What's up with SFWA?

So, RWA (Romance Writers of America) just had their annual convention a few weeks ago. It's always a huge event, and many writers I know were there and had a terrific time. But do you know what makes RWA great in my eyes? It's not the convention (no one has more conventions than sci-fi, after all); it's their inclusiveness.

Pop quiz: How many publications do you need to join RWA? 1? 3? How do they define a "qualified market" for these publications? Well, let's check their website:

RWA welcomes new members. You need not be a published author to join Romance Writers of America; only seriously pursuing a career in the romance fiction.

Well, isn't that interesting? But maybe that's just RWA, though, that makes the commitment to culitvating new talent, to helping people get their start. Maybe it's a chick thing. Women helping women, in that Ya-Ya sisterhood kind of way. I mean, surely the Horror Writers Assocation (HWA) isn't so open to the unwashed masses:

HWA's active (voting) members are all published professional writers of horror. But you needn't be an established professional writer to join HWA. Your demonstrated intention to become a professional writer is all that's required to join HWA at the Affiliate level, because we know the first professional-level sale is often the hardest.

Oh. You can see where I'm going with, but here's MWA, Mystery Writers of America:

Affiliate members are writers of crime/mystery/suspense fiction who are not yet professionally published, and others with an interest in the genre, including unpaid reviewers.

Or SCBWI (Society of Childrens Books Writers and Illustrators):

Associate Membership is open to unpublished writers and illustrators of children’s literature or media, and those with a general enthusiasm for the field. Writers or illustrators who have been published in markets other than children's literature (but not in children's literature) would be considered Associate Members.

Some call it associate, some call it affiliate, but all these groups reach out to include new writers. Which is cool. But SFWA doesn't do this. Oh, they have an associate level. It's this:

To become an Associate member of SFWA, applicants must demonstrate:
One Paid Sale of prose fiction (such as short stories) to a Qualifying Professional Market, paid at the rate of 5c/word or higher (3c/word before 1/1/2004), minimum $75.

And those key phrases "Paid Sale" and "Qualifying Professional Market" are very stringently defined. You can't publish just anywhere, they have a short list of what markets count. I read most of those magazines. With the exception of the Writers of the Future anthology, which is by definition all new writers, you'll be lucky to find more than one story by a new writer in any of them. Not that I blame the magazines; I'd rather read the new Gene Wolfe short than something from a writer I've never heard of. But why does SFWA set the bar so discouragingly high?

This juicy quote comes from elsewhere on their website:

If you don't have enough sf/f fiction credits to get you into SFWA, SFWA membership would be of very little (if any) value to you.

Which frankly sounds a little elitist and snotty. How does SFWA differ from every other writers' organization, that there is no place for newbies? I don't know.

I've heard talk that sci-fi sales are declining and have been for more than a decade. Most booksellers when asked to name their favorite sci-fi novels name books that are all 15+ years old. Are these two things related? Maybe not. But what if they are?

My new addiction

When I decided to take this whole writing thing seriously, I needed to find ways to carve out the time to write every day. The first thing I gave up was television. Not much loss there. I still watch episodes of shows like Buffy, Angel, or Lost when they come out on DVD while I'm treading the mill, but aside from that it's just an hour of Adult Swim on Sunday nights and basketball when it's on (and I usually do something else like knit at the same time).

The second thing I gave up was video games. This one was actually harder, and it's the thing that still calls to me when I'm struggling with the words. Lara Croft beckons. I remember that I never did play Final Fantasy Tactics all the way to the end. Or Baldur's Gate, for that matter. Then I hear about cool games like the Sims, and I long for more hours in the day.

But mostly I keep those urges under control. Until last week...

As you all know, I homeschool my boys. I'm currently in a tricky phase where Oliver has started doing real school, but Aidan is not quite capable of working independently. I feel like Aidan is missing out on things I'd like to be doing with him but can't because there isn't enough time in the day. I wish he could do things without me, but how I can I make sure he's progressing with something if I'm not monitoring him?

