Heuristic

Since reading Elizabeth Bear’s blog regularly, I’ve been exposed to some very interesting literary criticism. I asked her how to learn that skill - I’m very analytical, but lack the concepts/vocabulary of literary criticism. Previous attempts to learn something about the formal discipline have ended badly, mostly with cursing. A lot of academic literary criticism seems to exist solely for the purpose of existing. I’m more interested in the kind with meaning.

It occurred to me that the Hugo “Best Related Book” category would be a good place to find genre criticism, and I’ll track down some of the relevant books from there. There’s also Ursula Le Guin. But who else? I’d like to at least become familiar with the basics, both as a reader and a writer, but in a way that’s compatible with my pre-existing scientific/analytical bias.

Thoughts, please.

There was the one where you not only removed the e-book of 1984 from the store, but sucked it off of people’s Kindles without telling them.

There was the one where you classified gay- and lesbian-themed books, including YA and health books, as “Adult”, thus removing them from lists and rankings. (This was later claimed as a glitch.)

And now this. As part of a dispute between Amazon and Macmillan about pricing, you pulled all Macmillan books (including Tor), in both electronic and paper editions, from Amazon’s sale listings - generously leaving the affiliates. This has had interesting effects on your stock prices, but could be catastrophic for the authors involved, especially those with book releases this week. And that’s what pisses me off. Corporations negotiate pricing all the time, but they don’t normally shit all over the artists so directly. Amazon threw a childish temper tantrum, and the authors are the ones really paying, though they have absolutely no control over pricing or formats.

As John Scalzi suggests, go buy a book or three - Macmillan titles, from somewhere not Amazon. Not that you could - Amazon pulled them all on Friday night, and still haven’t put them back.

Scott Westerfeld put together an excellent overview of the dispute accessible to those not familiar with the publishing business. Other good and detailed articles: Toby Buckell, Charlie Stross, John Scalzi.

Jay Lake skewers what is to date Amazon’s only comment on the debate.

There’s a lot more out there, but much of it is by people who appear to be ignorant of the details of the debate and the way publishing works (hint: most authors aren’t rich, and neither are they interested in screwing their readers). I’m firmly on the side of the authors on this one, and I hope that the larger debate on ebook format, pricing, availability shakes down in a way that allows the authors to make a living, and the readers to get reasonably priced (and DRM-free!) texts.

But for now, go buy books!

Edit: Must add: Hal Duncan’s always-unique take on matters.

Moonlight flooded the sky, only the brightest stars outshining it. The icy January wind bit deep into her bones. Once she’d been oblivious to temperature, even without her fur coat, but the past few winters had been hard. There were other compensations: her children, grandchildren, even the third and fourth generations. With age the pull of the moon lessened; in recent months she’d stayed at home in her rocking chair. Winter’s chill made the ensuing aches and pains all the worse, days of immobility for a single night’s exhilaration, though even then she wasn’t as quick and agile as she’d once been. She took a long look at the moon bright overhead. This time there would be no pain. She would have liked to smell spring again — new life, young and foolish prey — but wild things knew when it was time to steal away into the silent woods.

[Note: these ultra-short stories are all exactly 150 words. Telling a complete tale at a specific length is an interesting puzzle, a good warm-up exercise, a home for a single idea or image. I try not to fuss over them too much except for length, and often write one after work as a way to unwind. Tonight's was inspired by the lovely full moon. Vivid Mars appeared as well, but he didn't contribute to the story so he had to go.]

My attention has been pulled in a thousand different directions lately, and writing has suffered the most. Not much blogging, very little fiction. Much pondering of fiction though. I seem to have developed some sort of process for long pieces of fiction.

1. Come up with an idea: a setting, a scene, a person, a phrase.
2. Write for a while. This seems to be around 20-40,00 words. This is where the character development, world building, and plotting happen.
3. After I’ve written long enough to have a feel for the characters and some idea what happens in the plot, stop and write a synopsis/outline. By this point I know what’s going to happen and how it will all end.
4. Go back through the first chunk. Some of it will be useless, a lot of it will be wrong. Revise the best bits to make them fit with my new understanding of the shape of the book.
5. Finish writing the first draft, really a first-and-a-half draft after the initial reworking.
6. Revise, revise, revise.

