I Miss Everything

Been busy.  Busy writing (!), busy living, busy working.

Social networking is awesome in a lot of ways.  I wouldn't have been able to meet or talk to some of the amazing people I've met.  Writing is this solitary thing but the Internet makes it less so.

And yet...

I wake up at around 7am.  I stand in front of my computer until around 9-9:30am.  That's my designated writing time.  The internet usually goes off, the music goes on, and I get down to the business of making shit up.

Then I go to work.  I have a 30 minute commute I reserve for audio books and thinking about the projects I'm working on.  In my day job life, I'm an IT wonk.  I sit in front of a computer, building databases and fixing computer problems until about 7pm.  Then I commute home.

When my favorite person in the world is home, we spend a couple of hours together, chilling out, reading.  That time together is almost as sacred as my writing time.

When he's not home, I catch up on house chores, catch up on reading, catch up on TV shows that he hates.

Sometimes I go to the gym, but not often enough.  Sometimes I hang out with friends, but not often enough.

If I have time, I blog.  Tweet.  Post to Facebook.

It's not that I hate social networking, it's just that a year ago, I was living alone, hated my job, and had too much free time on my hands.

That free time has evaporated.  Between my home life, my new job responsibilities (which are awesome but huge), and the writing...I'm not sure where social networking fits in.  I feel like a slacker for not being on.  Social networking is supposed to be a conversation, not just people shouting into the void, but that's how I feel lately.  I talk, people talk back, but I'm dragged away before I get a chance to hold up my end of the bargain.

So how do you all balance it all?  How does social networking fit into your life?

Libraries, E-Books, Indies, and Piracy. Oh my.

I wasn't poor growing up, but I wasn't rich either.  Money was often tight.  When I hit puberty and graduated from kid shoes to adult shoes, my mom tried to buy me women's sneakers and tell me that they were men's because it was during the time when Nike was trying to rape consumers with $200 shoes, and we couldn't afford anything near that price.  Sometimes we had breakfast for dinner because it was cheaper.

But the one thing we always had money for was books.

Both my mother and my father nurtured my love of books.  Going with my father to Waldenbooks on Sundays or down to the outlet bookstore where I could find hardcovers of my favorite authors for $5 were some of my best days.

I was lucky.  I know that.  I didn't utilize libraries frequently because I loved owning my books.  I read them over and over and over.  But I loved the idea of libraries and I visited them often.  There was something romantic and exciting about a whole building devoted to books. About a place filled with people who cared about books.

When I was in middle school, I went to a Catholic school.  It was a pretty progressive Catholic school that had a great library and an even better librarian.  I wish I could remember her name.  Despite my failure of memory, I do remember that we talked about books and computers and she guided me to some books that I'd have missed otherwise.  Like the works of Robin McKinley.

Again, I was lucky.  I know that.

Indies are closing and big we-have-it-all bookstores are becoming less relevant.  These are sad, terrible, shameful things.  Each has its place.  Large chunks of Deathday were edited in a Barnes & Noble.  Having access to all those books while I was working helped me.  A friend of mine from high school worked as a kid in an indie book store.  I remember a few times, him sharing his passion for books with patrons.  Passion is one thing you can't find on Amazon.

You can't hand your best friend a dog-eared Nook with notes written in the margins.

 I sometimes wonder what I would have done if I were a child today.  If I'd been too poor to afford books.  If the libraries in my area were shut down or under-funded.  If I lived in an area that had no independent bookstores.  Or any bookstores at all!  (As a matter of fact, when I was promoting Deathday, I struggled to find a single indie bookstore in my area.  The only one, about an hour drive away only had the time/funds to deal with "big" authors.)  What would I do if I'd lived in a house where reading wasn't encouraged?  With parents who didn't treasure books the same way I did?

I'd have stolen them.

I can say that with certainty.

There's a lot of doom and gloom surrounding the publishing industry right now.  A lot of pessimism about books.  Let's be honest:  keeping libraries open is expensive.  In a time when governments are in crisis, when the federal government is squandering our tax dollars on foolishness that could have been avoided, libraries are an easy target.  Except that reading is vital.  Here's a really fantastic page full of startling statistics.  Libraries are essential to our continued growth.

