Happy 2014:catching up

I closed my editing business to have a chance to work on my own writing for awhile. It was a difficult decision and an easy one at the same time. But that means I can come here more often and talk about writing, reading, books, authors, the business, and all that other stuff.

I keep promising a post on Adults Who Enjoy YA Books, and, since Goodreads has begin censoring reader posts per new policies instituted in September of 2013, I'll probably weigh in on that too. I've already posted here about butthurt, whingey authors here and also here who flame readers for posting negative reviews, but *sigh* since so many authors feel they just have to pee in someone else's sandbox, I'll have to revisit that.

Still trapped under heavy stuff

I'm still getting quite a few pageviews despite not having posted anything since November (that's when my editing business really started taking off), so I decided to stick my head in the door and update the three of you who may be following this blog on a regular basis.

First, I'm still working on my own YA sci-fi, but extremely slowly as other people's edits are currently taking precedence. They're paying me, after all.

The promised YA post hasn't materialized yet--I agonize over every word, so these posts actually take awhile to craft before I feel they're worthy of being read.

Neil Gaiman's The Ocean at the End of the Lane comes out June 18 (cover your ears while I let out a fangirl squeeeee). Okay, I'm done. He is such a generous author; anyone who ordered an advance copy (me!) gets an autographed first edition. Links here (containing advance reviews and tour dates). Denver, where my sister lives, and Seattle, where my daughter lives, are on the list. He's not going to be anywhere near enough my neck of the woods, unfortunately *sadface* and here. The second link is an earlier post, from which you can order advance copies. Oh, that reminds me: I have to go order Unnatural Creatures and finally get around to reading Anansi Boys. 

ALSO: PIMPING MY TABS:

I worked very hard on the Characterizations posts as well as the Revision Strategies, although the latter can certainly afford some tweakage now that I've been editing semi-professionally for awhile. But I am quite proud of the Characterizations essays, particularly as concerns female characters. So, in the absence of new posts every week, you can always read these.

AND: BEST STUFF READ so far THIS YEAR:

Just finished A. L. Kennedy's The Blue Book and Barbara Kingsolver's Prodigal Summer. Literary/realistic fiction is my first love and it was nice to come back to them.  Our school is participating in the 50 Book Challenge; of course the teachers are encouraged to participate as well; but having been fed a steady diet of YA most of this year, I decided to be a rebel and choose what I wanted to read for the last two months of the school year.  So there. I write reviews of most books I read, so if you want my take, head to my Goodreads "READ" shelf and see what I wrote. Review of Kingsolver forthcoming, since I only finished it yesterday.

Best YA read this year:

Far and away, hands-down, leaves-all-others-in-the-dust: Jellicoe Road the US title for On The Jellicoe Road by Melina Marchetta.  Doesn't condescend, handles teen sexuality tastefully but realistically, the prose is lanky but controlled.  Worth reading twenty-five other mediocre books to have found this one.

Thanks for stopping by.

Where I've been lately. Also, YA fiction

Trapped under something heavy.  Actually, several somethings.

 I'm teaching two new classes this year and have taken on several new editing clients, four within a week of each other. I've got my eye on a sweet DSLR camera that goes off special at my local Costco the end of the month.  And some of my pet political projects keep e-mailing me, asking for money. I keep obliging them because my future and the future of my children and grandchildren are very important, and I have definite ideas how that should be brought about. So I take on more work. And my students keep writing essays. And I neglect this blog because sleeping, eating, taking care of my home and family can't be put on "pause" and made to wait till later. Also, watching an occasional "Grimm" or "Supernatural" episode helps keep me sane. Judgers to the left.

I am working on a huge tirade on Young Adult / Teen / whatever they're calling fiction aimed at 11 to 18-year-olds this week, because this ball keeps rolling since the Joel Stein column appeared in the NY Times back in March. I'm not expecting you to read all 400+ comments, but some of them are a scream. I've read some of the of the supposedly "adult" authors touted by some of the commenters.  Just because the protagonist is over 18 and has naughty sex with anything that moves doesn't make a novel, its story, its subject matter, or its author "mature." In fact, I've read some very "juvenile" fiction supposedly aimed at adult audiences. David Brin? Tom Clancy? E. L. James? Holy triple crap! So, Stein, talk to the hand.

And I'll be back with more on this later.  I hope.

Just when you thought the publishing world couldn't sink any lower or become any more ridiculous

First , we read about authors who create sockpuppets (here and here) or simply enlist friends, fellow writers, and relatives to either write rave reviews on their books or to defend the books from particularly negative (or insightful) reviewers.

Then, we read that, in order to be a successful author in today's dog-eat-dog online and self-publishing world, where so many more authors are getting their work known without the help of an agent or a bricks-and-mortar publishing house, you need to have a "brand." Doesn't matter if your stuff is any good--this could be a zero draft you're hitting the "publish" button on; a logo, a tagline, catchy cover art, will get your name known, and the aforementioned sockpuppets and friends who are willing to post raves for you on Amazon and Goodreads will "build" your brand. It's just good business sense.