Enter Rosetta Stone. This is the foreign language program that's pretty much universally hailed to be the best in homeschooling circles. To actually buy the program is over $200, but I recently found out that with a library card you can get it for free from the library's web page. It's considered a reference material. Now, Aidan has been learning Latin, which he loves but which happens to be very time consuming and is generally the thing we are most likely not to get to on a given day. It's a shame because he loves it, and yet it's not likely to appear on his standardized tests, hence the leaving it for last if at all. I decided to check out the Rosetta Stone Latin, to see if it was at a level he could do on his own.

First I did a few lessons in Latin, and they were perfect for Aidan. But I soon forgot that's what I was even there for. It was so addictive, just clicking on pictures, saying things out loud to yourself, and before you know it you've learned a bunch of Latin. It was like a video game, really. But I've already taught myself enough Latin to already know everything that Rosetta Stone has to offer. Not much fun there for me.

But look, there's Chinese! I never progressed far with Chinese. I tried an audio tape series that worked the same way as Rosetta Stone, no phrases to memorize, you learn words by figuring out what's being said just like a child learns his native language, etc. It was good, but I'm not an audio learner, I'm a visual learner. Rosetta Stone, with the added visual element of seeing the words written, is perfect for me.

After four lessons in Chinese I remember that I don't really have a reason to learn Chinese (aside from it's just cool). So I looked at what other languages they offer. I've been working on Icelandic lately since it's the closest to Old Norse (see how cleverly I disguise my addiction as "novel research"?). No Icelandic on Rosetta Stone. No Norwegian either. But they do have Swedish, which is a lot like Icelandic (kind of like French is a lot like Spanish).

So it's a week later and I've done about fifteen lessons in Swedish. Which I don't really need, since I decided not to use foreign phrases in the novel, and I'll most likely never travel to Sweden. And yet I can't stop. But there is an upside. It's become my writing reward. My goal for a long time has been to write at least 1000 words a day. Now, when I get my 1000 words done, I let myself learn some Swedish.

Yep, I'm one sad little puppy.

Like a bake sale, but with stories!

My fellow Backspacer EJ is going through some tough times. As he says on his blog:

Hunter S. Thompson said that when the going gets weird, the weird turn pro. Well, I’m not sure how pro this is but trying to sell 1500 stories in 20 days is probably a pretty weird thing to try.
Let me explain.
Stress kills. It’s pretty good at knocking you on your ass, too. I hit the stress wall a year ago and it wasn’t pretty. I ended up losing my job and going on disability. Since then I’ve been struggling to keep things afloat, juggling credit card payments, a mortgage on a house that refuses to sell, rent and a car payment. The credit cards are long gone and by now my credit rating is sub-zero. My retirement account is gone. The house will likely be lost. And five days ago Exchange Bank took my car.
I can’t be without a car. I have doctors to see, therapy to go to, shopping to do and the transit system in this town is all but non-existent.
My first reaction was to roll over, give it up. I’ve been struggling for a year now, why keep it up? I’m tired. I can’t go on. Then I decided no, I’m not going to do that. I’m a writer. Writing is a struggle. I’m damned if I’m going to let them beat me without some kind of fight. So I came up with an idea. A weird idea. Maybe an idea that won’t work. But at least it was something. I decided I would try and sell 1500 stories at $2.00 a piece. Why 1500? Because I need to raise $3000.00 to get my car back. I may not be able to find 1500 stories but that’s what I’m aiming for. I hope to have a paypal account set up by the end of the day for story purchases.
But I don’t have, and couldn’t possibly write, 1500 stories in time. So I ran the idea by my friends at Backspace, the best damn writers group on the Internet and the response, I have to be honest, made me cry. I’ve been receiving stories all day and hope to start posting them by the end of the day.
I need the help of bloggers as well to make this happen. I need the word to spread. Please, mention what I’m trying to do on your blog with a link back to this post.
And thank you. Win or lose, at least I’ve tried.

So if you're a writer, send EJ a story. I know you have one or two in a drawer; we all do.

