of an out of print book: sometimes you'll get a bonus. An envelope stuck in the middle addressed to Mrs. Mabel Winterbourne, 41 Handcross Lane, Luton, Bedforshire with a 1932 postmark. A receipt for a suit that was drycleaned in 1973, three piece, wool, for six bucks. A movie ticket stub for Easy Rider, Last Tango in Paris, Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory. Who knows, the spark of a story idea may be waiting at the end of chapter four, a simple folded piece of paper with a scribbled note: tell her you didn't mean it.

2. I heartily dislike bookclub editions, which aren't much better than abomination number one above. A slightly better quality of binding, bad paper that feels almost sticky to the touch and will turn yellow in less than a couple years. Yuck.

Do you really need a bookclub to tell you what's out there to be read? If you're reading this, you know how to get around the internet. There are hundreds of websites and weblogs that will tell you everything you could possibly want to know about books new and old. Don't let yourself be led by the hand. Go out there and make your own decisions.

3. It makes me laugh (and not in a good way) to see the big chain stores who sell abomination number one (and sometimes even get into the act by coming out with their own shitty editions) complaining to publishers about abomination number two because they don't like being undersold. For example: U.K. Booksellers Threaten Publishers Over Cheap Book Club Editions

Payback is a bitch, or put much more eloquently by Elbert Hubbard: "Men are not punished for their sins, but by them."

4. I like independent bookstores and I want to support them. But I find it hard to promote a bookstore who (1) sells my novels at full price and then (2) stocks used copies of that same novel on the same shelf. There's a lack of logic there that ticks me off. I imagine a reader standing there in front of the shelf. You, maybe. You're looking at Queen of Swords, new, $27. That's a hunk of money. You're thinking you haven't paid the phone bill yet this month and really, you could get it for ten bucks less someplace else. But wait. There's a used copy, and wow, only $14.

I can't blame you for wanting to pay your phone bill. I absolutely understand and appreciate the fact that you really want to read the story, but $27 is just too much of an investment. What I don't like is that the independent bookstore who wants my support has pretty much forced you to buy used, which cuts me out of the equation. If they only had the new, $27 copy on the shelf, no discount, you might think about it but most likely you're going to leave and get the book someplace that's selling it cheaper. But if the used copy is there, what are you going to do? It's obvious. And it makes me really, really cranky -- not with you, but with the bookstore.

Posted by at 12:34 PM | Permalink | Comments (6) | TrackBacks (0)

So the PW review is in. Mostly summary, a few snarky comments, and this conclusion:

fans of epic historical adventures will be captivated by the exotic setting and intriguing story line

Given my checkered history with the anonymous reviewers at PW, this is pretty darn good, and I'm satisfied.

In my last post I meant to say something about the drawing for the Queen of Swords ARC, and this is: If you don't win, don't give up hope. In the next few weeks I'll be getting some early copies of the actual finished hard cover novel, the real thing. First edition, first printing even. I will be giving a couple of those away, signed and (if you like) dedicated. I'll be drawing names for those giveaways from the member roster on the forum as well, but I'll figure out some twist to make sure everybody has an equal chance.

Finally, I checked the Amazon listing today (to see if the snarky PW review had been posted -- no, not yet) and noticed that you can preorder at ten bucks off the cover price.*** In case you didn't realize, the author isn't hurt at all by such discounts. I get my (small) percentage of the full cover price regardless.

That's not to say that there's no fallout when huge booksellers (Amazon, Barnes and Noble, etc) offer such huge price cuts. So support your local independent bookseller if you (1) are so inclined and (2) can afford to do so. This is a bit of a problem I've been struggling with myself: how to support my local independent and not feel like I'm overspending. So my personal resolution is this: I buy every fourth or fifth book from them, at full price. If we ever hit the lottery (which would mean buying tickets, okay, I get it) or number one on the best seller list, I'll go back to buying all my books from my local bookseller at full price.

***They are also offering one of those 'buy these two books together for even greater savings' deals -- and the second book is Homestead.

Posted by at 10:27 AM | Permalink | Comments (2) | TrackBacks (0)

Four days from now -- on the 25th -- I'll be pulling the name of the person who will get the last available Queen of Swords advance reading copy.

There's still time if you'd like to be in the drawing. What you have to do:

1. Go on over to the forum (link is just below the banner at the top of the page);

2. Sign up;

3. Find a discussion that interests you and post something. Or start a new discussion thread. Every time you post you'll be entered into the drawing, so the more posts, the better your chances.

good luck

Posted by at 7:17 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

There are some books that refuse to be written. They stand their ground year after year and will not be persuaded. It isn't because the book is not there and worth being written -- it is only because the right form of the story does not present itself. There is only one right form for a story and if you fail to find that form the story will not tell itself. --------------------------------Mark Twain

Posted by at 8:23 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

MJ Rose has a thoughtful blog entry on authors who blog. Here's a bit that summarizes her position:

The blogs written by writers tend to be read by other writers because most writers wind up blogging about process, craft and the industry.

And we do not need to market ourselves to other writers but rather to readers.

