Challenge Book #14: Neuromancer
Cover of Neuromancer
Top 100 Spec Fic Reading Challenge: Book #14
Book: Neuromancer
Author: William Gibson
Readability: Moderately challenging, but gripping enough that you will ignore things to finish reading it.
Stand-out Line: “For thousands of years men dreamed of pacts with demons. Only now are such things possible. And what would you be paid with? What would your price be, for aiding this thing to free itself and grow?” — Michele, one of the Turing agents who tries to arrest Case.
Will I re-read it? No
Every now and then, a book comes along that makes you feel like a complete dumbass.
Neuromancer was just such a book for me. I’m reasonably sure after reading this book that I’m probably not smart enough to be reading science fiction. And this from a woman who slogged through Earth (David Brin) and Dune. I have been trying to figure out whether I liked this book or not, and I’m still not sure. I have to break it down a bit.
First, the plot. This is basically a heist/thriller kind of story as far as plot is concerned. It actually was pretty easy to follow the plot. I love a good heist story, and this one was taut and seamless. Structurally, I think this book is pretty much flawless. The twists and turns came at precisely the right moments, and it had the feel of a good heist movie to me. I mean, a really good heist movie.
As for characters, I thought the development of Case’s character was deftly handled and near perfect. Some of the other characters were harder to really get a grip on for me, but considering that many characters didn’t exist in the physical world, that’s not really an issue for me. The setting was hard for me, I’ll admit. I often had a hard time feeling grounded in the passage of time or in the physical locales, even though plenty of place names were used. I think this might just be a writing style thing, but I’m not sure how. In any case, I didn’t always have a good handle on where/when I was, but that only accentuated the feel of the cyber world bleeding into the real world, so I guess that’s okay.
I can see why this is such an important book for science fiction. Gibson gave us the word cyberspace, after all. This is the book where he fleshes out his idea of a bleak future where artificial intelligence and the matrix and all those other things start to blur the lines of reality and cyber-reality. When this book came out (1984), the ideas in it were fledgling at best. We had no e-mail, Internet, Facebook, WiFi, etc. Most families didn’t even have home computers yet. In context like that, this book is brilliant.
The book also reminded me of how many things science fiction and fantasy have in common. We had a fellowship of sorts in the form of Molly, Case, Armitage, the Rastas, and even, eventually, 3Jane. Case’s journey was very much a traditional hero’s journey. He even died, going into the forest/cave by himself to find the “thing” he had to find, which was a completely internal thing, by the way (inner strength, I think. He fooled the Neuromancer, basically). There was also the idea of “one true name” in the form of a password/code word that the team had to get. Gibson even used the phrase “true name.”
But . . .
Okay, it wasn’t the jargon. I could wade through the jargon. I can’t imagine trying to wade through it in 1984 without my own context–I mean, I think I only understood what I did understand of the jargon because of watching movies like The Matrix. And it wasn’t the dialect or the dense prose, either. In all honesty, I’m not sure why I felt like such a dope reading this book. The only thing I can say is that I feel like someone told a joke, and I completely missed the punchline. Or like someone left me a cryptic phone message, and if I could only figure out one more number, I’d be able to call the person back.
And even though I can say so many good things about this book, I still can’t figure out whether I liked it or not or whether I’ll read it again. I didn’t hate it. I might even recommend it to people. It’s not the weirdest book I’ve ever read (that’s a toss up between The Lathe of Heaven and One Hundred Years of Solitude, but The Sound and the Fury is the weirdest book I never finished). I liked Case, but I don’t think I liked him enough to read this story again.
Which brings me to a question . . . And this is one that comes up in any discussion of classics, too. Should we feel compelled to read things we just don’t care for because they’re in our genre, or everyone raves about them, or whatever? Because I’ll be honest: there are quite a few books in fantasy that I don’t really want to read because they’re too dark or they expect me to go to a place I don’t think I can go. Should I feel compelled to read them because I’m supposed to? Is it okay to put a book down and not finish it if it just pushes too many personal boundaries?
So I don’t know. Neuromancer didn’t really push any of my boundaries except my own estimation of my intellect. I can live with that. I’m just not sure I need to feel like a dumbass again anytime soon.
And if anyone knows the punchline, will you let me know, too?
Next up is Watchmen, by Alan Moore, but I don’t think that one would translate well to Kindle, so I’ve reserved it at the library. In the meantime, I’ll start reading I, Robot, by Asimov.
Challenge Book #13: Animal Farm
Cover of Animal Farm: Centennial Edition
Top 100 Spec Fic Reading Challenge: Book #13
Book: Animal Farm
Author: George Orwell
Readability: Fairly easy, very quick read
Stand-out Line: Have to go with the iconic one: “All animals are equal. But some animals are more equal than others.” — The 7th Commandment, revised
Will I re-read it? Probably
1984 Lite.
That was my recurring thought as I read this book–”it’s 1984, only a little less violent and more omniscient. Oh, and with animals.” Certainly the same themes and motifs run through both books–totalitarian regimes, revisionist history, thought police, class separation while the message of equality is hammered home, falsified data, betrayed revolution, etc., etc. I suppose the main difference is that Animal Farm more closely mirrors actual events in the rise of the Soviet Union, while 1984 is a cautionary dystopian tale of what would happen if a totalitarian regime kept rising in power and developing more and more technological methods to control the masses.