I've been without a car once myself, for a blessedly short period of time, but that short time was enough to show me how impossible it is to get by without one. You may not know EJ but I do, and the man deserves the helping hand. I'm giving him three of my stories myself. And he's not just asking for a handout; he's selling something worth having. I like to think of it as a bake sale without all the fattening cake (although one of the stories I'm contributing just happens to be about a cake...). And I know the other writers contributing to this project. Take it from me, $2 a story from writers like these is a steal.

For more info, click over to his blog: Only on Sunday.

Update: The stories are going up here: 1500 stories - 20 days.

It's just too hot

We're on the third day in a row over 100 degrees. Which is fine if you happen to live in Albuquerque, but sucks in Minnesota. I'm not a fan of heat myself. When it's cold, you can always put on more layers, but when it's hot...

For the last few days I've been wearing pretty much the same outfit: an athletic bra and a super airy, floaty skirt. The skirts were on clearance at Target for $4 a piece, so I bought a couple in different colors. They're so light I can pack the whole thing into my fist. Very comfortable. On the downside, being that they were on the clearance rack the only size choices were way too big and way too small. I went with too big, figuring that was actually an advantage anyway. I break out in rashes in the heat if my clothes rub on my skin at all, so too big was a good thing.

I was making lunch yesterday (or trying to; all of our bread had molded even though it had been in the freezer since I bought it. Preservative free, there is a downside. Luckily, I keep a wide stock of tortillas and pitas). I looked up to see Aidan staring at me in a look that can only be described as abject horror. Now they've both been freaking out, having to look at my belly for days on end, but I sensed this was something new.

"What?" I ask, looking at myself.

"Mom! I can see your underwear!"

This from the boy who is currently wearing only his underwear. As is his brother. And his father.

"And I see your underwear too. What's the problem?"

"Mom, yours've got little pink flowers on them."

It's supposed to storm all day tomorrow and then be in the 70s on Wednesday. Sounds like bliss.

Have you ever read a review so harsh, you just had to see the movie?

No one is liking M. Night Shyamalan's new movie Lady in the Water. I even think it looks lame, and I'm a big M. Night fan. Then I read Roger Ebert's brilliant review. Now I have to see this movie (not in theaters, on DVD; I'm not nuts).

Ebert says: "There will be no mystery, no discovery, here -- everything is going to be explained and explained and explained in the most banal, literalistic fashion. No show. Just tell." Wow, I didn't even know that was possible in a movie. Leastwise not outside of some of the fine films they did on MST3K where the filmmaker lost the soundtrack and replaced all the dialogue with voiceover.

But my fave is when he says: "It's a movie that insists on the importance of fairy-tale mythology and storytelling that doesn't respect the integrity of mythology or know how to tell a story...Were I the late Joseph Campbell, who devoted his life to exploring how myths are not arbitrary shaggy dog stories but speak to the hunger for meaning deep within our species, I would will my spirit to return from the Land of the Dead, raise my hollowed body from my grave, and pelt this movie with rotten lotuses."

Man, I gotta see this movie! It sounds like a complete train wreck.

I'm a gangsta!

The Evil Editor had this link to a web site that translates any webpage into "jive". I couldn't resist. Here's my Bloomsday post, a la Snoop Dogg:

Today is June 16, n tizzle makes it Bloomsday bitch ass nigga. W-H-to-tha-izzat, you may be ask'n, is a Bloomsday? Well, James Joyce wrote a novel called Ulysses W-H-to-tha-izzich follows tha wander'n of one Leopold Bloom around Dublin on June 16, 1904 cuz its a doggy dog world. This novel has many very devoted fans who baller in pubs around tha world every Jizzle 16 ta celebrate Bloomsday by drink'n Guiness n ballin' tha book out loud ta each gangsta (man, I neva git invited ta tha coo` parties) . Throw yo guns in the motherfuckin air.

Now Ulysses is hands-down mah absolute favorite bizzy of all time. But it's also a book that many thugz start n jizzle cizzay finish , chill yo. It's a lot of wizzork, n unless it's yo sort of th'n, it's not wizzorth tha wizzle with my forty-fo' mag. I git tizzy . You gotta check dis shit out yo. It's jizzust so much My Sort of Spendin'. Someone at Backspace recently asked me why I like it so mizzle so sit back relax new jacks get smacked. I hadn't really thought `bout it before, not in tha sort of way thiznat I could articulate it anyway like a motha fucka. So it tizzle me a while ta come up wit mah response puttin tha smack down.

