Post Offices Hate Babies
My favorite citizen campaign site yet. (Via Ed.)
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Getting Things Done
That would be my Siouxsie-pale hands literally attacking the keyboard for the next month. Yesterday I turned in the last packet of the third semester for my MFA program. And saving my advisor’s response and a bunch of paperwork, that means I now have a month off. The next residency begins in scenic Montpelier on July 9.
During the semester, I finished a 16,000 or so word critical thesis (called, perhaps boringly, "Eye for a God’s Eye: The Bold Choice of the Omniscient Point of View in Fiction for Young Adults"), which, while it took me away from fiction for a good chunk of time, also turned out to be a tremendous learning experience. (Oh god, did I really just use the words "learning experience"? My apologies. I’ll get back to the hedonistic kind forthwith.) I also wrote about 16,000 words on a new (old) project, oddly enough using the omniscient POV–or the OPOV, as I now call it, which is, thus far, an even bigger learning experience. (Last time I use that term, I swear.) And did brief annotations for somewhere north of 50 books that I read, mostly not including the theory books I read bits and pieces of for the thesis. My advisor, the fabulous Leda Schubert, who is so smart her brain may actually throw off sparks at times, kept the faith and prodded me forward and endured the whining that comes from serving on two juries (the Tiptree and the Cybils) during the same period of time as writing a thesis and doing freelance stuff and the normal day job/life stuff, etcetera.
I’m saying this because I have a nasty tendency to only focus on what I haven’t done. Which, in this case, is to revise the novel I wrote during my first two semesters. I managed to do a bit of it, but for the most part it got set aside. (This will undoubtedly turn out to be a good thing, but some of us like to enforce insane standards for ourselves, or at least indulge in self-flagellation.) Anyway, that brings me back to attacking the keyboard. Doselle–whose ear I bent for far too long one night in Madison, answering the innocent inquiry "so what are you working on?"–will be glad to hear that I plan to take this month to Finish That Damn Novel.
Yesterday I printed out the first draft and got my pen and notebook ready. Mostly, I already know what needs doing, but I’m sure some other stuff will occur to me coming back fresh to it. The most major surgery is writing a new ending, but I know what the right ending is and that’s always the hardest part. For the next month, that’s what I’ll be doing. And then I will send it off to my genius first readers, who will tell me how to make it even better, and then I will send it to some agents.
But, first, the finishing of a coherent draft. 
What I won’t be doing this month is taking on any freelance assignments, saying yes to anything optional, keeping up with e-mail or returning phone calls in a timely manner. I’ve already downsized my feedreader subscriptions by about a hundred (so if something really important is happening in your life and I should know, e-mail me). One of the most important things I know about my own proclivities is that I require time to goof off, in fairly large measure, when I’m working really hard on something. So I will be playing Defend Your Castle (yay, Wii Ware!) and making it through the last couple of seasons of Angel (after getting bogged down by that whole Darla’s return storyline) and catching a stray movie and posting random stuff here and going out to dinner and that kind of thing.
I will just also be working very hard on making le novel and not keeping up with some stuff. Wish me luck and fortitude.
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What He Said
John Green, after reading the second volume of M.T. Anderson’s Octavian Nothing:
Octavian is that rare work of fiction in which the heat cannot be separated from the light. You don’t come across great new novels very often, books that–if they get lucky–could be read generations from now. Octavian is an accomplishment of that magnitude, although while reading the book, I was usually far too involved in it to contemplate its greatness. But now that I’m done, I can say: This is the best contemporary fiction I have read in a long time.
That sums it up. These two novels are unbearably brilliant, brutally significant work.
Monday Hangovers
- Charlie Jane Anders on the tyranny of the overused "grimly" in science fiction over at i09.
- Daniel Pinkwater discusses bears and children’s books on NPR.
- An elephant funeral. (Via Dave.)
- Found in books.
- Kassia with a reminder that reading is fun. Well said, chica.
- Laini puts our neighborhood issues in perspective. Wowza. Backyard fight club: Anyway, primary renter guy is back for the summer, and his first act, apparently, is fight club. Jim said to me last night after taking Leroy out into the yard: "I think they built a boxing ring in the backyard." It hardly seemed plausible, though it did indeed look like nothing but a boxing ring. I thought it was probably too much to hope they were staking out a vegetable garden! And this morning, the usual posse of friends assembled and started to grow. And grow. And grow. And then the boxing gloves came out. And the hitting. And the cheering, and the dinging of bells. Goth chicks with mohawks and neck braces on the porch cheering. Beer.
- The book a year cycle: "There’s pressure to treat authors like Coca Cola," said California thriller writer Brad Meltzer, who was asked to publish once a year but refused. "Every time you get a bunch of writers together, this is all they complain about. The trend is, ‘How many books can you put out?’ From building your reputation to get on the best-seller list, it’s gone to trying to get to the tippy-top of the list. It’s not worth it to me."