I was not as captivated by Animal Farm as I was by 1984. It was good, yes. Orwell was a really good writer just in the sense of craft. You never really feel out of place or time, and he doesn’t head-hop as so many authors of his era tended to do. But it may be that the more omniscient POV just didn’t really immerse me in the story the way I was immersed in Winston’s story in 1984. I also wonder if I may just be one of those folks for whom allegory isn’t really an effective story-telling method. I tend to like my allegories lighter than Animal Farm. I’m not even very well-versed in the history of the rise of the Soviet Union, and I could almost put names to many of the characters and events in the book (Major was Karl Marx/Lenin, Napoleon was Stalin, Moses the crow was the token Russian Orthodox priest…).
But despite the things that felt a little bit hammered into my head, I did enjoy the book. It was a quick read, certainly–just a little over 100 pages in paperback, more of a novella than a novel. (As an aside, I love the old days when authors could churn out novellas and call them novels or serials or whatever. I think the accessibility of e-publishing has already started us back on this trend of long short stories and novellas, and I’m excited about that.) I read it in an afternoon/evening between taxiing children, fixing dinner, and breaking up innumerable arguments. I love when I can do that. I get a great diversion, but I don’t feel bogged down by some enormous tome I have to stay up late to finish.
I suppose the biggest thing for me is that I didn’t feel like I met anyone really new. Everyone felt like a token–the token Brainwashed Worker, the token Secret Police, the token Spin Doctor, etc. I suppose that since this is allegory, Orwell didn’t really have to come up with new people–he just put animal faces on the people who already existed. And even that might be okay if I’d seen all those familiar faces in a new plot, but I really didn’t. I saw those faces in a regurgitated list of things that actually happened, but edited to take place on a farm. Sort of.
If there is one take-away from this book, I suppose it’s that I have the ability to choose which animal I’m going to be. If the totalitarian regime starts to lower its hammer and sickle, will I be a sheep? A pig? A donkey? A crow? I don’t know. I’d like to think I’d be one of the pigs who questioned and was executed for raising too many questions. In reality? I’m afraid I’d be a donkey–looking the other way and saying, “I don’t get involved in such things.” I’m afraid I wouldn’t be a follower, exactly–I’d just be a non-resister, someone who plods along saying that none of it really matters anyway, because life sucks, and it would suck under the old government, too.
That’s kind of a scary thought, actually. *shudder*
Next up: Neuromancer, by William Gibson. It’s on my Kindle and ready to read!
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Challenge Book #12: The Wheel of Time
Cover via Amazon
Top 100 Spec Fic Reading Challenge: Book #12
Book (series, in this case): The Wheel of Time
Author: Robert Jordan
Readability: At times very readable, at times plodding and slow
Stand-out Line: Can’t think of one–been too many years
Will I re-read it? No. At least, not any time soon.
Because of the size and importance of this series in the fantasy genre, I feel compelled to write about why I’m not planning to re-read the series as part of my challenge.
I started reading this series back when the books first came out. The Eye of the World and The Great Hunt both came out in 1990, before I was even married (wow, that makes me feel ancient). I devoured those two books, and then the next few came out with a fair degree of regularity, and I devoured those as well.
And then everything . . . slowed . . . down. Both in terms of story and publication.
I stopped reading when it became apparent that Jordan had no intention of finishing up anytime soon. Eventually, life got in the way, and I just gave up on the series. By the time Jordan passed away and Brandon Sanderson had started working on the final books, it had been so long for me that I figured I’d have to start again, and honestly, I didn’t want to. I’m pretty sure I got through book seven, at least. I recently found a copy of book eight in a closet, but I don’t think I ever finished it.
So now that A Memory of Light, the final book in the series, has a release date (January 2013, I believe), why am I not starting at the beginning and re-reading the whole thing?
Here are my top seven reasons:
1. The sheer size of the series at this point is too daunting. My reading time is fairly limited, and I don’t see myself committing to what some estimate is a 4.5-million-word story.
2. I’ve had enough skirt smoothing and braid tugging to last a lifetime, thankyouverymuch. Sometimes, I really liked Jordan’s women. Moiraine was always a favorite, and I was a fan of Egwene as she grew up a bit. But other times, I was left scratching my head and wondering if Jordan had ever met an actual living, breathing woman. And still other times, I just felt like I was in high school again with all the catty behavior, cliques, and snipping.