I have my own take on this, but I'm interested in your thoughts too. Are you a reader or a writer or a reader wanting to be a writer? If you have no interest in writing, what interests you about author weblogs? If you have no interest in writing, has an author weblog ever been such a negative experience (or a positive one) that your reading/buying habits have changed?

Back to South Carolina for me.

Posted by at 12:55 PM | Permalink | Comments (18) | TrackBacks (0)

The Mathematician and the Girlchild are about to leave for England. She'll be gone for two weeks and he'll be gone for four.

In the two weeks I've got alone, I aim to finish Pajama Jones. You'll have to hold me to that, okay? Once I get back from the airport, the countdown begins. I estimate another 25,000 words to get this puppy out the door.

I will post (briefly), to record how it's going and drop bits of information. Such as this: a girl with a blog (as she calls herself) has started something called The First 150. The idea is, you post the first 150 words of your favorite novel. There are some interesting choices already up. If I had time I'd put up a few myself: Byatt's Possession, Helprin's A Soldier of the Great War ... I could do this for dozens of books. What a great way to procrastinate.

If I didn't have to finish this novel.

Posted by at 9:57 AM | Permalink | Comments (2) | TrackBacks (0)

The radiant Robyn Bender has a rather twisted streak. Today she sent me a series of links that have left me shaking my head. For example, the variety of artistic statements you can make with your choice of coffins (have a look toward the bottom for 'return to sender').

...a report on how effective abstinence only sex education can be

...another example of global dopiness

And finally, the one that has really caught my attention and my imagination, a series of mug shots from Smoking Gun.

I ask you to consider the fact that this is a human being. Once a newborn, a new light in the world. What happened between then and now is something I find myself thinking about, but I sure would like to stop. If you are looking for inspiration for a troubled and troubling character, this might just be what you need. An exercise I liked to use in the classroom was this: find another photo to pair with this one. This guy's mother or brother or wife. And don't settle for obvious or stereotypical.

Posted by at 9:17 PM | Permalink | Comments (3) | TrackBacks (0)

There are some really interesting comments in the posts on reviews (look in the right hand column -- and I'm hoping you see a right hand column) for a list of recent posts, if you're curious.

However. Some of the points made make me believe I haven't been clear, so I'm going to state my position, once and for all, on reviews:

1. Reviews are a good thing. In the best case, a review is useful for the author and the readers both. A successful review will make people think and encourage discussion. This is true whether the review is positive or negative.

2. Anybody and everybody is free to make their opinion of a book known. This used to happen primarily when friends talked about what they were reading, but with the internet there's a much bigger audience and it's easier to reach out. So these days it's possible for just about anybody to put out reviews for public consumption and discussion. Which is right and good.

3. A reviewer who takes the process seriously is somebody who deserves a lot of credit. Even if I don't agree or like the approach, I still recognize the effort that goes into the reviewing process.

4. Any reviewer, professional or amateur, has some responsibilities to the reader. My list:

• a reviewer will sign his or her review, and take responsibility for it;
  
• the reviewer provides thoughtful commentary;
  
• he or she doesn't spoil things by revealing major plot twists;
• a responsible reviewer will not skew or misrepresent a book to influence sales in one direction or another;
  
• the reviewer's opinion can't be directly bought (accepting money or favors in return for an excellent or terrible review);
  
• the reviewer will reveal any connections that are relevant to understanding the context in which the review is written (for example, she went to school with the author, or the author once turned her down for a job, or the author is the publisher of the newspaper in which the review is appearing);
  
• the reviewer focuses on the work in question, and doesn't indulge in personal attacks.
  

4. What motivates an individual to post reviews is (mostly) irrelevant. A sincere interest in writing and reading? Great. A real love of discussing books? Wonderful. But if the goals aren't so lofty, that's okay too. I may not admire the way an individual uses a so-called book review site as an exercise in intellectual exhibitionism or bitchiness or as a way to boost weblog hits, but I can always walk away. Which I have done many times (a few examples: The Elegant Variation, Golden Rule Jones, and most recently Dear Author). These review sites obviously work for other readers, and they fill a need. In reviewer speak: I give those weblogs a failing grade, but I also know that others will grade them differently. Because reviewers (like authors) are putting something out in the public domain for consumption, and they who judge will also be judged.

I count myself among that number. An author is necessarily also a reader. An author is not necessarily a reviewer, but I do review books now and then, and my reviews are as open to analysis and judgment as anybody else's.

A final note on this point: sometimes reviewers have agendas which I find personally distasteful. In the worse case scenario, a person who is bitter about the rejection of his or her own work or insecure about talent and chances of publication will make it their business to cut down everything in print. The 'that should be me' approach, as I think of it.

5. A negative review can often be far more interesting than a positive one. A successful negative review will be of use to the author and the readers both, because no matter how sharply worded, it will address the work in a thoughtful way. A snarky, negative review that takes a book apart in a clever way can be useful and entertaining. The Smart Bitches do this with flair and precision.