A couple of years ago, Guys Lit Wire ran a charity call for books to be donated to a youth prison in California.  Apparently, they had a library with no books.  None at all.  Which is ridiculous.  How can you rehabilitate youths at risk without books?  Without the ability to learn?

I support indie bookstores and I love my local Barnes and Noble.  I love buying books on my Kindle and my Nook.  I love collecting books and sharing them with friends.  I love buying e-books and staring in wonder at this little device that can hold more books than I could read in my lifetime.

But I wonder if the problem of e-books, the same e-books that are bringing bookstores to their knees, is the solution for libraries and kids who are too poor to afford books.

For a second, forget the notion of piracy.  Forget that this is a utopian idea that disregards the rights of the artists.  Just for a moment.

E-books are cheap.  They only need be produced one time.  Copying them costs nothing.  Storing them next to nothing.  Shoot, you can buy a 16Gb flash drive for $20 (the cost of one hard cover book) and put tens of thousands of books on it.  More books than my middle school library had.  You could copy all those books onto one device and give it to a library or a child or a prison, and instantly solve a problem.

E-books aren't a problem, they're a fucking solution.

I have about 400 e-books saved on my computer.  With one click, I could duplicate them all and send them into the world.  I could burn them to a CD and flood the world with them, like AOL used to do with their discs.  I could go to a school and give the files to a librarian, who might not be able to afford books otherwise.

But I don't.  Because a lot of the books on my e-device are by people I know.  And I respect them too much to do that.  I respect all the authors.

What I don't respect is the system.  The restraints in place.

It's idealistic of me, yeah.  It's idealistic to think that we can solve all the problems so easily.  But can't we?

Listen, I sure don't write books for the money.  If my publisher came to me today and said that they were giving away e-book copies of Deathday to every library, school, prison, and child who wanted one, I'd high-five them.  I might even do a fist pump.  Hell, I might even raise the roof.

I feel like reading has become that thing that only people with money can do.  Libraries are evaporating, bookstores (realistically) cater to those who can pay.  Books are getting pricier.  Even e-books are pricey.  When a parent has to decide between money for food or bills and money for books, books are almost always going to lose.  

I'm just going to say it:  Kids have a right to read.  And we have a responsibility to get books to them.

Idealistic?  Unrealistic?  I think not.  I could give away hundreds of books with a click.  A publisher could fill a library to bursting with the same click.  All the libraries.  All the schools.

I wasn't kidding when I said that if I were a kid today and there was no library around me and I was poor, that I'd steal books.  I'd steal all the books.  And maybe I'd feel bad about it, but at least I wouldn't grow up unable to read.  Unable to comprehend basic instructions.  Unable to read to my own child when I had one. Kids who read are smarter.  It's just a fact.  They test better, they learn better, they do better in life.  Reading really is fundamental.

Libraries and librarians and parents who encourage reading are a child's greatest resources.  But those things are disappearing.  Sadly.  It's a war and we're losing.

Reading by any means necessary.



*Note:  This rant applies to specific situations.  I'm not condoning taking down the entire publishing machine and making all books free all the time.  The authors of said books work hard and deserve compensation.  I'm talking about books for kids, for libraries, for children who can't afford them. If you're an adult and you have money and you steal books, you're an asshole.

What is YA?

So I'm readin Melina Marchetta's THE PIPER'S SON.  I think adults would love it.  The first book my mom read on her Kindle was Marchetta's JELLICOE ROAD.  Both books are sold here in the States as YA.

Markus Zusack's I AM THE MESSENGER and THE BOOK THIEF are sold as adult books in Australia and YA in America.  Though THE BOOK THIEF has been a hugely popular crossover.

THE HOUSE OF TOMORROW was sold as an adult book but the narrator is clearly a teen and I think it's a book that teens would clearly be able to relate to.