3. Rand’s angst. I have enough angst of my own. I can’t get bogged down in his again.
4. The middle. Jordan originally planned a series of six books. I think it got out of hand, and I think he ended up trying to rein it in starting about book six or so. That’s when everything gets really dang slow, and I remember being frustrated that I’d read 30 or 40 pages and nothing happened. And yet, you sort of have to have all those threads to know what’s going on, so you can’t just skip it. But I don’t want to slog through it again.
5. Leigh Butler’s re-read is enough for me. Seriously, the re-read on Tor.com is detailed enough, and it’s free and a fraction of the word count of the original books. I could start at the beginning of Butler’s re-read and be perfectly happy if I just wanted to know what happens.
6. There’s too much other stuff to read. I feel like I got a good dose of Jordan in his early years. Really, he was a fantastic writer. He had a gift for beautiful description, and there’s no denying that he’s the Grand Master of Worldbuilding. But my TBR list is very, very long. After the challenge list, I have another list that’s probably another 100 books, at least. The whole point of this challenge is to read new stuff that I haven’t read before, and I will never get to other good authors if I get stuck in the WOT world again. Besides, Sanderson has written other things. I can read his other stuff to hear his stories.
7. I’m kind of getting tired of series in general. This is sort of odd to me as so much of my preferred genre is made up of series. But I find myself getting rather bored with the motif of the Endless Series. Five books. That’s good. This may be why Eddings and Lawhead are still favorites of mine–they confined their series to three to five books instead of carrying on endlessly. I will say, though, that I like books set in the same world where I can pick from a series of stand-alone novels. Even if I miss a few things, I enjoy reading about characters I already know. And FYI, I’m determined to keep The Taurin Chronicles to five books.
The impact of Jordan’s series can’t be discounted. I mean, it’s huge. It’s spawned websites, theories, fan clubs, even an entire convention dedicated to its world. I’m actually surprised it didn’t end up higher on this top 100 list, given its massive impact and appeal. And I won’t say I’ll never read it again–I just don’t plan to re-read it now. At least with e-books it’s easier to haul the tomes around these days. Someday, when I have oodles of time and patience on my hands, I might download the books to my Kindle and start again.
Or, you know. Not.
Next up: Animal Farm, by George Orwell.
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Challenge Book #11: The Princess Bride
The Princess Bride (Photo credit: Richard Masoner / Cyclelicious)
Top 100 Spec Fic Reading Challenge: Book #11
Book: The Princess Bride
Author: William Goldman
Readability: Very readable
Stand-out Line: Pretty much all lines that made it into the movie.
Edit: Here’s one that I don’t remember from the movie: “Then let’s look on the bright side: we’re having an adventure, Fezzik, and most people live and die without being as lucky as we are.” – Inigo Montoya as he and Fezzik walk down the stairs to the third level of the Zoo of Death.
Will I re-read it? Probably. I’ll probably read it to my kids, too.
My last update in this challenge was all the way back at the beginning of March when I wrote my review of American Gods. I didn’t intend to be away from the challenge this long. I thought I’d breeze through Mark Twain and be back to the challenge in a jiffy. But then I got bogged down in Uncle Tom’s Cabin, which is a flipping long book, and it took me forever to finish Huck Finn (I actually didn’t care for it much), and before I knew it, it was the middle of May.
Oddly, I think this is sort of how The Princess Bride reads–in a “before you know it” kind of way.
Let me back up a bit. I am an enormous fan of the movie, and while I totally expected the book to be different, I was pleasantly surprised by how much of it was the same–even the dialogue and description. The frame is a bit different–told as a father to son rather than a grandfather to grandson–and there’s a certain poignancy in the story that I’m not sure really translated to the screen. The movie was, in many ways, just a fantastic comedic romp and fractured fairy tale. The book–well, it’s a smidge darker or sadder or something. It could have something to do with the backstory we get in the book that we don’t get in the movie.
The frame of the book involves the author scratching out huge portions of S. Morgenstern’s “satire” and history of Florin and Guilder. I think this is where the “before you know it” feeling starts for me. He says he’s skipping stuff because it’s long and boring, and he’ll summarize a few things here and there, but the gaps in time make you feel like, “oh, the engagement is upon us. Look at that.” This isn’t a bad thing. It’s just kind of . . . well, different. You have a sense of the passage of time that you don’t really get with the movie. For instance, I didn’t really think about how long Westley was in the Pit of Despair in the movie. In the book, he’s down there for months (plus, it’s not the Pit of Despair. It’s the 5th level of the Zoo of Death).
But there’s another way this book sneaks up on you. It’s kind of part of its sadness and poignancy, I think. You’re reading along, laughing aloud at the adventures or the dialogue or whatever, and all of a sudden, a line sneaks in and reminds you that “life is pain.” Really, that’s kind of the whole message of the book, I think. Life is pain, but it’s also beautiful and wonderful, and you make the best of it, and you rue your mistakes and move on, and if you’re lucky, you might find twoo wuv.