I think Joyce would be proud, don't you? I'm definitely going to find ways to work "I can articulate like a motha fucka" in converstion. But my fave is what it did to my Joss quote at the top of my page:

Every time somebody opens they grill they have an opportunity ta do one of two th'n—connect or divide. Some thugz inherently divide, n some thugz inherently connect . Boo-Yaa! Connect'n is tha most important doggy stylin' n actually an eazy thing ta do. I try ta makes a connection wit someone every time I rap ta them, coz a connection can be made. People can be treated wit respect so show some love niggaz. I'm shocked tizzle there is so many thugz thizzat live ta divide . Its just anotha homocide. - Joss Whedon

Yeah, boyz!

Precision, not accuracy

I took statistics in college twice. (Not intentionally, some credits just didn't translate over between getting the Associate in Arts and getting the Associate in Applied Science). I remember the little diagrams both teachers drew to explain the difference between precision and accuracy:

Precision (the bottome one) is hitting the same mark over and over, but the mark can be anywhere. Accuracy is the special kind of precision that involves actually hitting the bullseye.

My writing career has precision but not accuracy.

I'm looking at my latest Quarter-finalist from Writers of the Future (Tale of a Fox, for those familiar with my shorts, i.e. Backspacers). (Hi, Backspacers!) Quarter-Finalist means it falls in the top 10-15% of all their submissions. It also means the slush reader got all of the way through to the end of the story but it didn't make it into the Semi-Finalist or Finalist stacks. It is supposed to be good news, and it was terribly exciting the first time it happened. But this is the fourth or fifth time I've made quarter-finals. There's no way to tell if I'm getting any closer, which is quite frustrating. I'm also grumpy since my husband crashed our computer right after I mailed the submission out, and as much as I was sure I was religiously backing up to my jump drive and to the second computer (which he is forbidden to touch), neither had the most recent version of this story on it, the one with the revisions I did that I'm sure were quite kick-ass but are completely gone from my memory now.

So Joss, why do you write these strong female characters?

I'm hoping this will work, I've never actually done anything this tricky with the blog before. If it does work, this is an awesome speech given by my hero, Joss Whedon, which is well worth listening to. It's typical Joss, funny and poignant and deeply serious all in a blow.

Yes, all these books are for me

So I got done with work insanely early last Saturday. This almost never happens; I'm usually typing like a mad woman until past 7 (not writing, typing; this is the day job). But through a strange cluster of unpredictable events, there I was with no work to do and time on my hands. So Quin and I took the boys to the Mall of America. This is their Mecca. Not the MOA, but what lies within it, near its very heart: the Lego store.

Me? I'm not so much a Lego fan, and the store is always crowded (comes from only having 3 stores in the entire US, I think), so while Quin roamed the aisles with the boys I slipped away to the Barnes & Noble. Roaming an actual, non-virtual bookstore is a rare treat for me, I only get to do it about twice a year (and one of those times will inevitably be Christmas - ugh).

I headed straight for the graphic novel section and loaded up on Hellboys, Hellblazers (also known as Constantine), Samurai Champloo manga, and a book about Sandman. As I'm making my way to the register it occurs to me my stack is awfully testosteroney, and I'm in the mood for something a little girly too. So I head to general fiction and find this book: Cheating at Solitaire by Ally Carter. Ally is a fellow Backspacer, so I've been seeing this cover for months. I always thought it looked interesting. I tend not to like most things specifically geared towards women, but I had a sense that this might fall into the little subcategory of women things which I like.

Boy, was I ever right. I enjoyed this book immensely (I finished it in an evening and an afternoon; had I not had to work the next morning I could have easily sat up all night finishing it). It's smart and funny, and Julia, the main character, feels like a real woman. I like reading about a woman who doesn't feel like she needs a man to complete her life; it's refreshing. All of the secondary characters are well written as well; I particularly liked "the Georgias", three old women, two named Georgia and one a former Miss Georgia. But as a writer, I'm particularly impressed with the way she writes scenes. Nothing ends to soon, nothing goes on too long. The scene crafting here is just perfect. I'll be reading this one more than once.

