Proud Blogger

Oh, I am SO outing A. Fortis, my fellow blogger. It’s her fifteen minutes of fame, but I’m so proud of her that I have to spill it — she got to read a piece of her work today on her local NPR station!! All of us Mills Girls and your fellow YA writers are excited for you, A.F.! So they closed Cody’s on 4th before you could read your future novel there, but they’ll never close NPR (we hope. Stay away from public radio, Gubernator!)!

Many happy returns of your public novel reading occasions!

How Public, Like a Frog

Today a blogger I read mentioned that she’d been plagarized by someone else, and I commented that it seems somedays that the blogosphere is just about as big as my living room, so she was bound to find out that someone was stealing her words… And awhile back, another friend was pondering the life cycle of a blog, wondering how she felt about so many random weird people reading her words, and thinking that they knew her.

Well, it’s been my week for feeling weird about this, too. I was quoted in someone else’s blog as having disliked a YA novel for being written improbably… and the blogger commented that perhaps I was too old to appreciate the writing, but if I were the intended audience, I would have loved it.

Huh.

Well, here’s the thing: I’m not too much different than I was at sixteen. That is, I am not and never have been anything other than the most pragmatic realist. I’ve often hated that, often felt the sting of being unable to just lose myself in the randomness of young adulthood and become giddy or freaked out about things other girls came unhinged over. I would watch footage of Beatles and Elvis concerts and watch people shrieking and fainting and wonder what the hell was wrong with them. I’ve just never been… that girl.

Well, so this blogger goes on and on and then the AUTHOR of the book I disliked chimed it as grateful that the blogger had a.) read her book b.) given her a chance to comment on things. She got a chance to explain herself, made lots of nice noises about “I certainly didn’t intend that,” and between the two of them, they tidied up my review. That the blogger is acquainted in a friendly fashion with the author lessened the sting a little, but I’ve since felt a little stupid for having posted a review that was negative. It was polite… but it was negative.

Mostly I felt stupid because I questioned myself.

As a writer — I dislike the book.

As the internal sixteen year old that I embody — I dislike the book.

As a person who avoids conflict…

Nope, can’t change what I said about it.

But it bugs me that I felt a little stupid about it briefly.

I’m NOBODY here. Who are they? Do they really know me? No. Do I really know them? No.

This is blogging — we’re all nobody. It’s all an anonymous exchange of ideas. And mine clashed with theirs, that’s all.

But I still feel weird about it. Now that I’ve become involved with the Cybils, doing my little reviews and giving my opinions about the young adult literature world — even doing something as simple as talking about my agent in CODE has me feeling a bit exposed. I guess it’s all in the question of WHY I started blogging in the first place… not to get anyone’s attention in particular, but because of the anonymity of just having a little space to say my piece… in part.

I used to ask my friend Nat how she could stand to put such public stuff up on her blog, and she told me (with some bewilderment) that it wasn’t really her. As soon as something really personal came along in her life, she ‘retired’ her blog, because she couldn’t write about her real life with any degree of detachment. I’m not feeling like that yet — I haven’t had any truly bad experiences with my blogging, but it does feel strange to read yourself described as someone who is “not afraid to say what she really thinks on her blogs” (Really? Sadly, if only they knew…) or someone who has Opinions that are so fixed and central. It’s all so very… odd.

I’m Nobody! Who are you?

Are you—Nobody—Too?

Then there’s a pair of us!

Don’t tell! they’d advertise—you know!

How dreary—to be—Somebody!

How public—like a Frog—

To tell one’s name—the livelong June—

To an admiring Bog!

– the Belle of Amherst

This Season of Fatigue

Black Rook in Rainy Weather

On the stiff twig up there

Hunches a wet black rook

Arranging and rearranging its feathers in the rain.

I do not expect a miracle

Or an accident

To set the sight on fire

In my eye, not seek

Any more in the desultory weather some design,

But let spotted leaves fall as they fall,

Without ceremony, or portent.

Although, I admit, I desire,

Occasionally, some backtalk

From the mute sky, I can’t honestly complain:

A certain minor light may still

Leap incandescent

Out of the kitchen table or chair

As if a celestial burning took

Possession of the most obtuse objects now and then —

Thus hallowing an interval

Otherwise inconsequent

By bestowing largesse, honor,

One might say love. At any rate, I now walk

Wary (for it could happen

Even in this dull, ruinous landscape); sceptical,

Yet politic; ignorant

Of whatever angel may choose to flare

Suddenly at my elbow. I only know that a rook

Ordering its black feathers can so shine

As to seize my senses, haul

My eyelids up, and grant

A brief respite from fear

Of total neutrality. With luck,

Trekking stubborn through this season

Of fatigue, I shall

Patch together a content

Of sorts. Miracles occur,

If you care to call those spasmodic

Tricks of radiance miracles. The wait’s begun again,

The long wait for the angel.