In conclusion, here's an example of a successful negative review (in my opinion) from The Washington Post Book World:

At its heart, The Glass Books of the Dream Eaters is less a novel than it is hundreds of pages of ornament piled on a rickety piece of storytelling. It may appeal to a certain subset of Anne Rice fans: the ones who liked the ritualized kinky-boots action of her A.N. Roquelaure erotic novels and the ultra-rococo style of her Vampire series.

It's a long review and I've only pulled out the summary, but what you get from this is quite clear: the reviewer not only didn't like the novel, s/he was irritated by it, found it pretentious in approach and execution, and lacking in substance. At the same time the reviewer acknowledges that some readers will like this, and identifies them. I would guess this review cost the author some readers, but won him others.

Now, compare these negative reviews (which I just made up of a non existant novel):

This first time novelist has taken on a complex plot involving surgeons, insurance conspiracies, and an old woman stuck in an emergency room for forty eight hours. Unfortunately it's all too clear that the author doesn't know a hypodermic from a hippo.

There's some information here, but the commentary makes some assumptions and statements about the author herself. Now let's get more subtle:

This author set out to write the great American novel, but to do that, she must pretend to know more than she does, something she doesn't pull off. Only a gullible reader will be taken in.

This last example says a couple things quite clearly. Unless the author wrote or said in an interview "I set out to write the great American novel" this is projection on the part of a reviewer with an agenda. Worst of all, it doesn't tell us anything useful about the novel. It does tell us some things -- and not very complementary ones -- about the reviewer.

And that's it. My take, and nobody else's. These are not rules I'm trying to stuff down anybody's throat. They are based in my belief that a successful review needs to be honest, but at the same time can only be weakened by attacks on the author rather than discussion of the book.

Posted by at 11:34 AM | Permalink | Comments (1) | TrackBacks (0)

I just ran across this quote by Jules Renard:

Writing is an occupation in which you have to keep proving your talent to people who have none.

To be truthful, I laughed when I first read it. But then I started to think about it, and now I'm unclear on what it's supposed to mean, and if there's much truth in it at all. Any artistic endeavor could replace 'writing' in this sentiment:

Sculpture is an is an occupation in which you have to keep proving your talent to people who have none.

And what about this:

Soccer is an occupation in which you have to keep proving your talent to people who have none.

So maybe it doesn't mean anything at all, but it did make me laugh.

Posted by at 3:27 PM | Permalink | Comments (7) | TrackBacks (0)

Back in April I posted a review of Jackson's first novel, gods in Alabama. Which I found very engagine and worth reading, though it wasn't without flaw.

I've just finished her second novel, Between, Georgia and I'm really pleased to report that this story is as engaging as the first one, and more solidly put together.

Like the author's first novel, the primary focus of Between, Georgia is the narrator's relationship with her female relatives and the greater context of the tiny Georgia town where they all live in anything but peace. The narrator is Nonny, thirty years old, on the brink of divorcing a charming but morally challenged husband. If only she could stay out of his bed. Nonny is an interesting, strong character with an engaging voice but she also has a lot of trouble making up her mind. Not because she's flighty. That role will be taken up by the priceless Amber DeClue, who at one point shouts "I've got to go iron my hair!"

Nonny's personal demons follow from her unusual history: she was born to Hazel Crabtree, the teenage single daughter of the Crabtree matriarch, but adopted by Stacia Frett (also single) and raised by Stacia, her twin sister Jenny and her older sister Bernese.

The Fretts have money, maintain their property meticulously, and work hard. The Crabtrees are every bad thing you've ever heard about white trash. The Crabtrees are sturdy and fearless; Nonny's adoptive mother Stacia was born deaf, and will lose her sight by age thirty. Her twin Genny has escaped this fate, but she is anxious to the point of crippling neurosis. There's no question about which female in Nonny's life has the strongest and truest heart: her connection to her adoptive mother is rock solid but rocky enough to be believable, and above all things, tender.

This novel has a lot of plot, but it's very well handled, everything braided together in an interesting and not always predictable pattern. I never lost track of the many characters, and I was interested in all of them. There is a small but very compelling romance tucked in here as well, and we watch Nonny trying to work up the resolve to end her troubled marriage and the courage to take what is being offered to her by another, far more worthy guy.

If I had any reservations about the story, which involves everything from raising butterflies to the social intracies of American Sign Language, it had to do with the incident that puts a match to the Frett-Crabtree fuse. The Crabtrees have an autoparts yard, and in the yard they have three Dobermans who have been poorly trained. Somebody does a bad job of locking a gate and one of the dogs attacks poor nervous Genny, coming just short of killing her before help arrives.

One of the Fretts retaliates by shooting the dog in question. There is a fraught negotiation between Nonny and Ona, the grandmother who wanted to raise her and has been frustrated in her attempts to gain Nonny's love. Nonny wants Ona to give the two remaining dogs away before Genny gets out of the hospital; Ona uses this as a way to manipulate both Nonny and Bernese, her arch enemy.

Maybe you don't see some logical flaws in this, but I do. And they bothered me, but not enough to ruin the story for me. In fact I have been thinking about this story a great deal, wondering about the characters, what happens with them after the novel closes. Wondering about Stacia, who suffers a loss of objects crucially important to her, but who goes on (as Nonny points out) to live a rich life from what is left to her, something she knows how to do very well.