I know I usually only recommend fantasy and sci-fi books here, but I'm going to break from tradition and recommend this one, because it's just that good.

I still miss George

It's been just about a year since I last talked about the Beatles. I mentioned that my teen years were all about John, my 20's belonged to Paul, and now in my 30's I'm all about the George. This is still true. I don't think George ever got half the attention he deserved (although I suspect he got twice the attention he really wanted).

Last week was a crummy week. I've been trying to come up with a suitably vague way of explaining it (since it's work-related, vagueness counts). Put it this way: see that Joss quote at the top of my blog? Well let's just say I had a run in with an inherent divider. It's all taken care of now, but I had a few days of feeling blue and musing on "why are people so mean?" (I'm sensitive. No really, I am).

The point being, the perfect cure for the "why are people so mean" blues is George Harrison, hands down. His music is optimistic, but it's not naively optimistic. It's world weary and optimistic at the same time. Quite a trick, but he did it. He could be quite caustic about things he didn't like (think "Taxman" or "Little Piggies") but he was a take the good with the bad kinda guy, and that always came across. He says to me, "Yes, some people suck, but isn't it great to be alive anyway?" Which is ironic, I suppose, him being dead and all.

I wish he had done more, but I get the sense he wasn't one to record crap. He held out for the good stuff, no "filler". I mean, there was 15 years between Cloud 9 and Brainwashed. Aside from the Traveling Wilburys (which I finally got on CD, at slightly inflated Ebay prices, but they're impossible to find new in stores), what was he doing?

I can see why Brainwashed took so long to record, though. He got lung cancer, then got stabbed by a crazed fan, then got lung cancer again. It's gotta be tough to be creative under those circumstances. And he raced to finish recording before he died (and didn't quite do it; it was finished by Jeff Lynne and his son Dhani Harrison, but the important stuff was done). It's still one of my all-time favorite CDs; it's a shame it never got radio play or any kind of promotion. If you're even remotely a Beatles fan I recommend checking it out. He faced death with humor and a love for everything (even the mean people, I suspect); the only remotely sad song is the instrumental "Marwa Blues". I'm not usually a fan of instrumentals, but this one has such an aching beauty (and I do mean ache). Well, you have to hear it to know. Find it. Check it out. You'll see why I love my George.

I'm gonna talk about Ian MacDonald again...

... cause his stuff's the bomb. (I swear it's not just because his name is the most frequent keyword that brings people here - well, that brings people here who go on to read other posts. "Kiss Me Kate spanking scene" is still my number one draw, but for some reason those folks never stay). I spoke briefly on his novella The Little Goddess way back here. The July issue of Asimov's has another novella of his called The Djinn's Wife which I also liked. The two stories don't connect, it's not a like a sequel, but they are both set in a near-future India. The world-building is very well done; there are so many details and they are all well thought out. But as with The Little Goddess, the world-building is just background to tell a story about a girl. Very highly recommended.

My usual experience with short story magazines of any genre is only liking 1 or 2 per issue; this particular Asimov's hit it out of the ballpark for me with four stories I liked. Two I really enjoyed - The Djinn's Wife and Impossible Dreams by Tim Pratt - and two I liked if not to the same degree: Nano comes to Clifford Falls by Nancy Kress (there just aren't enough sci-fi stories out there where the MC is a mother, in my opinion) and You Will Come to the Moon by William Preston. Preston is the only one of the bunch that I've not read before, but I'll be keeping an eye out for him now.

(EDIT: The name of the story is actually You Will Go to the Moon, which of course makes more sense (if you read the story you'll know what I mean). That's what I get for blogging from memory. Although - yay me! - I didn't mispell anybody's name. Not even "Asimov", which I routinely get wrong. I always feel like there should be two of one of those letters. Aasimov? Assimov? Oh no, not that!)