For that rare, random descent.

Sylvia Plath

Midweek Madness

Happy First Frost Day to You!
It’s lovely, blue and crispy cold, the perfect time for fleece and great books. The books for the YA panel keep flying in, and each day brings another trio or quartet… I’m behind in writing my reviews, not to mention housework (ugh) and ironing… but I shall soldier on!

Oops — I just got around to looking at this month’s Edge of the Forest but it was well worth the wait, as Little Willow interviews YA author Lisa Yee, we hear the first SOUNDS from the Forest via Podcast (Yay! Live book discussions! This is quite cool.) and Scholar’s Blog (with the correct link now!) takes on the Tiffany Aching stories from Pratchett. Reviewed in YA Fiction are three great reads — I was especially interested to read another take on Justin Case. Do check it out.

Oy! An Amazon rip-off! Sheesh, people, it happens, I guess, but between librarians!? Our blogger bud at Fuse #8‘s been , er, quoted. Only without the quotes. I’ve begun to believe that the blogosphere is as big as a living room… the person who did it should’ve figured out how much we bloggers read other blogs and bookish magazines… other bloggers were bound to find out…!

Also via Scholar’s Blog, an interesting discussion aimed at writers… as we write, do we find that we remove adult characters? Are your YA novels just about young adults? I recall a film course I took as an undergrad where my prof systematically ruined all of my favorite movies by pointing out how unrealistic they were. My favorite Robin Williams movie? Tosh, because all of the teachers at the school where the movie took place were beastly except for the one played by the Williams character. All of the Molly Ringwald/Brat Pack movies? Useless. Adults EXIST, and screenwriters — and young adults — don’t exist in a vacuum without them. You’ll want to check out the article and put in your two cents on the discussion.

As we begin discussion on our books for the Cybils, all kinds of questions are coming into my mind. First, how did I get into this? What makes me “qualified” to discuss books? (Our group Chair actually mentioned someone wanted to know our “credentials.”) How can we be sure to make this short list we’re supposed to have completed by January 1 is the “best” we can do?? So many questions… so many great books! I’m privileged to be a part of this, but at the same time, I am very, very nervous. Here’s hoping I don’t end up in wrestling matches with my other panelists.

Stay tuned!

Post Holiday, Pre Hype

The morning paper is bulky with slippery ads. Toys and myriad electric shavers shriek for attention from blaring commercials and a horrifyingly fat man dragged by animatronic reindeer hangs from the neighbor’s bewildering rooftop Disney nativity (Frosty? Mickey? Baby, Shepherds, & Santa?). The season of EidChriskwanzukkah is upon us.

I am ignoring it all in favor of the continued balmy autumn days, and really could have taken another few days down in Monterey. But, alas, the rain was coming, and aside from that, I had to get back to my reading, my novel, and my blog… but hope you all had a lovely grateful weekend.

I suppose everyone has heard by now that there is going to be a Buffy graphic novel series. Okay, let’s just all say it — Comic Book. If someone (ahem, a. fortis!) can explain to me the difference between a graphic novel and a comic book, I’d love to hear it. At any rate, untold millions are blissed out that Buffy’s back. Season 8: The Graphic Novel. Sadly, no word yet of a musical within a comic book…

I wonder if this Buffy thing is part of the push to get girls involved in reading graphic novels. DC Comics has joined with Alloy Entertainment (eek, remember them from the Kaavya Viswanathan episode?) to come up with something just for girls called Minx Books. *Exciting Genre Crossover Alert!* Minx’s first graphic novel is called The P.L.A.I.N. Janes, and is written by Cecil Castellucci… and illustrated by Jim Rugg, who has his own comic creds firmly intact. This will be released in May of next year. Exciting, as it is said that this is DC’s biggest push in the last 30 years! Though this is all very cool, Minx is still a ways behind my girl Pancha who has been doing the girl+graphics thing since I met her in grad school in 2002. At any rate, happy graphic novels to all the girls — anything that encourages readers and artists is great.