This was a great story, and I look forward to more from Joshilyn Jackson.

Posted by at 2:30 PM | Permalink | Comments (3) | TrackBacks (0)

Those of you waiting for your manuscript page: I am very sorry, really. I plead scatterbrain and deadline syndrome both.

The darn things will go out, but to make up for the delay I'll put something extra in the envelopes.

You may hurl taunts at my head, if it will help.

Oh and: this is equal opportunity neglect on my part. Even the person who sent me milk chocolate with hazelnuts all the way from Australia (and delicious it was, too) still hasn't got her manuscript page. But she will.

Posted by at 8:01 AM | Permalink | Comments (3) | TrackBacks (0)

This is a very short excerpt from Pajama Jones. It's Halloween, and Julia comes down to the shop where her employee Exa is getting ready to open. Exa is about sixty, a bit of a character.

My question: do you get the associations? Are you familiar with the movie that's mentioned? Or is this plain confusing?

When Julia came down to the shop to open at noon, Exa was already installed behind the counter and in costume. This year she was an aging southern belle straight out of Hush Hush Sweet Charlotte. In her youth, Exa liked to remind people, she had often been told that she looked like Bette Davis, especially around the eyes. That resemblance worked to her advantage now.

No doubt she had been working on her dress for weeks, and spent even longer tracking down exactly the right ash blond wig with slightly frowsy, very long sausage curls. Lipstick applied with a shaky hand completed the effect.

"I was going to carry around a decapitated head," Exa said in all seriousness. "Or at least a hand. You know, from a mannequin, with blood painted on? But I'm saving that for the after hours party."

Posted by at 12:54 PM | Permalink | Comments (11) | TrackBacks (0)

***[this post was corrected and revised after jmc pointed out a misconception on my part.]***

Last week I wrote a couple posts about the nature of book reviews, specifically on the internet, and my take on the matter of a reviewer's responsibilities. My reasons for doing this stem from other discussions over a number of different weblogs, in particular an exchange with Jane of Dear Author. That particular discussion took place some months ago on Smart Bitches. To summarize my part of the original debate as neatly as possible, a short bit from my comment:

What really pisses me off about this is that the reviewer has no accountability.

And an excerpt from Jane's response:

...The reviewer owes the author nothing. NOTHING. Is the author paying for the review? Is the reviewer somehow indebted to the author? How does the reviewer owe anything to the author? WHy the sense of outraged entitlement?

Right now there's an interesting back and forth between Jane and many of her readers regarding a book she reviewed and gave a flunking grade, and a summary post about her approach to reviewing. On some aspects of this debate I agree with Jane, and on others, with her detractors. I suggest you go over there to read the whole thing if you're interested in this greater discussion of the nature and tone of reviews. Jane ends with the observation that nobody is obliged to read her weblog or her reviews, which she writes for her personal satisfaction. Reviewing is a hobby for her and not a profession.

I stand by my position that anybody, hobbyist or professional, who makes a review public does have some responsibilities. There is an unspoken contract between the reviewer and the public. But I am also mindful of this particular definition of responsibility from Bierce's The Devil's Dictionary:

RESPONSIBILITY, n. A detachable burden easily shifted to the shoulders of God, Fate, Fortune, Luck or one's neighbor. In the days of astrology it was customary to unload it upon a star.

I find that the nature and tone of reviews and author-reviewer interaction on the internet is evolving in a troubling direction. Part of the confusion that abounds has to do with the fact that the people discussing it (me included) have not always distinguished between matters of content and tone. My two cents: every reviewer is entitled to an opinion, which may be well or poorly argued. Every reviewer has his or her own style. I sometimes find Jane's style and tone hostile toward the author. The only thing I can do about this personally is to first, express my opinion (which I've now done, ad nauseum). And of course I can vote with my feet, something that Jane suggests as well, and I will take her up on.

Posted by at 4:59 AM | Permalink | Comments (26) | TrackBacks (0)

Really. Things are just ... nuts. So to tide you over until I can write something substantive, a wonderful quote by Ann Patchett.

Starting a novel isn't so different from starting a marriage. The dreams you pin on these people are enormous.

Ann wrote The Magician's Assistant, one of my favorite novels. Certainly on my top ten contemporary novel list. Here's a short excerpt:

In Los Angeles, every day came with a series of tasks: Pick up the Bactrim, deliver the condominium complex, lunch at Canter's, take the rabbit to the vet. There were things she had to maintain, like the magic. Parsifal had told her in the very beginning, for magic to work it had to be a habit. Magic was food, it was sleep. Neglect made her awkward. She spun three balls in one hand while she brushed her teeth with the other. Add to that her job, the panes of glass that needed to be cut, sheets of grass to be painted. On the walls of her studio were tacked-up drawings of buildings she would not get to for months, two dimensions she was to pull into three. Sabine made lists, things to buy, things to make, things to practice. All day long the list propelled her forward. When she went to bed at night her mind would reel through all she had forgotten, all the things there hadn't been time for. It had been like this even when she was a child, going from Hebrew school to painting class to ballet, working her math problems in the evenings, and then setting the table for dinner.