I would not say this book will go down in my list of favorites ever, but I will probably read it again. I might read it aloud to the kids if I can find the time. It’s well-written, entertaining, and has moments of depth and beauty. But for sheer entertainment of the story, I’d probably rather watch the movie. I practically have it memorized, anyway.
(By the way, it’s incredibly hard to find a JPEG of the book cover for this story–everything is movie posters or BluRay covers!)
Next on my list is The Wheel of Time, by Robert Jordan. Visit tomorrow when I tell you exactly why I’m not going to re-read it.
Sharing the Human Narrative
Squirrel discovered Encyclopedia Brown this week.
Well, I shouldn’t say “discovered.” I’ve nagged him to read these stories before, and he’s read a few, but it was this week that he really started to get into the mysteries. It may be that he’s now old enough to relate to Encyclopedia better, or maybe that he finds the cases easier to solve now–I’m not sure. But I know that he could not stop talking about Encyclopedia Brown all week.
I loved Encyclopedia Brown mysteries when I was a kid. So did The Man. We’ve talked about how those stories inspired him to start his own detective agency with his cousin. They didn’t get many cases, but they had fun. I think I may have tried to charge someone a quarter to solve a “crime” at some point, too. My dad worked for the local police agency when I was growing up, and the fact that he could dust a glass for fingerprints and tell us what made our own fingerprints unique (loops and whorls and ridges, oh my!) just fed into the whole romance of being a detective for me.
I’m sure you’ve all seen this poster by now:
This is the best poster I’ve seen in ages. There’s a great GalleyCat article about how the poster has gone viral. It should. It deserves to.
I absolutely want my kids hooked on books. But even more than just having my kids hooked on books, I want to have my kids hooked on books that I loved when I was a kid. And even more than that, I want to discover new books with them.
It was because of me that my kids learned about Mike Mulligan and that amazing steam shovel of his. It was because of me that my kids learned about Billy and Blaze, about Charlotte and Wilbur. I was the one who told them how their toys would become real, and they giggled every time I read The Velveteen Rabbit and started crying at the end. It was my nudging that encouraged my son to read The Belgariad and The Wheel of Time. Because I made it available, my daughter read Little Women and is now reading Anne Frank’s diary. I urged my kids to read Call of the Wild, and they loved it. Because my husband committed to it, my kids have heard The Chronicles of Narnia and all of the Laura Ingalls Wilder books aloud several times.
But we’ve also discovered new books together. Because of my kids, I read all the Harry Potter books and then encouraged them to read them as well. My older two have read them all now, and The Man has read them all aloud. Because of my son, I finally read Uncle Tom’s Cabin, and we both loved it. Because of my daughter, I at last got around to reading Tom Sawyer. I’m embarrassed it took me so long. But we both giggled about how silly boys are and all of the ridiculous lengths they’ll go to just for a girl’s attention. Because of my kids, there are books on my TBR list that I never would have considered otherwise–books like Coraline (which I just finished and adored) and The Graveyard Book and The Hunger Games.
There’s something so powerful about the connection you have with another person when you’ve both read the same book, even if both of you don’t love it. There’s a common ground there. You’ve trod the same path, experienced the same words, shared the same emotions. From the first Goodnight, Moon to the more recent experiences of Uncle Tom’s Cabin and 1 Henry IV, sharing stories has connected me to my kids in a way that no other experience can. We’ve shared the human narrative.
It’s the normal rule in our house that if a kid is up after 8:00 p.m., said child must be reading (unless there’s a very compelling reason not to be reading!). The time between dinner and bedtime is quiet time, and the time after 8:00 to whenever you go to bed (usually by 9:00) is quiet reading time. This rule serves two purposes. First, it keeps me sane, because that’s my quiet time, and I don’t want screaming demons running around the house. Second, it ensures that my kids are reading, because they’d rather stay up and read than be forced to go to bed.
So several weeks ago, the Peanut had already been tucked in, and I let the other three stay up to read. This was the result when I did send them to bed:
I can live with having a cluttered couch every single day if it’s cluttered with books.
What about you? What books were you glad your parents shared with you? If you’re a parent, what books do you look forward to sharing with your kids? If you’re not a parent, have you had a chance to influence a child’s reading choices?
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Occam’s Razor for Writers
See description above (Photo credit: Wikipedia)
I had an epiphany tonight. It has to do with the main plot of Bloodbonded. I’ve had this epiphany before, but for whatever reason, it never really seems to stick.
Ready? Here you go:
Occam’s Razor for Writers: All things being equal, a simpler plot will make your life a metric crapload easier.
I’m not saying you should fall back on cliches or just go for the easy, obvious plot. I’m saying that an awful lot of times, I find myself making things way too difficult because of one or two piddly little things that I’m not really married to in the first place.