There's a secret about growing up that no one ever tells kids.  The secret is that there is no secret.  Growing up is a suggestion, not a rule.  You can still be an adult--pay your bills and have children of your own and enjoy rollercoasters and get giddy over a new movie release and still feel alienated and alone and like no one will ever get you--and not be grown up.  I thought the secret was that adulthood was a profound line over which I'd cross and suddenly "get it."  Turns out, it's not.  It's still just as confusing as being a kid. Maybe more so.

If there's no real and true line that separates men from boys, women from girls, children from adults, then why is there a line, a definition, that segregates YA from adult literature?

This is where the parents come out of the woodworks and mention that some adult books are inappropriate for children.  Just as I'd say that there are some children's books that are inappropriate for adults, and some adult books that are inappropriate for adults (or anyone for that matter) and some children's books that are inappropriate for children.

I will agree that not every child has the maturity for every kind of book.  I would gladly hand my teenage cousins Andrew Smith's GHOST MEDICINE or IN THE PATH OF FALLING OBJECTS but would wait a couple of years to suggest THE MARBURY LENS.  Simply because I know both boys well enough to know that they're likely not ready for it.

But this dividing line between books for children (the dreaded YA label) and books for adults cuts each group off from amazing literature.  I write books with teenage characters in them that I think teenagers would relate to, but a lot of people who read Deathday are adults.

Going back to THE PIPER's SON.  It's a book in which most of the characters are out of high school.  But they're still struggling with identity and the future and what it all means.  And those are universal issues that teens and adults alike can relate to.

YA is a figment of our imagination.  It's a ruse.  And kids are smarter than that.

Summer

Sometimes I feel like I haven't got anything left to say to the Internet.  After all, the Internet has said it all.

I think I'm going to neglect my blog for the summer and spend more time on Twitter.  Between writing a book, vacations, a grueling work schedule, and refilling my well, I think I need a break.

When you sell a book...even before that...people tell you that you have to have a web presence.  And I think that's true.  But your internet life isn't real life.  It's not real at all.  And I think there are times when you have to step away and live your real life.  This is probably one of those times.

Trust

Reading and writing both require trust.  The writer asks for it and the reader offers it.

When I first read THE HUNGER GAMES, I accepted the rules by which Suzanne Collins was going to play.  Everyone was going to go into an arena, only one would come out.  She complicated the story by also sending in a boy the main character liked.  About mid way through the book, Collins changed the rules. She said that two, instead of one could survive.  I felt betrayed.  I actually remember yelling some obscenities.  As far as I was concerned, the writer had broken my trust.  But I read on, if only to see how it ended.  And I was relived, by the end, to find out that the rule change had been a ruse.  Collins had not, in fact, broken my trust.  In fact, she'd pulled the rug out from under me in the most delicious way.

Writers have a responsibility not to betray the trust of their readers.  It was why I told people on the very first page of Deathday that Ollie is going to die.  That way, not matter what else you thought of how Ollie spent his day, or how big a jerk he was, or wondered too where the letters came from, you could trust that I was leading up to something.  Ollie was going to die and his journey was going to mean something.

The first time I read Jellicoe Road by Melina Marchetta, I nearly gave up on it a dozen times.  The beginning was boring to me.  But now I count it as one of my top five favorite books of all time.  And every time I read a book by Marchetta, I trust that she knows what she's doing, where the story is going, and that she won't let the story get away from her, no matter how often it seems like it might in those first 100 pages.

Reading and writing is something of a compact between two people. When I write, I'm not writing for a group of people.  I'm writing for just one person.  One individual at a time.  All I can say is that I have a plan and I hope you'll trust me.

Blog Chain - Outlaw

This blog chain post is a little late, but this time around the amazing, wonderful Abby wants to know:

There are SO many writing rules, but sometimes we have to break one or two, just to keep things interesting. Is there a writing rule you’ve broken on purpose? Why did you choose to break it? And if you want to post a snippet of your writing as an example, even better!