It wasn't like that in Nebraska.

She slept. She memorized the black lines of the branches that brushed against the storm windows of Parsifal's bedroom. She waited for Dot and Bertie to come home. She waited for Kitty and the boys. They were regular, punctual. She shaped herself around their coming and going. The house was clean, but when she was alone she cleaned it again. She read half of The Joy of Cooking and then made a cake from scratch, a daffodil cake. She chose the recipe because it was tedious and complicated and because she could find all the ingredients. She used every egg. In the garage, leaning alone in a corner, she found a snow shovel with a red handle and flat tin bed. She put on her boots and hat and gloves and went outside to shovel the front walk. Then she shoveled the driveway. Sabine had never shoveled snow before. Every load surprised her with its weight, all those tiny flakes. She remembered reading somewhere that men were much more likely to have heart attacks and that it was better for women to shovel snow. What a way to die, pitching over into the soft bank, freezing there until your family came outside to find you. Her back hurt, a pain in a previously unknown muscle. She could feel the blisters rubbing beneath her soft lambskin gloves. Sabine shoveled sidewalks well into the neighbors' property on either side. When she was finished, she went in and worked herself out of her clothes, which were stiff with ice. She sat in a hot bath and shook from the cold. Her toes were wrinkled, white and numb. Outside, it was starting to snow again.

The problem with taking these few minutes to recommend a book I love to you is this: I have to stay focused on my work, but now I want to go read this novel again.

Posted by at 11:12 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

Today, this feels exactly right.

The writer's way is rough and lonely and who would choose it while there are vacancies in more gracious professions, such as, say cleaning ferryboats?

                     Dorothy Parker

Back to work. work. work.

Posted by at 3:01 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

Over on the forum they've got a long thread going, a trivia contest about the Wilderness novels. I'm rather surprised at the detailed questions that are being posed and answered. They're having fun with it, seems to me.

Also, today I found a stack of signed manuscript pages I thought I sent out last week. So if you're waiting for yours, I apologize. They'll go in tomorrow's mail.

Posted by at 6:14 PM | Permalink | Comments (2) | TrackBacks (0)

Jane from Dear Author responded to yesterday's longer post with a clarification of her position on an earlier discussion at Smart Bitches:

You stated that one of the things that frustrated you was that a reviewer had no accountability.

Third: What really pisses me off about this is that the reviewer has no accountability. They can read the ARC or not, write a review or not, publish it anonymously and do a hatchet job if they so please—and to top it all off, they sell the damn thing BEFORE it’s published. This really is adding insult to injury.

I just didn't get why the reviewer owes accountability to the author if they receive an ARC. That is what I referred to with the comment about "outraged entitlement."

Let me point out that I never said that the reviewer is accountable to the author. Is it your position that the reviewer is accountable to nobody at all? Because that would be odd. At the very least I would say a reviewer is accountable to the readers. I would also argue that a reviewer is accountable to the publishing house that gives him or her an ARC, but in a different and more limited way.

There's a communal understanding about the responsibilities attached to any job. If you read job ads, you know without a lot of explanation what is meant by 'French teacher' or 'office manager' or 'hair stylist'. I'd venture to say that pretty much anybody could produce a list of responsibilities that goes along with these jobs. Some of those things are specific to the position and industry (a hair stylist needs to be licensed, and to know how to use hair dyes, for example), and some are more universal. In an advertisement for a recovery room nurse, a mailroom assistant, a cook, a garbage collector there are a lot of things that aren't necessarily spelled out. Honesty, for example. Respect for the privacy of clients or customers. Basic courtesy and manners.

So the reviewer's responsibilities depend in the first line on the nature of his or her employment. Somebody who works for a newspaper as a book reviewer is responsible to their employer to uphold the standards of that publication and is also accountable to the readers. Some of the assumptions:

• a serious reviewer will sign his or her review, and take responsibility for it;
• the reviewer provides a thoughtful commentary;
• he or she doesn't spoil things by revealing major plot twists;
• the reviewer's opinion can't be directly bought (accepting money or favors in return for an excellent or terrible review);
• the reviewer will reveal any connections that are relevant to understanding the context in which the review is written (for example, she went to school with the author, or the author once turned her down for a job, or the author is the publisher of the newspaper in which the review is appearing);
• the reviewer focuses on the work in question, and doesn't indulge in ad hominem attacks.

Of course a reviewer can meet all these assumptions and still write a bad review. To me a bad review is one that provides no constructive criticism and no real point of view.

When publishers send ARCs to newspapers and magazines for review, there are some additional assumptions:

• the newspaper is under no obligation to assign the book for review;
• if the ARC is assigned it will be to a reviewer who is familiar with the subject area or approach, and can provide some real insight;
• the publisher knows, when the ARC is sent, that the review (if it appears) may not be positive;
• the reviewer knows not to publish extracts from an ARC (which is uncorrected, after all) without checking with the editor first;
• the publisher is providing the ARC for a specific purpose. If the newspaper doesn't review the book for whatever reason, they are not obliged to return the ARC to the publisher;
• the ARC is not meant to be sold for a profit, whether or not a review is published.