It seems a bit presumptuous to declare that this is how I do it, since I haven’t finished anything longer than 60,000 words, but I thought it might be a useful record of what I’m doing right now. The current big project is in stage 4. I know how it goes together, and how it ends. Somehow it developed a Theme, but I have it on good authority that it will probably be okay anyway (scroll down to the listed comments).

The fiction momentum is starting to come back. I got a short story finished this weekend - it had been sadly without an ending for about a month - and it will be going out as soon as I give it a good proofreading. Another longer piece is almost done with its major revision and ready for resubmission somewhere. Wish me luck.

Friday evening I attended a reading and signing - the book launch party for The Devil’s Alphabet by Daryl Gregory. He held an after-party, and I was amused to learn that he’s only a couple blocks away. It was much fun, and very geeky. (Venn diagrams!) I’m very happy to find a congenial local SFF author. (Not that I know any uncongenial local authors; before Friday I didn’t know any.) I had a long and entertaining conversation over wine with one of the other guests at the party about being a scientist and writing science fiction. He’s a scientist, not an author, but was very interested in how one influences the other, as am I. (Note to self: I am a writer because I write works of fiction and non-fiction, and finish them, and send them out into the world. Not having a paid fiction publication yet doesn’t make that any less true. Honest.)

Anyway, I enjoyed the evening, and unusually for me was there until the end of the party. Daryl sent me home with half a chocolate cake! It wasn’t bribery, because I would have encouraged you all to check out The Devil’s Alphabet and his earlier novel Pandemonium anyway, but chocolate never hurts. Daryl also has some short fiction online.

Pirate loot, even!

One of my favorite writing blogs, Magical Words, is a group effort by several authors. A few I’d read before finding the blog; most were new to me, but I’ve made an effort to get to know all of their fiction better. I like reading this and other author blogs: it helps to remind me that people do successfully write fiction, and that every writer has a different way of approaching that process.

In December several of the authors ran contests with signed books as prizes. Misty Massey asked for holiday humor. I told a mildly risque joke made surreal by my younger brother (thereby probably embarrassing him thoroughly, if only he knew). And won!

Not only do I have a signed copy of Mad Kestrel, which you all should rush out and purchase (strong female lead, magic, pirates!), but Misty threw in goodies - pirate stickers, a bandana, and best of all, pirate duckies!

Those were very nearly nabbed as I was unpacking the box, and only quick action saved the poor duckies from ducknapping!

Thanks Misty!

In early October I started a Goodreads account. I’d had good intentions of keeping a list of things I’d read, but had not been particularly successful at doing it. I’m notoriously bad at remembering authors and titles, and I wanted something to help me keep track. Most of my fiction comes from the public library, so I don’t have the physical items to refer to. Goodreads has been just the thing - it’s quick and easy enough that I actually do keep track. The list includes everything I could remember reading in September.

Charlie Stross reminded everyone on his blog

On my list (Sept-Dec 2009) there are nine books
published in 2009, eight of which are novels, and all of which are
SFF. I’m slightly embarrassed to say that of those nine, six are by
white males, three are by women, and one of the latter is by a person
of color. The male:female ratio quite different if all books I read in
the last third of 2009 (when I started the list) are included: 23 out
of 37 were by women, and 5 of those were actually multi-novel omnibus
editions. Overall diversity is still pretty low: only 2 of the 37,
both female, are known to me to be by non-white authors. (The caveat
is because it’s easier to guess gender than ethnicity from first
names.) The gender balance is fairly normal for me, a female reader of
SFF, but even that low ethnic diversity was due to an effort to find
new authors. Even with seeking out a diversity of fiction, I ended up with those low numbers.

I’m reading one Hugo-eligible novel right now, and have three more sitting on my stack, books I’d purchased earlier this year, all by women. One is by a non-straight author, the only example of GLBT diversity that I know exists in my recent reading. (Again, I do not know the personal histories of all the authors I’ve read this year.)