I don't think I've ever broken anything on purpose.  I mean, when I've broken "rules," I've done so knowingly (most of the time) but I don't think writing "rules" should be broken just to break them.  If you're going to break then, it needs to be done for a reason.  However, I also use quotes around the word, because when it comes to writing, there are no rules.  We're all out here on the frontier.  A never ending plain that we're all making our way through.

That said, my favorite "rule" to break is the one about long stretches of dialog without any action our dialog tags.  I frequently go too far and have to edit it back, but sometimes that staccato back and forth is just begging for simplicity.  Sometimes description and dialog tags interrupt the flow.  Here's a short example of something I'm working on now:

"You want a ride?"

"To the party?"

"It's on my way."

"Really?"

Stella shook her head.  "Not really, but I was about to spend my entire Saturday night listening to ABBA and putting makeup on dead people."

"Ew," I said.

"I know.  My mom's a funeral director and I get roped into helping her with the bodies. It's not a calling but it puts gas in Stay Puft."  She pointed at her white car.

"The corpses are fine," I said.  "I was talking about ABBA."

That's just a little snippet.  There's stuff that happens before and stuff that happens after, but in this little bit, Stella and Simon's back and forth is interrupted as little as possible.  They've just met and are getting to know each other, and they've got such great chemistry, and I think their dialog in this bit shows that.

So yeah, that's the "rule" that I break most often.

IF you haven't already, head over to my wonderful friend Margie's blog to see what kind of rebel rule breaker she is, and the next, head over to Sarah's blog and see if she's up to breaking any rules...and wish her a congratulations on her brand new baby boy!

On Writing - Part 4 Fear is an Adverb

This is going to be a short bit.  I don't believe that every rule is meant to be followed without exception.  When I was younger, I remembered reading somewhere that one should never use contractions except in dialog.  My writing was a veritable desert.  So formal and stodgy.

So when King says that adverbs are the devil, I give him a nod and quickly move on.  His advice about passive voice is solid.  People enjoy reading books about people who do things rather than books about people to whom things happen.  And the dialog tag is also solid advice.  If you've written your scene properly, then you should rarely have the need to use anything other than the solid tag "said."

But the main thing I took from the section about passive verbs and adverbs and dialog tags, was about timidity and fear.

A writer may be a lot of things, but he must never be afraid.  Not of parents, not of librarians, not of reviewers.  And certainly not of his own words.  A writer must not be timid.  He (or she or course!) must be bold.  Must take chances, even if conventional wisdom says that it's wrong.

Being a writer is all about taking risks.  Every single word that makes it to the page must push the boundaries.  It must be heartfelt and beautiful and terrible and bold.  There must be nothing safe about your books or about your words.

Every adverb should be an act of defiance.

In the end, it's not about adverbs or dialog tags or passive voice.  It's about knowing what you want to say and being brave enough to say it.

Dear WSJ - Suck It.

The article in the WSJ DARKNESS TOO VISIBLE has whipped the YA community into a frenzy this weekend.  Just go check out the awesomeness that is the Twitter hashtag #YASaves.  It's pretty amazing.

I only have two real beefs with this article.

The first is that it is an opinion piece masquerading as journalism.  I am a firm believer in the right of people to have their opinions and to state their opinions and to shout their opinions from the highest rooftops.  However, journalism is supposed to be neutral and unbiased, something this piece was not.  They should have interviewed some of the authors they damned so that they could get other side of this story. The author of the article should be ashamed of picking on a book like SCARS without even giving the author an opportunity to refute the charges.  Ms. Megan Cox Gurdon of the WSJ acted as judge and jury in this highly biased article.  In fact, she was little more than a bully, presenting her lopsided opinion as factual.

There are some who would agree that YA has grown darker.  It's probably a topic worth exploring.  I think I may have even talked about it here.  But it's not black and white.  There are no easy answers.  Certainly, there are enough differing opinions that Ms. Gurdon could have interviewed some YA authors or publishers or even some *gasp* kids.  Maybe Ms. Gurdon picked up SCARS or THE MARBURY LENS and couldn't imagine a teen reading one of them.  But I'm sure there are teens out there who have read them and are thankful they have them.