In my own case (but I suspect this is true of many authors), a reviewer who ignores this last point is suspect. If a reviewer looks at a pile of ARCs as a source of income, it's hard not to doubt his or her professionalism in other parts of the process. I know that was long winded, but I needed to establish that before I could make my point, which is this:

There are two kinds of freelance reviewers. Professionals whose reviews will end up in print someplace or another, and for payment; and those who review books just because they like the review process. Most of the reviews you read on weblogs fall into this last category. That is, people who most probably bring a lot of enthusiasm to the review process but little sense of the greater context.

And before people jump all over me: that's not necessarily a bad thing. It's great to have people discussing books in this new format. Everybody is entitled to an opinion, and in this technological age, they are perfectly free to make that opinion publically available.

• signs his or her review;
• reveals any relationship to the author or subject matter that is relevant to understanding the reviewer's position;
• provides honest and thoughtful constructive criticism;
• can't be bribed;
• doesn't indulge in ad hominem attacks or commentary outside the scope of the book in question.

There's something obvious missing from this list: the matter of tone. In fact, a good review doesn't have to be polite, the tone doesn't have to be courteous, the reviewer doesn't have to show respect for the author. The reviewer can be angry, or enthusiastic. These are matters of personal style and tone. I have no problem with an angry or pointed review as long as it stops short of hostility; in fact, I would prefer anger and sharp criticism to faint praise or faux enthusiasm.

Posted by at 10:22 AM | Permalink | Comments (7) | TrackBacks (0)

I haven't been posting very much about writing. There are all sorts of reasons, most of which I've mentioned before and won't bring up again for fear of Protesting Too Much.

However, there are other people who are posting tons of interesting things about storytelling and publishing. I just spent a half hour (and could have spent a lot more time) over at Alison Kent's weblog.

Lots of good questions raised, for example this one by one of her readers:

How do you like your romantic resolutions? Must the couple be headed toward marriage? Or are you satisfied to know they’ve resolved their biggest issues and can move forward in the relationship?

I've been wanting to ask this question for the longest time, and now there it is. I stopped myself before I opened up the comments to see what people had to say. Because I have to go back to Halloween in South Carolina.

Posted by at 10:05 PM | Permalink | Comments (3) | TrackBacks (0)

I've been thinking about this for quite a long time, but I haven't been brave enough or focused enough to write about it. Today I'm going to try. If you're reading this, I decided to go ahead and post.

So the internet is changing everything, and quickly. Other watershed moments in technological history have also brought about big changes, sure. But the full impact of the printing press took a couple decades to really be felt, while the internet tossed everything into the air straight away -- and keeps tossing.

For an author the internet is mostly a blessing. Research, communication with agent and editors, marketing, all those things are much easier. Keeping in touch with readers is now possible in ways never even imagined twenty years ago. This is good.

The democratic nature of the internet means that anybody with the time, interest and access can become active in the community of readers and writers. Also good. The vibrancy and creativity of the fanfiction communities is a direct result of the internet. The many people with stories to tell and no other way to get them out there have created in ezines and ebooks. And people are writing about the books they read, and making their thoughts public for response and discussion.

It really is all good.

But with all this access and communication come complications. The ability to state an opinion quickly to a large audience has got more than one person into a tricky spot. Various romance authors could tell you more about this from personal experience. A person takes a stand, ruffles feathers, and the debate goes into hyperdrive. With the help of the internet, authors are having to be as careful as actors about the statements they make publically -- if they worry about offending and driving off readers. Tom Cruise is learning the hard way that trumpeting his opinions on how new mothers should deal with post partum depression in a condescending and mean spirited way hurts his reputation and ticket sales. Some authors have offended readers by making public their frustrations about ARCs being sold on ebay.

An author sets up a website, maybe a discussion forum, a FAQ page. He or she stays in contact with the readers by posting about work in progress, or matters of craft, the business in general, and to a greater or lesser degree, his or her personal life. The purpose of all this, though it is not often stated directly, is to keep the readers aware and interested in the long stretch between books, to win new readers, and to stay afloat in a difficult business. The internet and the author website are marketing tools like no other.

Readers set up websites too, to talk about the genre they are most interested in, the business, particular books, and authors. They review books, and review other reviewers. Some of these sites are very unstructured; anybody can (and does) submit a review; there's no editorial process at all. Some of them are very structured, the product or one or a few people who set themselves the task of making thoughtful reviews available for other people. There are also people active in other aspects of the business who keep weblogs that record what their professional lives are like. Booksellers, agents, editors, librarians -- there are dozens of weblogs written by people in all aspects of the business.