Tim Pratt, you may or may not recall, I talked about before as well, or rather I talked about his excellent novel The Strange Adventures of Rangergirl. That novel I loved in large part for its attention to comic-geek detail. Impossible Dreams I love for its attention to movie-geek detail. Both have very well drawn characters, believeable and real.

At any rate, Ian MacDonald also has a novel out now, also set in near-future India, called River of Gods. I have it on order from Amazon.com, but they aren't going to ship it until July. I think they're playing hardball because I won't sign up for their next-day shipping for $80/year thing. I prefer my shipping free. Free shipping at Amazon.com used to mean 1-2 weeks. Apparently now it means a month or more. I'm not a fan of the hardball. It's still faster than B&N.com, though.

Happy Bloomsday!

Today is June 16, and that makes it Bloomsday. What, you may be asking, is a Bloomsday? Well, James Joyce wrote a novel called Ulysses which follows the wanderings of one Leopold Bloom around Dublin on June 16, 1904. This novel has many very devoted fans who gather in pubs around the world every June 16 to celebrate Bloomsday by drinking Guiness and reading the book out loud to each other (man, I never get invited to the cool parties).

Now Ulysses is hands-down my absolute favorite book of all time. But it's also a book that many people start and just can't finish. It's a lot of work, and unless it's your sort of thing, it's not worth the work. I get that. It's just so much My Sort of Thing. Someone at Backspace recently asked me why I like it so much. I hadn't really thought about it before, not in the sort of way that I could articulate it anyway. So it took me a while to come up with my response:

I think how I came to it is a huge part of why I like it, so here's the backstory of me. I've been obsessed with myths all my life. As a kid I made a point of reading all the mythology books I could find at the library: Greek and Roman, Norse (my fave), Asian, anything I could get my hands on. They were the truest thing to me: I believed in them all (still do, actually). But I was bugged by how they were condescended to in subtle (and not so subtle) ways. There was a definite "can you believe people used to actually believe in these things?" vibe. To me, the myths were always stories that pointed to deeper, darker, and universal truths. I didn't realize I wasn't the only one who took them this seriously until a high school teacher handed me THE POWER OF MYTH. I was instantly hooked, quickly moving on to all of Joseph Campbell's other books. And Joe Campbell was always talking about this writer named James Joyce...

ULYSSES to me is really about how all these deep, dark myths are still in us and with us in our everyday lives. Now, there are a lot of novels that use mythology or mythological figures (AMERICAN GODS and THE LONG DARK TEATIME OF THE SOUL are also faves of mine), but these generally involve characters physically interacting with the gods. The myths are something external. In ULYSSES the myths are internal, and they are a part of everyone. I think a lot of writers who wanted to write a story based on the Odyssey would feel inclined to make at least one of the characters some sort of mythological scholar, so they could explain everything to us. ULYSSES is about a completely ordinary schmo living out a myth, and he doesn't even realize it. I understand that Joyce had a special disdain for Carl Jung, which seems ironic, as they seem to be saying the same things. Myths are within us all; they are not just part of our culture, they are part of who we are. You don't have to know the stories to live the stories.

I also just love the style of it. It begs to be read out loud. Joyce was not a reader with a thesaurus; no two words have exactly the same nuance of meaning, and he put a great deal of effort into picking exactly the right words in exactly the right order. Most passages do at least double duty, meaning one thing on the surface and something more if you dig a little deeper. I would love for my writing to do that. Take for example Episode XIV: Oxen of the Sun. The only action here is a bunch of men in a waiting room while someone's wife is struggling through a long, difficult labor. Joyce is trying to make the point that all of human history precedes every birth, but of course he doesn't just say so. The story of these men waiting is told in the styles of different periods of history, starting with ancient times and working up to modern times, culminating of course in the birth of the child. How is that for show not tell?

I've been thinking about it more since I wrote that, mostly about the internal versus external use of myths. I've been trying for a while now to express how my novel is different than other novels I've read that are also based on pagan Norse characters. I guess that's what it is. My myths are all internal. You won't be reading any scenes in my book of Odin and Thor feasting together and discussing the plights of their human followers below. Not that there's anything wrong with that - American Gods and The Long Dark Teatime of the Soul are both dead brilliant books - it's just not what I'm doing. For me it's all internal. If the gods exist at all, they exist in the minds and hearts of my Norsemen. Of course that doesn't make them less real.