- Good article on urban fantasy at School Library Journal. (Via.)
- "The Rise of Fan Fiction and Comic Book Culture."
- I love it when Justine posts about sports. Here she is offering some thoughts on the WNBA’s Becky Hammon playing for Russia in the Olympics.
1930s Style
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100 As a 1930s husband, I am |
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-18 As a 1930s wife, I am |
(Via Hannah.)
Friday Hangovers
- Orson Scott Card and the appeal of Ender’s Game discussed yet again. (Via Ypulse.) I still say more people should read John Kessel’s excellent, provocative analysis of its appeal, and the problem with the underlying morality in the book. Or, alternately, just read John’s collection and skip Card altogether.
- William Gibson is coming to our local bookstore in support of the paperback release of Spook Country next week. The local books columnist has a post about it, including some interview snippets wherein he recommends books by Junot Diaz and Charles Stross. I like this: Gibson says he only wants to read "science fiction that couldn’t have been written 10 years ago."
- Niall Harrison thoughtfully reviews Dave Schwartz’s Superpowers — just out in the U.K, and soon in the U.S. My recent interview with Dave is here.
- Justine Musk has a great quote about writers from Brian McDonald’s Last Call at Elaine’s, but I’ll send you there to read it. See also: Her recent post about meeting Coldplay and selling another book; her blog is always a fun read.
- Justine says don’t hate the famous. I don’t even care about the famous. I reserve my hatred for evil politicos, and my affection (mostly) for people I know.
- Sarah Rees Brennan has a great, hilarious post about finding the science fiction she could grok, and requesting suggestions for more like that.
- The lost rivers of London.
- Colleen on a shady-seeming new paid book blog tour site.
Blonde Jokes & Bad Girls
I just finished Bennett Madison‘s new novel The Blonde of the Joke, which in his words is about "skanky shoplifters searching for the Holy Grail at the mall." It is SO good. With this book, he’s pulled off something so difficult to do; as I told a friend in e-mail, it satisfyingly blurs the line between realism and the fantastic in a way that’s still rare. It’s a realistic novel, but flirting with being something else, flirting heavily, and in the process becoming its own unique, perfect thing. Beautifully written, too.
It pairs fabulously with E. Lockhart‘s equally awesome The Disreputable History of Frankie Landau Banks (about which more in the sidebar to the right, or see Jules and Eisha’s excellent co-review). Lockhart’s fable of a girl coming into her own by secretly taking over a secret society never simplifies or skirts gender issues and power dynamics. Frankie gets to be realistic instead of a treatise disguised as a character.
Both these books show writers hitting their top game. Blonde releases in September, but you should get your hands on a copy of Disreputable History immediately.
There will be proper book posts around this place at some point, perhaps after I finish my final packet of the semester next Monday. (Of course, after that I’ll be feverishly finishing this d*$! novel for my month off, but I’ll try to do better anyway. And the Octavian Nothing sequel deserves a proper post, because it is BRILLIANT.)
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Hidden Treasure
The NYT has a story about a trunk of junk bought at a yard sale in Kentucky that turned out to be full of correspondence and prints by Weegee, the (in)famous New York photog. One letter sent from Munich reads:
"Looks like the picture won’t be finished on time," the letter explains. "It rains every day and we can’t find 2 midgets, so it looks like I’ll be here at least 2 more weeks."
Still mysterious is how the trunk ended up in Kentucky in the first place.
Semi-Catty Aside
Frey has officially dipped a toe into the waters of simultaneously banal and TMI blogging:
I am not a fashionable guy. I wear, and have for a long time, adidas shoes, khakis, white t-shirts.
The book recommendation that follows sounds possibly good, but the street cred is blown. Oh. Wait.
We can at least hope that these are a rotating cast of identical clothes and he isn’t Heidi–ing* it up.
Monday Hangovers
- Tom Waits interviewed. (Via Meghan.)
- A couple of Wiscon panel write-ups: Coffee and Ink has the goods on the ending panel and Merovingian chronicles the world-building hijincks panel.
- YA authors seeking 7 figure advances for adult novels.
- Is there an opposite to absolute zero? (Via Matt.)
- I want The Gone-Away World by Nick Harkaway based on this post; is it coming out here anytime soon? Aha, September.
- Ann Hornaday on classic movies about women in the city making their way.
- Gone Baby Gone is a really good movie. No link, I’m just saying.
- Cecil from BEA; Carolyn and others from BEA at Jacket Copy.
- Alas, carnivals dying out.
- Erin’s back! Sorta.
- Guys Lit Wire is live. GO THERE IMMEDIATELY. (Seriously.) Also, here’s Colleen’s post about the making of the site. (In short, there will be lots of content from a host of regular posters aimed at getting teen boys to books they’ll want to read; I’ll be contributing occasionally too. I strongly suspect that this site will be a good read even if you’re not a teenage boy and don’t care if they read. Plus, so pretty. Read it, link it!)