Some reviewers have come to see themselves as watchdogs with a singular purpose: to keep track of authors not as writers, but as individuals. Readers can visit weblogs that report about writers who misbehave (and note, please, the choice of word, which implies a certain childishness and need for supervision). There are reader weblogs where it seems the primary motivation is to vent against authors who are not responsive enough, or too responsive. I have read posts and comments where readers declare that authors need to be taken down a peg, that authors are self absorbed prima donnas. Jane at Dear Author responded to a post on the ARC question at Smart Bitches in no uncertain terms:

...The reviewer owes the author nothing. NOTHING. Is the author paying for the review? Is the reviewer somehow indebted to the author? How does the reviewer owe anything to the author? WHy the sense of outraged entitlement? [...] Readers do not owe authors anything either. We do not have to read the books. We do not have to buy the books. We can choose to engage in swaps, buy from UBS, or lend them from the library. We are not responsible for feeding anyone’s children, sending them to college or in anyway supporting an author unless we so desire. Jaysus, as Kel, said, get over yourselves. ...

And of course, she's right. No one is obliged to buy or support any particular author. An individual can chose to read what he or she likes, in any format available. To buy everything new in hardcover, or everything used for the lowest possible price, without concern for the author's financial welfare or career. These statements are true.

But now compare two other weblog posts. First from Todd Goldberg on his personal observations at a conference where another author behaved very badly indeed. the second post about Authors Behaving Badly is by Diane at Nobody Knows Anything. This is a look at a few big name authors who have embarrassed themselves publically by responding inappropriately to criticism.

All these stories are fascinating in a car-crash kind of way, and both Diane and Todd are clear about how distasteful they find such behaviors, but there's no bile or mockery in the way the information is shared. There is no pandering, but there's also a distinct lack of hostility.

Do authors behave badly? Sure. Is that a fair topic for discussion? Absolutely. What I'm bothered by is this tendency toward commentary seeped in disrespect for an author's work, career and person. An author who shows public disrespect for readers is foolish and self destructive (because readers will vote with their feet). On the other hand, it seems to be increasingly acceptable for readers to go after authors in ways that go beyond honest and constructive criticism. A reader has nothing to lose, after all, and doesn't have to worry about repercussions beyond the loss of weblog readers, which is almost irrelevant. If you don't look at your webtraffic stats, you won't know if you're driving people away. And you are free not to care, in any case.

Of course, the difficult and often thorny relationship between reviewers and authors is not new. What I find unsettling and unfortunate is the way the worst aspects of that relationship are intensifying with the help of the internet.

For clarity's sake, I want to state that constructive reviews (postive and negative) are important, and while no author likes to get a negative review, that goes along with the territory and must be borne, no matter how biased or unfair the review might seem. The majority of websites that focus on reviewing books take great efforts to be fair, even handed, and professional.

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She's home again safe and sound, with many good stories to tell; and I'm pooped.

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Don't mess with Smart Bitch Candy unless your logic and reasoning is rock solid. Because if you make narrow-minded, discrimnatory, moronic statements and follow them up with more moronic statements in defence of the original asshattery, she will take you apart. And she doesn't pull punches.

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The internet is my friend.

It saves me a great deal of time and trouble when it comes to research, to finding references, quotations, books. It has relieved me of the onerous need to go clothes shopping. It has introduced me to like-minded women who have become good friends. It provides me with news that I can trust (if I look hard enough, and carefully enough, and compare). When the newscasters and politicians are lying through their teeth, somebody on the internet will be providing a different perspective and hopefully, at least some part of the truth. Or at least a laugh. The internet shows me movie previews and clips from broadcasts I missed, but wished I hadn't. It lets me find a good, cheap hotel room (again, if I know how to look) and tickets to Spamalot for my daughter. It shows me photographs of places I have never been and probably will never go, taken by people who are more adventurous than I am. It distracts me when I'm edge and unsettled. It brings me notes from friends who are far away, from relatives I rarely see, and a way to respond without the pressure of an open phone line. It is the way I talk to the people who buy and/or read my books, to my editor and agent, even to my husband, two floors away in his own office.

The internet is not my friend.

Procrastination is a binary proposition. Will I work, yes or no? The internet provides a thousand ways and reasons to step away. Link by link, inch by inch, it draws me further away. It introduces me to people who write beautifully about things that are important to me, who provide perspective on what is going on in the world. These people are far more interesting to me than working, or cleaning up the kitchen.

It is very hard to resist the temptations of the internet. I try to restrict myself to reading the feeds I have setup on Bloglines, but sometimes I am weak. Just recently I added Teach Me Tonight, "Musings on Romance Fiction from an Academic Perspective". Six academics talking seriously about romance fiction; a sinkhole of interesting, relevant posts on matters of professional importance, written by a group of six academics.

The internet is merciless. What would I do without it?

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There are a couple of new things in the right hand column. The most interesting, to my mind, is a new LibraryThing widget that searches my whole library. Try it, it's fun to watch the way it transforms.

At one point I had a list of five random titles from the 'favorite novels' list -- is that of any interest?

And now I have to get back to Greenbriar, where it's almost Halloween and Dodge is has painted himself into a corner.

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and very funny.

Have a look at highlights from a disturbing clipart collection. Do not, under any circumstances, skip part two.

I had dreams about this stuff. Very odd.

