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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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?
Soft splats all around me, and I’d forgotten my umbrella again. I brushed a frog from my shoulder and reached down to dislodge another from the German shepherd. The poodle snapped at a falling amphibian. The Airedale just looked disgruntled. At least it wasn’t blood this time. The dogs had tracked that all over the house. The stains would probably never come off the floors.
I came up with this clever scheme after getting laid off: gullible people paying me up front for the security of knowing their pets would be cared for after the Rapture. Even good dogs don’t go to Heaven. Lots of them did pay me. Now I was stuck with the consequences: dogs, cats, hamsters. I’m glad I said no to the donkeys, even when their owner offered to pay double.
I thought I was so smart, but I don’t even like animals all that much.
November is NaNoWriMo, and that’s a good thing. Taking up that challenge in 2005 was was got me back into writing fiction. But that level of intensity in November just isn’t possible for me most years. It’s no longer an incredibly busy time at work thanks to some agency-wide reorganization, but I’m still personally very busy. Even if not travelling for Thanksgiving, like this year, I run a weekend-long textile symposium, and it takes a lot of time, effort and mental energy to pull together. This year I was also head cook for the entire weekend. Yikes!
But I made a NaNoResolution anyway: write some fiction every day, on a particular new project. No expectation of 50k, just writing something every day. My target was 250 words a day. I’m working here on establishing a routine, rather than trying to get a vast word count. 250 words is a full page in manuscript format, and something that I can do fairly rapidly, while getting myself back in practice. The NaNoResolution included specific dispensation for missing days related to the textile event. No sense in making myself even more frantic than I was already going to be.
I’m pleased to note that I had a couple of good writing days earlier in the month, and hit the 250-word 30-day total on November 15. Not that that lets me out of writing for the rest of the month. Routine. Every day. I did miss four days for the symposium, but will pick it back up today.
Unlike NaNoWriMo, where I keel over at the end of the month, I intend to keep writing every day, into December and beyond. 250 words isn’t much, but adds up into a novel in a year, roughly. And there’s nothing wrong with an author who writes a novel a year.
I posted “Horn” on the Online Writing Workshop for critique, and have now gotten four really good reviews. I thought it was a pretty good story; now I see how to make it a whole lot better. I intend to tackle revisions over the long weekend, then send it back out into the world. I have a couple more stories just about ready to submit for critique. The only way to get better is to keep doing it. I’m going to take another stab at Viable Paradise next year, and need to put some serious effort into revision there as well. OWW has already been an excellent learning experience, and I should be able to apply what I’ve come up with to other projects.
Patrick Rothfuss talks about writing as work, at some length, and with plenty of snark aimed at people who think that it’s a trivial process.
He even uses a string analogy!
I’m tired of trying to juggle everything: the plotlines, the character arcs, the realistic depiction of a fantastic world, the pacing, the word choice, the tension, the tone, the stories-within-stories. Half of it would be easy, but getting everything right at once? It’s like trying to play cat’s cradle in n-dimensional space.
I’m working on a second-world fantasy novel. The worldbuilding is enormously fun, and also enormously challenging. I have the basics down, but am continuing to refine the details.
The big stuff: geography, climate, major political structures. These are the background to the whole thing (and not independent - geography affects climate, and both affect climate and politics). But there are a zillion other details that go into making a fully-realized and lush world.
Part of it is knowing the daily life of your protagonist, and part of it is knowing how your protagonist fits into the surrounding society, or doesn’t. All sorts of little things make up a culture, and these are the details that make the world real to a reader. The better-grounded and more plausible a world is, the more able the reader is to accept the different bits, the magic or whatever makes your world not just like ours.
What are the names of the constellations? Does the protagonist know them?
What kinds of musical instruments are common? When are they heard? Is there recording technology? What style of music does the protagonist like? Or participate in? Is that common?
What kind of bed does the protagonist sleep in - pallet, featherbed, mattress and springs, antigravity plate?
What does the protagonist hear while in bed trying to sleep? Traffic, silence, noisy neighbors, the local bar?
When does the protagonist usually eat? Two meals a day? Three? Four? Is that the usual pattern?
What does the protagonist usualy eat when at home? Travelling?
How often does the protagonist bathe? Using what supplies and equipment? Is that the usual pattern?
What’s the protagonist’s favorite season? Why?
I keep thinking of more and more, but you get the idea. Knowing these kinds of “little” details for the culture, the protagonist, and any other major characters will help you create a richer world, even if none of them actually end up in the story.
I swear I didn’t conveniently forget the other writing link so that I could use that title. Honest. But when the opportunity arose…
The writing link that I couldn’t remember last night: How to Get Ideas: Talk to Cows by John Brown. He’s cogent, and funny. I’ll have to check out his new book.
Despite good intentions - tonight was to be for finishing a couple of nonfiction articles - nothing was accomplished. I blame the snow.