That’s what happened tonight. I’ve sort of been mulling over some changes to the main plot/story arc of Bloodbonded anyway. I’ve been hoping to find some ways to fix the subplots, and I realized that I had to go back to the main plot to do that, because the main plot is dictating the timeline. By making a couple of changes to that main plot–changes to things I wasn’t married to in the first place–the entire book will work so much better, and the subplots won’t have to be stretched nearly so much just to fill up space/time.
I think sometimes I want to come up with the most complicated or intricate plan because, subconsciously, I equate that with “good” writing or plotting or whatever. On some level, I think I want people to see me as sophisticated or brilliant or whatever, and I figure that by making things more complicated, I can do that.
The truth is… The story is in the conflict, and conflict is the story, and conflict can be as simple as a flat tire on the way to work or a phone ringing while you’re changing a poopy diaper or a raging desire to eat the entire cheesecake when you should settle for a salad. (That’s not just me, is it?) Wait, I write fantasy. Okay, conflict can be a character who can’t go into a certain place because he’s not allowed or a character torn between duty to her people and desire for the man she loves. It doesn’t have to be intricate magic or wards or whatever.
Sometimes, I try too hard, and this sucks the joy right out of the thing I do.
I have to learn to accept that sometimes the simplest way is the best. The goal isn’t to make it more complicated–the goal is to take the simple conflict and make it so intense that the reader is holding his breath and clutching his seat because he can’t stand to wait another moment to find out what happens.
That’s real writing.
I have definitely not figured out everything yet, but letting go of these few things that were controlling my timeline is a huge step in the right direction. Now to play the ripple effect game from the middle to the end… This will require some serious re-writing, but I think it will work.
Stay tuned.
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That Moment When You Hate the Book
I was going to be quiet and stay dark for a month to edit Bloodbonded. I was. I so wanted this time to really focus without the distraction of social media. But the last couple of days have been extremely discouraging for me, and I realized yesterday that I needed some people to just tell me “you can do it!” I posted that on Facebook–basically, I’m not asking you to blow smoke up my ass about what a great writer I am, but I need my friends to tell me I can do this, because right now, it feels like I can’t. My Facebook friends came through for me in a big way. I went to bed feeling much better–like I could live to fight another day.
But what I realized last night was that I think I’ve hit that moment again–that moment when you hate the book you’re working on. I won’t say every author has these moments, but I know it’s a pretty common thing–the time in the process of writing/editing when you just want to chuck the whole thing, when even opening the file sets your stomach churning. And the thing is, I’ve felt this way about this book before–several times, in fact. I really thought I’d have it done and published by late last year, but after my betas suggested I do a major rewrite on the main plot, I had to almost go back to square one. Now, because of that rewrite and the reedit of Ravenmarked, I’m stuck with a manuscript that basically has no middle.
Well, I take that back. The main plot arc has a middle, but the subplots don’t. There’s this enormous section in the middle of the manuscript that has chapter after chapter of Connor and Mairead, but nothing from my other POV characters. For a million reasons, those folks need to be there. I just have to figure out how to get them there and still end in roughly the same places. I have to somehow whip the mushy middle into a six-pack.
So this is where I am right now–in the middle, and I feel like I’m stuck in the fire swamps with lightning sand everywhere.
Let me focus for a moment on the good parts here:
- The characters: I still love them. I really do. I was working on a Braedan scene the other day and thinking how much I really do like him and how he doesn’t vex me like Connor. He’s just sweet and funny and perhaps not as kingly as he’d like to be, but he’s a man who’s actively trying to better himself and his world, whereas Connor keeps stumbling along thinking he’s awesome and falling into pockets of self-improvement along the way. In so many ways of temperament and thought and goals, Braedan and Mairead are so much more evenly matched. Too bad she had to fall for the big doofus with the bird tattoo.
- The main plot: Okay, it needs work, but the main arc is there. This book is, in many ways, Mairead’s story–the part of the series where she has to grow up and accept who and what she is. The arc of that is there. It needs work on the timeline, and the end needs some serious smoothing out, but the basics are there, and I do really love her growth and the choices she makes and the way it all comes together in the end to make her a better person.
- The setting: A lot of this book takes place in a climate very much like the mountains of Idaho. The Man and I went to Boise for a couple of days last summer, and we took a drive up into the mountains around McCall. Oh my heavens–it’s like God leaned down and breathed right over that whole area. So, so beautiful. I’m trying to evoke that beauty in this book. I know I’m missing the mark, because words are just not adequate sometimes, but at least picturing the beauty I’m trying to convey helps me remember how much I love this world I’ve created.
- The dialogue: Dialogue has always been fairly easy for me, and most people tell me I write good dialogue, which is nice to hear. But honestly, there are a few lines in this book that I think were divinely inspired. I really hope I didn’t accidentally steal them from someone else.
But the rest… Urgh. I’m just… urgh.
A huge part of the problem is that I cut out several POV characters because I cut them out in the revision of Ravenmarked. That means there are gaps and holes that need to be filled in with other characters, and I don’t want to just give them scenes for the sake of having scenes. I mean, every scene should be a small scale novel, you know? Beginning, middle, climax, resolution. And that always leads to continuity issues and more revision and… Yeah.