Via Jen Robinson’s Book Page, a very interesting piece on Linda Sue Park’s time on the National Book Award committee. And yes, they read Every Single Book that is nominated for the award. So I shall no longer look around, bug-eyed, over the mere eighty I am called to read for the Cybils… Speaking of which, we were Review of the Day on the Cybils board on Friday. Yay! I think it’s a neat idea to showcase all of the reading and critiquing and blogging that’s gone on from all of us. This is a huge team effort, and it’s going to be fun to see it all pulled together… Meanwhile, over at Chasing Ray, we discuss adults reviewing YA books — are adult readers/reviewers really too old to think like teens and do we review books about YA sexuality fairly, given our not being the age of the author’s intended audience? I’m giving that some serious thought, especially in reference to the Cybils. Hmm.

The buzz on Cathy’s Book is pretty good, surprisingly. Despite the high degree of product placements that make it read like an ad, the plot as reviewed by The Chronicle is reportedly mostly okay. This is a book that I’ve wanted to read since I heard about it, because of the neat Web connections, etc. that were intended to deepen the mystery. It’s on my ever-lengthening to-be-read list…

Now, here’s something interesting. The Book Standard has book video awards for teen novels. Starting this week, they’ll begin the judging. It’s an interesting idea to get readers acquainted with books; I’ll be interested as the whole book video thing gets off the ground to see how successful it is for YA. (Via Bookshelves of Doom.)

Back to the books for now!

The Cybil Nomination is ….OVAH!

Midnight, Eastern Standard Time was the hour that the Cybils closed, and can I just say first a serious thank-you to everyone who participated? You rock! Our team has …drum roll, please… EIGHTY TWO books (at last, bleary-eyed count) to consider for our part of the award. Eighty-two! And now can I just say an exasperated “thank GOD the list is closed!” There are five of us. There are eighty-two books. We are reading as fast as we can…

This continues to be good fun.

As I’ve been reading for the Cybils, I’ve sometimes had a little moment of surprise and/or a “Yeah, it’s good we’re talking about this” moment at some of what I’ve read. When dealing with YA literature, there’s always been the school of thought that it must be edgy, must be hip and ‘now,’ and that what “now” is, is quite mature in ways many of us were not, at least in our 13 – 17 year old days (and possibly in ways some of us still aren’t now!). I’ve been pleased to find that our nominations span both ends of the spectrum — the relatively tame, and the completely… lively; the relatively shallow, and the comparatively deep. Since it’s my feeling that there are just as many shades of young adulthood as there are themes in literature, it’s great that our nominations run the gamut.

I’m not sure how I’d feel about some of the ‘gaumuting’ in Middle Grade or Picture Books, though. I’m glad I have nothing to do with stuff for younger readers, it seems like someone is always throwing down a challenge and stalking school board members when it comes to literature for younger kids. Sometimes it must seem to parents that writers of children’s books write them solely to talk about the things that they, the parents, don’t want to talk about — and don’t want anybody ELSE talking about to their kids… For instance, a book in literal black-and-white by Dutch author Dolf Verroen received the Gustav Heinemann Peace Prize in Germany this week for talking openly to children about …racism. The story is told from the point of view of a white slave-owner’s daughter, who receives a slave for her birthday. He is dumb, she thinks, and is almost instantly bored with him. Verroen sets up the slave owner’s daughter not as a “bad guy,” but as a person for whom there is no other lifestyle – she acts the way she does because she doesn’t know any better. The very banal description of the inhumanity in the way she treats her slave makes for discussion and social commentary in and of itself. At the close of the controversial book, the slave is sold, and the girl goes away to boarding school, and while it’s less likely that UK parents are going to go to war with the school board, there are a whole lot of confused and unhappy parents there. Oh, and the title of the book? “Wie schön weiß ich bin” (“How Nice and White I Am”). Wow. Can’t wait for the reviews.

On American shores, ABC News reported just last week on writer and activist Zekita Tucker’s controversial children’s book dealing with the n-word. I was surprised that I haven’t heard much else about this book, so it must not yet be widely circulated, as it has been out since March of this year. Some people see it as a godsend, while others are bewildered that this topic has to be discussed with children in the 6-8 year old range at all.