As a small aside, I wish there had been books like this when I was a kid; books that were more frank.  When I dealt with my coming out, I was a cutter and self-injurer.  I punched walls so often and so hard that I permanently damaged the knuckle of my hand.  My upper arms are still marred by scars.  And back then--the late 90's--there were no books to help me understand what I was going through.  I assumed I was alone.  That my behavior was an aberration.  Which only worked to increase my sense of isolation.  Books that deal with these issues can be lifelines, and I wish that the "article" had presented a more well-rounded view that could have included conversations with teens that these types of books have reached.

The second issue I have with this article is that it doesn't make the distinction between a parent monitoring what a child reads, and the censorship of all YA books.  I'm not going to delve too deeply into this.  I'm simply going to implore parents to be aware.  Read what your children are reading.  And don't immediately dismiss it.  If your child is reading something challenging, read it yourself.  Talk to them about it.  Maybe they have questions.  Maybe they're reading it because THEY have questions.  Pretending these issues and these books don't exist will only make your child want to read them MORE. And they would be better off reading books with difficult subject matter if they have someone to whom they can talk.

And, for the love of God, if you feel that a book isn't right for your child--something you have every right to do--please don't try to impose your morals on everyone else.  If you've raised Mary Sunshine who eats a steady diet of unicorns and poops sunshine and never ever has anything bad happen to her, then you have my applause.  But the world isn't like that, and it's unconscionable of you to deny these books to children they might help.

You don't have to approve them, you don't have to like them, but you should read them and make an informed decision.

Oh, and I have a third beef:  to the BN bookseller who couldn't identify ONE single book for this mother to read:  shame on you.  Hang up your badge, quit your job, go work for McDonalds.  That is all.

*It's Monday, I'm sleepy.  Any incoherence is mine.

ON WRITING - Part 3 Plums Deify

I like rules.  There is a certain comfort in knowing where the lines are, in knowing the boundaries.  Lawlessness makes me uncomfortable.  True anarchy could never really happen.  If our government ceased to exist--just one day poofed from existence--something would rise to take its place.  People want to be told what to do, what's appropriate, and how they should act at any given moment.  It's how dictators rise to power.  People will follow anyone in a vacuum.

Liking rules isn't necessarily a bad thing.  Because there's liking rules, knowing rules, following rules, and then there's breaking them.

Breaking rules is my favorite part of liking the rules.

King spends very little time on grammar.  Enough time to say that you should know it.  You should know the rules.  I'm going to put it out there that I believe knowing grammar and KNOWING grammar are two different things.  One of the reasons that I believe most high school and college foreign language courses fail students is that they teach you nothing about actually speaking the language.  They teach you verb forms and mechanics and long lists of nouns, but very little about the actual language.  Or more simply:  you can't learn to drive a car from reading a book.

You can learn that verbs and nouns form sentences (Plums deify!) and that sentences form paragraphs.  And so on.  But that doesn't teach you the soul of grammar.  It doesn't teach you how to write.

I realize as I've gotten to the end here that I seem to have put up two contradictory arguments.  One is that rules are awesome, the other is that rules can't teach you to be a writer.  But it actually all works (even if my coffee starved brain thinks otherwise).  Here's the thing:  I know what an adverb is.  What an adjective and a gerund are, and how you shouldn't split infinitives or end a sentence in a preposition.  I know those rules, which means I also know that sometimes, "He's got to have something worth fighting for.  Something worth living for," sounds better than, "He's got to have something for which to fight.  Something for which to live."

But I don't just know these rules, I feel them.  When I'm writing a sentence, I'm not thinking about rules. I'm not thinking about verb forms.  I'm just writing.

So know the rules, yes, but don't fetishize them.  Break the rules, definitely, but not until you know them.

But above all: forget the rules.  Just write.

The Marbury Lens - Jack isn't Crazy

If you haven't read Andrew Smith's THE MARBURY LENS, you should probably check out of this post now.  I'm going to spoil the hell out of it.  You've been warned.