For once, I don’t think this has a lot to do with being a pantser. I worked really hard to storyboard this book last year, and I *still* ended up with this mess. I truly do not understand how people can write straight through, even pantsing it, and then just send to betas, proofread, and publish. I mean, I’m not knocking you if that’s your MO–I’m lauding you, because clearly, even when I outline I get stuck in the revision process. How do you come up with something the first time and stick with it?? Am I just too much of a perfectionist? I don’t want that to sound snarky–I’m serious. I’m also incredibly jealous.
Anyway, I guess I’m back online. Sort of. I seem to need places to vent, and my blog is one of those places. So, I should warn you all that there may be angst here for a few more weeks. If you don’t want to read it, I totally understand. But editing is a dark place for me, and this is my platform for raging against the fickle muse, and so…
Yeah. Here I am.
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Going Dark
My friend Cassie posted the other day about her successes in April and her goals for May, which made me think about what I want to accomplish in May.
April was good. I finally got my two short pieces published, and I finished the first draft of my new novel (the western with dragons) and started sketching out ideas for books in that series. I also started editing Bloodbonded again, but between trying to maintain some balance (which, to be honest, has become as much about surrender as anything else), writing the new novel, and making the decision to homeschool Sparky, Bloodbonded once again fell to the bottom of the priority list. I started thinking, “you know, if I’m going to get this dang thing done, I might have to go dark for a while.”
So that’s what I’m going to do.
I’m going dark until Bloodbonded is ready to send to my editor. My fervent hope is to have it ready for editing by the end of May, but we’ll see. I’m taking a break from the blog and other social media for the next several weeks. I will be checking e-mail, so if you need to ask me something, you can certainly shoot me a note. And I’ll still have weekly posts on Fantasy Faction, too. However, I will not be on Twitter or Facebook until this flipping book is edited or June 1, whichever comes first. If you see me posting here on the blog or I show up on Twitter or Facebook, you’ll know I’ve finished this draft of Bloodbonded.
One reason I’m taking a break from the social media, to be totally honest, is that sequestering myself in the editing cave is really painful if I’m distracted by other writers and publishing news and stories and on and on. I find that the very act of editing is so very angst-inducing for me that I kind of need to protect myself from the things that trigger the really dark moments. Since I probably won’t be doing a lot of writing (except for expanding the parts of Bloodbonded that need to expand), I won’t have the full influence of the Muse to keep me feeling confident.
Don’t worry about me being lonely. I certainly have plenty of real-world interaction with living, breathing people on tap for the next month or so. In fact, this time of year tends to get crazy really quickly. With Sparky here on top of all that, I’m in no danger of being lonesome. Dang it.
I will miss you all! Here’s hoping I see you before the end of May!
p.s. Does anyone know why on earth WordPress would think that a picture of Woodrow Wilson is an appropriate suggestion for a picture to go with this post? No? Okay, I’m sticking with the Bloodbonded cover then.
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The Televisionization of Fiction
Firefly (TV series) (Photo credit: Wikipedia)
I have a confession to make: I’ve never watched Firefly.
I’ve also never watched Serenity, Buffy, Dr. Who, Gossip Girl, The Vampire Diaries, Battlestar Galactica (the new one), Stargate: SG1, or True Blood. Well, that’s not entirely true. I’ve watched a few snippets of Buffy and True Blood, but no more than a scene or two here and there. I may have watched an episode of BSG early on. I’m not sure. I think that was when I had small babies. It’s all kind of a blur. I’ve watched a LOT of Elmo, Dora, and Blue’s Clues, though.
I grew up on Star Trek, which led to Star Trek: The Next Generation. And I did watch several seasons of Star Trek: Deep Space Nine and Babylon 5 before I got distracted by life and other things. I never really got into Voyager, and Enterprise kind of stunk from day one, I thought.
Um, here’s the thing. I just don’t watch TV.
No, really, I don’t. I waited until the first season of Game of Thrones was on DVD and Blue Ray, and then I begged The Man to order it and call it my anniversary gift. He now teases me that whenever a new season comes out on DVD, he’ll buy it and give it to me for whatever holiday is next (“Happy Arbor Day, honey”). I also really, really enjoy The Office, but I’ve fallen behind on episodes and don’t really feel compelled to catch up. And whenever a new season of Mad Men comes out, we put it at the top of our Netflix queue.
It hasn’t always been this way. I used to watch a lot of TV–probably way too much. Maybe Facebook has replaced TV. No, actually, I think I was busy with work and things, and the shows that The Man and I both liked were just other genres (a lot of crime and police dramas) than paranormal and science fiction. Plus, there just really wasn’t a lot of paranormal stuff back in the day. Unless you count Twilight Zone, which you totally should.