This sentiment of ‘why are we discussing this’ also came to the fore this week at Shiloh Elementary School in Illinois, where parents requested that a picture book on the true story of two male penguins who adopt an egg at a New York Zoo, be restricted to a section for mature issues, and maybe even require parental permission before their child can check it out. Parents requested this because the story stated that the penguins “were in love,” and felt that the picture book introduced homosexual themes that their children were too young to understand. (Although if the kids were too young to understand those themes, why, then, could they not just read a story about penguins adopting? Never mind.) (I surmise the same parents who vociferously protest this story also don’t know that the so-called “gay” penguin “couple” has “broken up“. And yes, we will anthropomorphize everything in our path!). Although the challenge has not succeeded in Illinois so far, parents in other schools in nearby states are bewildered and frustrated by the book’s presence in their elementary school library.

As a writer, I know that sometimes there are stories I want to tell – that I feel need to be told. I am careful about things that other writers aren’t as careful about, mainly because I’m still leery of my mother reading something of mine and having a stroke, or my teachers coming after me with the soap. But seriously, while a writer doesn’t want to censor themselves, I think a lot of us do think about what we include in our work. How racy is too racy? How intimately do you want to depict… well, intimacy, or how graphically do you want to portray violence? People are always asking Chris Crutcher about language, and why he “makes” his characters swear. Is authenticity in literature only possible when the character uses multi-syllabic profanity? Maybe… Maybe not. The thing is, as a writer, it’s impossible to know where to draw the line for how far one will go based on one’s readers… because there are as many readers and as many lines as there are books … and you will never please everybody.

That’s somewhat of an awful thought, as well as a freeing thought: you, writer-whomever-you-are, wherever you are, you cannot make everybody happy with your work.

So, just do what you’re going to do.

I continue to laugh at myself for presenting this as The Big Thought, and I’m sure I’ve written about it before, but it’s a compelling truth, one that I have to rediscover repeatedly: I cannot make everyone happy with my writing. I can’t make anybody like what I’ve done, or what I do. I have to be true to my …vision of whatever. And go with it.

So, I’ll do what I’m going to do my way (and my agent will moan, “For God’s sakes, let your characters swear!” which is the single funniest line I’ve ever heard anyone utter inadvertently), and you do what you’re going to do your way.

And that’s all.

Oh, and good luck with the school board.

A Quick Note While the Week Flies By

I’m in the middle of reading a winner! Cheers to the astonishing, talented M.T. Anderson!

Just yesterday I discovered Nancy Werlin’s daily blogging about the National Book Awards, and was disappointed on her behalf when M.T. Anderson’s novel, The Astonishing Life of Octavian Nothing, Traitor to the Nation, Vol. One: The Pox Party won last night. Not that Anderson’s book is anything that didn’t deserve to win! No way! I’m in the middle of it, and it’s intensely …different. I’m deeply intrigued by Anderson, his talent, and his flexibility. Still, this was a hard, hard, hard choice amongst some really great books, so I’m also a little disappointed that American Born Chinese by Gene Luen Yang didn’t win. I have big hopes for the future of graphic novels, not only because it encourages more writers/artists, but because it creates a new audience of readers. So, tough choices all around, but I’m excited that this is the FIRST volume in Anderson’s work on Octavian. I can’t wait to finish it and write up a review on our sister site.

Meanwhile, Competizione has more whacked out contests going on – don’t forget to check them out to win fun stuff from the blogosphere that you completely don’t need, but what the heck. Also don’t forget our book awards — the clock is ticking on the Cybils, guys, and nominations close the 20th!

On my own writing front, a note from S.A.M. informs me that my editor is still catching up on her post-wedding work, but my contract is coming down the pipe to me soon, and that my editorial letter and a read-through on my second novel is in the works. If I think I’m busy NOW, after Thanksgiving I have a feeling that things are going to really and truly kick into high gear, as we work to conclude this final edit so that my release date — tentatively scheduled for Winter 2007-08 — can stay on track. This is a good, if antsy feeling… one which I feel better not thinking about at all, which is why I’m just as cheerful to dive back into my Cybils novels once again. And can I just say it’s a huge dive? Yesterday I just received my review copy of Aidan Chambers’ newly released book… all 816 pages of it. I’d better get back to work!!

Cheers!

*secret agent man

Poetry Shards

Other websites have Poetry Friday; I have most-excellent-poetry-when-I-find-it days.

This is an unpublished one from Jane Yolen’s online journal; she lost her husband last year, and I had to put my head down for a bit when I happened across it.