Last year, I was taken by Andrew Smith's THE MARBURY LENS.  It was violent and raw and amazingly well written and it messed with my head.  I devoured it in a short time and didn't let a lot sink in.  I've been thinking about it lately and decided to read it for a second time, taking care to pay attention.

On my first go, I wasn't sure what Smith was getting at.  Was Jack crazy?  I had my own idea.  I thought that Jack never actually escaped Freddie Horvath's place.  That Marbury was an escape for Jack.  I also thought that Ben and Griff and Con were all there in Freddie's with him.

The thing about book is that we bring our own meaning to them.  I had a professor in college who was convinced that books only had one valid interpretation.  Which I still think is a bullshit pretension by someone who assumes they're always going to be right.  Even what the author believes becomes meaningless once the book is out in the world.  There are layers of meaning to every book.  A multitude of different ways to interpret them.

My interpretation of Marbury was different on my second read.  Interpreting THE MARBURY LENS depends on one decision:  Is Jack Whitmore a reliable narrator?

The first time around, I would have said no.  But this time around, I'm not so sure.  I think the fact that Jack questions his sanity, helps make the case that he is reliably reporting what he sees and believes.  Not what's real, but what he believes is real.

Once I decided that Jack was reliable, I decided to also believe that Marbury was real.  There are lots of little things that Jack talks about that made me believe that Marbury was a real place.  The first being that he has no reason to lie.  The second is when he talks about the worlds being like nesting dolls and himself being an arrow that transects all the different levels.  Worlds within worlds within worlds.  I'm a fan of quantum physics and the concept of multiple universes.  So this was easy for me to buy into.

So if you believe that Jack is telling the truth, and Marbury is real, then the question becomes:  Why does Jack keep returning?

Marybury is a land with no real night.  It's hot, there are no girls, no family, little food or water.  Bugs eat the dead, monsters torture you, rape you, and then eat you.  It's not a beach resort.  So why does Jack choose to leave his London vacation to constantly go to Marbury?  He even states multiple times that he's like a junky.  An addict.

I have two distinct thoughts on this:

One is that Jack is an addict.  Jack goes back to Marbury for the high.  Because Ben and Griff are there and they need him.  He knows it's bad for him but he does it anyway.  He's punishing himself.  He thinks he deserves to lose everything he cares about.  That he deserves to be in hell.  I mean, if he were a good person, why would Freddie Horvath have chosen him?  No, obviously Jack deserves what he's gotten.  And Marbury, while an escape, is also his punishment.

Two is that everything in Marbury is black and white.  There is Jack and Ben and Griff, and everyone else.  You're either human or monster.  The real world is full of phonies like Freddie Horvath.  People who present one face to the world (a doctor) while secretly kidnapping and raping kids.  The real world is a complicated, fucked up place.  Marbury is hell, but at least the monsters have brands.  They're easy to identify.  So Jack keeps going there because the real world is too much for him to take.  Is Henry Hewitt a bad guy?  Does Nickie really love him?  Is Con really his friend?  These are questions that don't have easy answers in the real world, but in Marbury, they do.

There are things I have questions about.  Was Henry Hewitt a ghost?  I think he had to be at some point. He gave Jack the lens (just like Seth did with the two blue ones), Con couldn't see him when he followed Jack to the bar.  However, we know he was alive and real at one point, because Con saw him in the pictures.  So I think that at some point, he dies and becomes a ghost.  If that's true, who killed him?

The other question I have is what the two blue lenses were.  The ones that Seth leaves behind when the bugs eat him.  Are they for Ben and Griff so that they can all get into Marbury or do they lead elsewhere?  I think they lead to another layer.  I'm open to thoughts though.

I'm also curious what you all think the connection between Marbury and the real world is.  Why do Jack and Con get sick when they transition from one to the other?  Why do they crave it when they don't return?

Lastly, is it possible that Jack both did and didn't escape Freddie Horvath?  If we're talking about nesting dolls and a multiverse, is it possible that Jack did escape Freddie and didn't at the same time?

Okay, that's what I've got.  I hope anyone who's read it will want to chat about it.