There was also the kid factor. We stopped watching The Simpsons the day Sparky started going “d’oh!” I love The Simpsons, but I didn’t want my kid to become Bart, you know? And then there just was never really anything compelling enough to make me record it for later or . . . I don’t know.
Here’s the thing. A lot of the shows I mentioned above have huge fan followings in the writing and publishing community. Please know that I am NOT saying that’s inherently bad. I suspect they have those followings because they tell good stories. Really, that’s what we’re all here for–to tell good stories.
But I do wonder if TV is starting to inform our fiction more than it has a right to.
Hear me out. I don’t have a problem with visual media, but it is very, very different from print media. There’s a reason that people often say the book is better than the movie. But in this day and age, are we starting to expect our books to read like movies and TV shows? And more importantly, are we starting to write that way?
Personally, I have a dialogue issue. My characters talk a lot. I always have to rein them in, or y’all would just have pages and pages and pages of people yammering at each other. I’ve asked myself many times if this is perhaps rooted in my past immersion in visual media. I mean, scenes often play out in my head very much like a movie. When I talk about having trouble writing setting and building worlds, I wonder if that has anything to do with it. When you’re watching something, you tend to just absorb the setting rather than build it in your head, you know? If I read about Baelor’s Sept, I’ll have a picture in my head based on what I’ve read. If I see it, the words didn’t build the setting–some person on the set built it.
I don’t think it’s just me. I have noticed in other books I’ve read, both traditionally published and indie published, a trend toward heavier dialogue, more focus on physical descriptions of people, and less emphasis on setting. There’s also the proliferation of the first person present tense. Now, I’m not saying these things are always bad, but do you think the immediacy of visual media coupled with the fact that we interact more with the actors on the screen than the setting has nudged us toward a different way of telling stories?
I wonder, too, if the televisionization of fiction could account for more formulaic and/or lighter plots. When a story must be wrapped up in 22 or 42 minutes, it’s usually not going to be heavy on plot, or it’s going to be more “soapy” in nature so as to continue into the next week. Even movies have a limited ability to tell stories in the time allotted. Most people won’t want to sit and watch anything longer than about two hours. It has to be pretty compelling to keep us enthralled for longer (a testament to the wonderful filmmaking that is The Lord of the Rings trilogy).
I also confess to feeling a little out of the loop sometimes. When I see other writers talking about these shows, I feel a little like a geeky high school kid who has her nose in a book and totally missed the latest gossip. When I see publishing folk tweet about how they want to see something like XX TV show, I think, “crap, I don’t even know what that is.” Not that it’s necessarily a big deal what the publishing industry wants, because I firmly believe that the WORLD wants my work, but it just doesn’t know it yet. (Excuse me while I chortle and wipe away my tears of mirth.) But these are people who are supposed to know what the market “wants,” and they think the market wants more of XX, and I don’t even know if I do that because I don’t know what that is.
At the end of the day, I just don’t really care about most of those shows. I could go back and watch them all, I suppose, but I just don’t feel compelled to do so. I guess this is one way I know I’ve grown as a person since high school, eh? Not bowing to peer pressure? But I am kind of curious: Do you think today’s fiction is unduly influenced by visual media? Are we all watching too much TV and letting it negatively influence our writing? Or is it just that writing is changing and writers are responding to what the market wants–books that read more like TV shows? Have you even noticed this? Is it just me?
Okay, maybe it’s just me. I mean, after all, a lot of the writers I see talking about these shows are far more successful than I am, so maybe I’m the only one who wonders this. But if not, I would love to know what you think.
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A Major Change
I should be writing now. Or editing. But I’m dumping on my blog, and consequently, all of you, because my head is full and I need to dump. So move along if you don’t want to be dumped upon.
We finally had a “last straw” moment today with Sparky and his school issues. You have to realize–this kid is really, really smart. No, he really is. It’s an objective evaluation from, like, tests and things. And actually, it causes a lot of trouble, because the smart, fun, easy-going kids fall through the cracks really easily in a fairly large public school. Because he’s uber-smart and has always sailed through school until this year, and because he’s a bit of a dreamer, rather social, and a 7th grade boy, he and school have not agreed these last few months. His grades are slipping beyond what is reasonable to expect for even generous parents.
Now, Sparky has made some mistakes. There’s no question about that. But there are other factors involved. First and foremost, there’s a strike looming in our school district. I won’t get into the drama around it, and I won’t take sides publicly, although I will say that both sides could probably behave a LOT better than they are. Strikes are ugly. There’s just no way around it. And as of Wednesday, all of the teachers in our district are planning to strike. And by the way, this strike has been looming for a year. Today, teachers were pulled up outside of classrooms loading up their things. They’re already gone, and all of them are distracted in the extreme.
It’s not just the strike, either. Sparky has one teacher this year who–I kid you not–expected these seventh graders to read first grade books for the first month of the year. I’m not even joking a little bit. We got a picture of the books:
These were sitting on the desks in the seventh grade classroom for open house. The excuses given by the teacher were myriad, and I won’t go into them. And I will say that she did give Sparky some more challenging books when I complained. But oh, wait–did I mention this is a social studies classroom? Yeah. So for the first month to six weeks, they really learned not much at all about history or economics or humanities or anything. They read “baby books,” as my son put it.