As I can't remember where in the heck I first saw this link some time ago, I can't credit that person, for which I apologize.

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At various times I have written here about the issue of genre, literary pretentions, and gatekeeping. When I was active in academics my work and reputation had nothing to do with literary criticism, but quite a lot to do with the way social networks are constructed and maintained. The evolution of romance over the last twenty or thirty years is something that interests me.

These days there are literary scholars out there who are looking more directly at romance. Laura Vivanco has a website dedicated to Modern Romance Scholarship, and there are others as well. There's a large listserve where people interested in the genre can discuss it.

And now Vivanco and Eric Murphy Selinger have put out a call for papers. They're putting together an edited collection of essays called "Nothing but Good Times Ahead: the novels of Jennifer Crusie".

There's nothing unusual in academia about putting together a conference or book that focuses on analysis and discussion of the work of one author. What is new (and welcome) is the fact that in this instance, the author not only writes romance novels, but also is one of the genre's best and most eloquent representatives. And she's funny.

The radiant Robyn Bender sent me the headsup. I had been aware of the listserve, without ever venturing into the discussion.

What went through my head when I read this call for papers was this: oh yeah. I remember this. When I was a full time professor, I wrote two or three submissions a year, usually for conference papers in my area of specialization. After enough time in academics you can put together a proposal without a lot of work. You send it off, and if it gets accepted, you sit down and put it together. I probably did forty or so submissions and wrote up thirty of them. Sometimes academics write up a proposal for less than ideal reasons. Say, the conference is taking place in Paris. Or Hawai'i (although this is less likely for linguists; orthodontists and real estate agents go to places like Hawai'i. Linguists go to Urbana, Walla Walla, Tallahassee.) A few of my submissions that turned into conference presentations and/or published papers (the ones I could grab most quickly from my harddrive):

Normal People with a Normal Language: Accent, Standard Language Ideology and Discriminatory Pretext in the U.S. Courts (Glasgow, Law & Society Annual Meeting 1996)

Social Class, Authority, and the Origins of a Standard Language Ideology for Sixteenth Century German (Toronto, MLA, 1993)

Language Ideology, Appropriacy Arguments and the 'Language of Wider Communication' (Orlando, AAAL, 1997)

Definitely Not Technicolor: Ethnicity, Race and the Shadow of Language Ideology in Disney Animated Film (NYU, 1997)

Standard Language Ideology in the News Media: The Propagation of Negative Linguistic Stereotypes (Stanford, NWAVE 1994)

So should I dash off a submission about Jennie's work? I've certainly given it a lot of thought. I would have something to contribute, or at least, I like to think I would. But most likely I won't do this. Not because it doesn't interest me -- it does. Besides the time crunch factor, it's a matter of mind set. I left academics a full five years ago. I'm not sure I could pick up again so easily.

However. I will look forward to reading what other people come up with.

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Last year (or maybe the year before) there was an internet hoax on April 1: the announcement of a sequel to Pretty in Pink with the original actors playing their original roles.

Why somebody thought that would make a good April Fool's Day joke, I'm not sure. I don't even know how I feel about the idea of such a sequel, beyond the usual worry that a sequel would stink, as most sequels do.

Oddly enough, the story stuck in my head and kept cropping up today. You've got Andie, Duckie, and the two preppie guys, Blaine and whatever the James Spader character was called. I'll use Bob for the moment. The question is obviously: who did she end up with, how long did it last, and where is she now? And with whom?

I've got some ideas. You?

This is how fan fiction gets started, by the way.

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The ultimate Brat Pack movie, less deep but more entertaining than say, Breakfast Club.

/note/ Really, I'm not so interested in arguing the relative merits of the Brat Pack movies, so can we just leave it at that? /note/

So this evening I sat here taking care of paperwork and watching this movie, and two things came to mind. Okay, more than two:

1. Of all the main characters, James Spader is probably the one who is still most visible (although Jon Cryer is pretty busy too, looking at IMDB). Spader has made a name for himself on Boston Legal (in which he really is good) but looking at him now, I feel really, really old. Maybe because I am getting old, okay. But movies like this, released in 1986 when I was 30, really drive the point home. So you see, James Spader, then and now. He was 26 when this movie was released.

2. Duck-Man. Duckie, as seen here with Andie. Absolutely the all time best Geek, ever. What in the hell was Andie thinking, passing up Duckie for Andrew McCarthy? Duckie had style. Duckie could dance. Really, this movie had two major flaws: Andie should have ended up with Duckie; and:

3. That prom dress. You see only part of it in this shot, but that's enough to make my point. This is the dress they made such a big deal about, that Andie designed herself and made out of two other (supposedly lesser) dresses. Andie, who stands out in the blah 1986 high school crowd for her quirkiness and fashion sense, constructs the fuuugliest prom dress ever, and all the males in the movie fall all over themselves admiring it. Where was Annie Potts when Andie really needed her? Annie would have told her the truth about that gotawful dress. I post it here for purposes of general ridicule.

So I've had a productive day and now I've had a rant (and it is, coincidentally, Smart Bitches Day). So I'm going to bed.

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