Anyone who follows online SFF discussion knows that the past year has been packed full of acrimonious debate on the role of racial, sexual, gender minorities in SFF authorship and fandom. I try to be diverse in my tastes, but even with explicit attempts to read a wider diversity of speculative fiction, my tally is still heavily skewed. It seems to be mostly availability rather than intent - the majority of what I read either catches my eye on the new book shelf in the library or gets good buzz from people whose recommendations I usually enjoy. Many of the books I read feature something other than straight white western European male protagonists (even if on another planet or fantasy millieu), but those are probably not in the majority.

No brilliant solutions, just another datapoint.

I rarely cross-post material from my other blog to here - that’s cheating, isn’t it? But rather than rewrite essentially the same material, I’ll copy over the last paragraph of the original post to share with you.

My major goal for the year is twofold: make more art; support more artists. I’d like to encourage everyone who reads this blog to adopt the same goal. Bring something into the world that is new, that never would have existed had I not laid hand to it. The second one is crucial. There would be no art if there were no support for artists. If you can, try to buy more books, or jewelry, or prints. Visit a museum, gallery, see a play, hear live music. If you have no money to spare, like so many right now, there are other things you can do. Request your local public library to buy a book by an author you like, so that lots of people can read her work. Write a book review for your blog, or Amazon, or GoodReads. Tell a friend about something beautiful you saw, or read, or heard. Support doesn’t require money, though that’s the easiest approach. Your time is valuable too - word of mouth is a powerful tool. Tell someone that their work inspired you. Most authors, musicians, painters, photographers have web pages or blogs or LJ accounts, and would love being told that their work touched you.

Then go out and make something of your own.

Postscript: I honestly did plan the larger part of this post before I saw Neil Gaiman’s New Year’s wish. He says much the same thing, only more elegantly.

Mr. Alexander looked up at the office building. Surely that was new? He glanced at Ms. Sharp, walking beside him. Ms. Sharp was unperturbed. Should he ask her about the large gray metal box, with the three turrets and smokestack? He was certain that it hadn’t been there earlier this week. It looked like the kind of addition that required contractors with tool belts and large machinery. It must have always been there, because he would have noticed a crane.

Ms. Sharp flicked her eyes sideways at her companion. Why hadn’t she ever noticed that addition? But she was afraid that inquiring would make her seem foolish and unobservant, so she didn’t.

The time-travellers had seen this before, around the globe and throughout history. Just like tying a firecracker to a cat’s tail, but the cat never noticed. Eventually someone would ask, but by then it was always too late.

Sunday afternoon, fiddling around on the computer and organizing stuff. Fiction, non-fiction, photos… it’s all a mess, and all needs sorted out. At least if I post the links I’ve been accumulating, I don’t need to keep track of them any more.

• Periodic Table of Visualization Methods: One of my interests is in informative ways to present data. To my mind, this site tries a bit too hard to shoehorn everything into a cute visual metaphor, but it is nonetheless an interesting overview of visualization types.
• An excavated London witch bottle: urine, brimstone, bent pins.
• Antique microscope slides: Lovely and fascinating bits of science history.
• TED talk on using a 13th-c. astrolabe: I have a distinct fondness for astrolabes.
• Where I Write: Science fiction authors in their natural habitat, recorded by the ever-fabulous photographer Kyle Cassidy. It’s a pleasant change to have this come from within the tribe instead of from someone who seems to be examining a slightly sketchy foreign culture.
• British science fiction from the New Scientist.

That takes care of a good-size chunk of my back links, though by no means all of them.

This sucks.

Canadian science fiction author Peter Watts was stopped by US Border Patrol agents on his way out of the US, beaten up, detained, all his things confiscated, then kicked out. In shirtsleeves. In December. In Ontario.

And he’s been charged with assault too.

Many people have discussion and commentary, including Peter himself.

People are putting together fundraising efforts to pay his legal expenses.

I’m embarrassed for my country. One person is harassed and beaten by US guards at the US border. He happens to be known internationally and his friends are willing and able to raise a fuss, and money. How many people without those resources does this happen to?