Did I mention that he tests at a college reading level?
We should have known then that this year would be a struggle. I won’t recount all of the little niggling things that have been eating at us all year, but it’s been hard to hold our tongues. I’ve tried to be understanding of certain rules, policies, decisions, etc., but it’s really hard to keep being understanding and watch my kid being bumped along like a pinball because he’s the easy kid to bump along. Because he’s low maintenance–academically, behaviorally, socially–he just gets sort of lost. He’s not a trouble maker or a squeaky wheel, and he passes tests with flying colors. But his daily grades? Ugh!
Let me confess to you all that I am NOT a helicopter parent. I am so not wired that way at all. And rather than be the mom who’s always up in some teacher’s face, I’ve tried to coach Sparky in how to solve problems or get answers himself. Maybe he’s just too nice–he doesn’t do well with confrontation, sorta like his mom–and maybe he’s just a spacy, hormonal boy, but he’s been profoundly unsuccessful in speaking with his teachers. He’s asked for opportunity to do make up work and been denied, he’s asked for explanations and been given vague answers that I couldn’t figure out, and he’s asked for some general forecasting (as in, “will there be some big assignments that will help me bring my grade up?”) and been given a snarky answer of, “I don’t have time to add that all up and figure it out.”
Um, okay. I know y’all are busy and distracted, but if I were a teacher and a kid seemed to want to talk to me about assignments and grades, I’d frickin’ make thirty seconds to talk to him. And this is where all the teachers in my district will say they don’t have the prep time they need, and okay, maybe so, but the fact is, snarky answers do not help me or Sparky fix anything.
So, back to that last straw moment. The decision was made today to pull Sparky out of public school. For good. We will not be returning to traditional public school. Ever. Charter schools, yes, probably. And if those charters provide opportunity to take electives on a public school campus, then fine. But the traditional model?
I. Am. So. Done.
We will be homeschooling Sparky for the last two months of the year. He needs to get back on track, and between the timing and his choices and all that other stuff I rambled about above, taking his education back into our hands seems to be the only way to get him back to where he needs to be.
This is the second time we’ve tried regular public school and the second time we’ve been highly, highly disappointed. We moved into this area because the schools test well on state report cards, but as for the daily experience? It’s crap! Moving is not an option. Private school is not an option. The only charter middle schools (6th – 8th grade) are online, so that’s what we’ll do next year for both Sparky and Princess–an online charter school. That means they’ll be here with me. A lot.
God help us all.
I don’t know what this will mean for my writing. My hope is that, because they are older and fairly independent workers, I’ll mostly be a coach, guide, and taskmaster. I would hope that while they’re working, I can work, at least to some degree. We’ll try to find some ways to keep them busy during the day, too–electives, field trips, etc.
Princess will do great–she’s highly motivated academically. We call her Hermione. Sparky? I don’t know. I’m hoping these next couple of months and next year will get him refocused and headed in the right direction. There are some great options for high school–he could do an International Baccalaureate degree, which I think would be a great fit for him since he wants to go in a Liberal Arts direction–but he has to keep his grades in decent shape to have those options available. Being in charge of his schooling right now seems to be the only way to do that.
The thing is . . . we are not alone in making similar choices. I’ve heard from a lot of parents who are fed up with the school and the way things are going, and I know of many who have taken their kids elsewhere or decided to homeschool. It’s really quite sad, I think. But, Oregon is a very homeschool-friendly state, and the number of charter schools is growing, too. The traditional public school model is dying, but people are still finding ways to make sure their kids are educated. I’m just doing what’s best for my kiddo.
So, that’s where we are. It’s a huge change, and he’s really unhappy about it, but we’re kind of at our wit’s end with the whole thing. We don’t see any other good options, and we refuse to let him just slide and settle into bad grades, just getting by, when he’s so freakin’ smart. I know all moms say this, but seriously–he really is. All my kids are, and all of them are smart in different ways. It must be their father’s genes.
On the bright side, he tells me he wants to be an English major. He says he wants to write. And I don’t think he’s just saying that–he really is wired a lot like I am. I even wrote an essay about it once that was published in A Cup of Comfort for Writers. So maybe homeschooling and/or the online charter will give us some time to write together, read some good stuff, hit up a few courses or conferences together, and talk about books. I kind of look forward to that. It’s the one area where he and I really connect. And even as upset as he is, when I pointed that out to him, he perked up a little. I think he already knows how lonely it can be sometimes to be a writer.
Whew. This may be a record-setting post where word count is concerned. But you can see why my head was full. I must go sleep now. I have to tangle with the school tomorrow to get his records and then assuage his worries and tears.
My gosh, being a parent is hard.