First Fall

  • This is my first fall without,
  • The leaves redder than I remember.
  • Not the color of blood, which dries dark
  • …But something vibrant in its dying.
  • This is my first fall without,
  • The mornings so cold, I wear
  • One of your old sweaters over my nightgown
  • And turn up the heat till the house
  • Breaks out in a sweat.
  • This is my first fall without,
  • The horse chestnuts—conkers you called them—
  • Banging down on the roof like mad raindrops
  • All night long, pocking the car.
  • This is my first fall without,
  • The geese in their anarchic vees
  • That sometimes read like an L or M,
  • Head to where Connecticut and Massachusetts
  • Huddle together for warmth.
  • This is my first fall without.
  • You have gone before me into winter,
  • Into spring, into summer, somehow
  • A consummate time traveler
  • I can never catch up to,
  • Always a season ahead.

In heart-shattering times, beauty and pain are so vividly intermingled.

Wasting Time: Must. Have. Vacation… Soon.

At times, the web is such a glorious, mesmerizing, complete and utter waste of time. I count the moronic genius of Someone Keeps Stealing My Letters, the strangely intimate yet completely divorced from reality game of playing with magnetic letters on the fridge. It would be even more fun if this was the poetry version, where bits of phrase could be swapped around. A browser-based, multi-user Flash… game that isn’t really a game, you could spend a lot of time trying to write out your fridge opus, if those other cretins didn’t keep stealing your vowels.

Strange world, that that kind of thing is entrancing.

I am hereby giving up on NaNo month. It sucks, and it’s only my competitive nature that thinks it’s awful — I already know I can write and write garralously. It’s just that I can’t seem to this month. The first eight days of the month were sucked up with my sister in the hospital, and subbing for Mom and work, and driving back and forth into the city every spare moment — a good 55 miles away — to see her. And then there’s the good old Cybils, which has a reading list now of 57 books that I’ve got to have read and reviewed by the middle of December… and then, there’s ye olde Thanksgiving Pageant, which I’ve done absolutely bupkus work on today, and I was meant to pull together the bulletin and type up all the names of the kiddies taking part (our Woodrow Wilson is Ukrainian. With his heavy seven-year-old accent, that should be a hoot.). The feather that drops the building is a surprise visit from the Outlaws (aka in-laws), and if you know the history there, you comprehend the “OY.”

Oy. I surrender. Just lay me down and count me dead. Wake me up when it’s all over.

So, with apologies to all the nice people (okay, all the blood-thirsty, evil, competitive people who lured me into this knowing I’d have to quit and they could dance on my grave and prove once and for all that they’re better than me at everything) who got me into NaNo, I’m going to have to do the best I can and give it a lick and a promise (another weird phrase of which no one knows the origins) but I doubt I’m going to make it. Which depresses me, for some bizarre reasons. What? I can’t do everything and be good at all things, all at once? Woe is me.

Another happy note from my agent, who (still) hates me, but no new news on the final edit for my novel from Knopf. I don’t doubt that my editor is still on her honeymoon — along with my 8 weeks pregnant sister and everyone else. Can we say “jealous?”

It suddenly occurs to me that I never did have a honeymoon. I guess we counted our trip to Holland seven years later as our honeymoon, and probably our cruise to Alaska also counted, but frankly, anytime you’re a.) traveling with other people and b.) become nauseas sans partying and libations (thank you, November seas) it shouldn’t count toward anything remotely celebrating a marriage. Unless you’re being altogether too literal. (Those seas WERE rough. Stuff slid. Fingernail polish tipped out of bottles. Dresses were ruined. Tears — well, okay. No tears. Just a lot of swearing and people breaking their hips in the dining room. Ugh. No more cruising with the over-80 set. EVER.)

But anyway, back to the no honeymoon thing. I guess it’s fitting. After all, the Welsh word for honeymoon is mis mêl (honey month — retrieved from Wikipedia), and ostensibly, the lore says that the first month of marriage, during Babylonian times or something, the father of the bride supplied the groom with all the mead he could stomach. Since my father has given nothing to mi esposo but grief, well — no honeymoon for us. We’ll just vacation, thanks.

So the thing is? I need a vacation. I’m going to plan for this. It’s going to have to be a.) something where NO ONE related to me is within a seventy-five miles, b.) something which is expensive enough to be fun, but not so spendy that I’m worrying about our (dubious) savings c.) and it will need to be during the time when the work on the house gets on my nerves the worst — I’m thinkin’ right about the time they start tearing out the carpet? Is the time to go to Paris or something. (Why Paris? Yes, I hated where we were in France. I’m not partial to dog doo on the sidewalk. But Mac may actually have to go to Paris for WORK. In which case… okay. I can stay off the sidewalks.)

This sounds like a plan. And now I will go down and put dinner in the oven because my vacation has not yet begun …