But why go to all that trouble?  Why enlist friends and family, promise them brownies with extra frosting or free copies of your book, and create multiple accounts to post positive reviews of your own work when you can.. .

. . .wait for it. . .

Buy reviews for your books online? No, I am not making this up. You can find these services online, and they are growing in number. The business referred to in the linked Times article has gone bust, but a quick Google search to the effect of "book reviews for sale" nets some interesting results.

Yes, aspiring writers, gone are the days of honing your craft, refining your art, sweating over multiple drafts of your work, earning honest reviews by people who actually read your book. Skip all that attention to craftsmanship or the goal of telling your audience a great story and giving them characters with whom they actually want to make the journey. Pay a professional hack and don't worry about having worked for and earned positive reviews.

Happy Belated 113th Birthday, Jose Luis Borges

The last two weeks have been for me a flurry of activity, with the start of a new school year and the hours of preparation; the finding of my sea legs is still in progress. Also, a huge editing job landed in my lap, so the weekly post didn't happen last week. I even overlooked all my Google Reader feeds, which I manage to check, if not daily, at least every two days or so.  I don't share much poetry here, because I don't want to fall into the trap of the quick-and-dirty copypaste blog post. But this week I'm making an exception.

So, happy belated 113th birthday (August 24) to Argentine author Jorge Luis Borges.

You Learn

After a while you learn the subtle difference
Between holding a hand and chaining a soul,

And you learn that love doesn’t mean leaning
And company doesn’t mean security.

And you begin to learn that kisses aren’t contracts
And presents aren’t promises,

And you begin to accept your defeats
With your head up and your eyes open
With the grace of a woman, not the grief of a child,

And you learn to build all your roads on today
Because tomorrow’s ground is too uncertain for plans
And futures have a way of falling down in mid-flight.

After a while you learn…
That even sunshine burns if you get too much.

So you plant your garden and decorate your own soul,
Instead of waiting for someone to bring you flowers.

And you learn that you really can endure…

That you really are strong

And you really do have worth…

And you learn and learn…

With every good-bye you learn.

This poem was inscribed on the inside cover of many a girl's notebook in my high school. Before the interwebs, this was our version of "going viral."

"The Great American Novel": My humble (of course!) opinion

A couple of years ago, the question, "Which American novels would you recommend to a European who is trying to understand American literature and the American experience?"  was asked on a message board of an online book community. Suggestions were for the usual touchstones--Hawthorne, Melville, Faulkner, Steinbeck,  Vonnegut, et. al. One person suggested some dystopian fiction. Some even suggested Ayn Rand. Though she wasn't born here, she resonated, and continues to do so, with American narcissists and pseudo-intellectuals.If there is an afterlife, I'm betting Sartre, Descartes, and Socrates aren't inviting her for coffee. "Life's too short to read bad books." Unless you get huge giggles from trashing them.

So, here are my picks for Great American Novels, by time period, using the criteria above:

Can an artist and a brand co-exist peacefully in the same writer?

Once upon a time, aspiring authors were advised to simply hone their craft, work hard, try and try again, rewrite, submit their manuscripts, deal with rejection, dig deep to find the great story ideas, and eventually they'd get an agent, a book deal, an audience. In the past few years, however, they have also been advised to work on creating a "brand" so people will buy their books. The reasoning behind this is that an author is like a small business, and with so many options for being published, with so much competition among writers, creating a logo or a theme, and, in some cases, sticking to a specific genre as part of your "brand" is going to increase your visibility in a very crowded marketplace.

There are authors who publish under several names, creating a "brand" for each one:  giving their romance-writing persona a lyrical name like Lydia des Rosiers, their historical-fiction writing one a German or Anglo-Saxon or Celtic or name like Michael McCorrigan, their suspense-writing persona something similarly laden with plosives. Their mystery/suspense/thriller persona might even have a Balto-Slavic surname full of Z's and K's. They finally write a memoir or literary fiction under their own name.

The idealist in me wants to believe that if my writing is good enough, I won't need a logo or a tagline: "Creator of deep and poignant literary fiction"  "Author of thrilling mystery-suspense"; I think a good one for me might be"Welcome to my weird world" Or something.

There are so many articles out there, I can't possibly digest them all for you, so here are a few.  Read and weep--or take heed.  Your choice.

Here's one from the NY Times.
And one from a blog stating how essential branding is.
One from Writer's Digest.
And. . . .Cue my snark machine:  Building your brand in FIVE EASY STEPS! (can I get a Whoo Hoo!) (sorry folks-- I can't believe it could be this easy, okay?)

Finally, a dissenting opinion and apparently in the minority.

Is Bruce Springsteen a brand? I don't think so. Kurt Vonnegut?  No way.  In fact, I think I just heard him turn over in his grave. I'm sorry, but I still want to believe that someone who works hard to create great stories and pays his or her dues can succeed without hiring a marketing consultant. Or is that crazy talk? Should I wake up and smell the corporate coffee?