Of course I haven't been working on the novel in question in over a month. But any day now I'm sure I'll get back on it. You know, when I'm done spending my afternoons hauling rocks around.

Joss Whedon talks about X3...kinda

It's in this interview here. Joss hasn't actually seen the movie in question, but he's been told all about it (probably more times than he'd like). He's very diplomatic about the liberties they took with his stuff. It's towards the end of page 2, but the whole interview is interesting. Well, it is if you're a comic geek.

The new patio is in!

I didn't get any pictures of the whole thing since they were still working on it when we did this and it's raining today, but here are some photos of Aidan and Oliver putting their handprints in the concrete:

Quest for a dry basement: post the fourth

So the concrete man came yesterday and already he's half done. The patio concrete is all gone. They even took out all the steps except the bit we need to hold up the house. It's hard to tell, I didn't get a good before picture right under the sliding glass door, but there used to be a pronounced slope towards the house (it was particularly bad under the deck where the basement window is). He's already leveled out the ground, and he'll be packing it down (not sure what that means, but I think it involves machines) before he pours the concrete. The board marks the border for the new patio:

And here you can see the other board, marking where the new patio will end. We still haven't figured out what we're going to do with the rest of the former-patio space, but there's been talk of paving stones or maybe a rock garden:

And one last pic. When the concrete man gave us the estimate, it was cheaper if we let them use a Bobcat than if we made them take it all out by hand. I was wondering at the time why anyone would not go with the Bobcat option. Now I know:

I'm not too worried. We have mutant grass; that will bounce back in a week or two.

Short post on basketball

In one of Douglas Adam's novels there was a man that had rain clouds follow him everywhere he went. Vacation destinations paid him to stay away.

I think someone should pay me to not root for their teams.

It's been fun to watch the games (although I've only been able to catch parts of a few of them and most not at all; too many things to do). Basketball played really well is so much more gratifying to watch than the way the Timberwolves have been doing it the last two years. But Phoenix is out of it now, and so is Detroit, whom I was also bucking for (but I do think Flip Saunders proved that he wasn't the problem with our team last year).

So that leaves Dallas and Miami. I was despondent. Then Quin pointed out that a Miami win would mean Shaq getting a champion ring with his new team before Kobe's managed to do it with his Shaq-less Lakers. So I'm bucking for Miami, just to stick it to Kobe. See what happens when you force out all the other top-notch players on your team so you can be the only star? You lose the play-offs. On account of it being a team sport and all. Plus I just like Shaq; he seems so personable.

Go Miami! And I hope I didn't just curse you...

Someone owes Joss Whedon

So, I saw X-Men 3 this weekend. How was it? Eh. I huge let down from X-Men 2. Plus, what's with the ripping off of Joss Whedon? This is not just the entire plot from his X-Men comic, about the cure and the Beast being the tempted one, which they are perfectly entitled to do. As Neil has said about writing for DC, it's their sandbox and their toys, you just get to play with them for a bit.

But what's with Dark Phoenix getting all veiny when she's evil? It was so familiar. Where have I seen that before? Let me think..... Oh yeah!


Evil Willow! (and by the way, Evil Willow has a lot of webpages. Apparently some folks think she's really hot. I could see vamp Willow in the dominatrix leather, but veiny Willow? Takes all kinds, I guess).

At any rate, the resemblence was so uncanny I was expecting Wolverine to bring her back from the brink by reminding her of the yellow crayon. (My 8-year-old doesn't understand why he didn't just pick up another syringe and stab her with it - they stuck four in Magneto, after all. For that matter, why not just drag Leech over there? Did no one discuss the options?) (And don't give me any heat-of-the-moment crap, Storm and Wolverine knew what was going to happen before they even left the school).

So to say the film had some plot holes would be a bit of an understatement. I suppose we should be happy for the two cool X-Men movies we got (two more than I was expecting), and hope the best for the upcoming Wolverine movie.

And I kinda hope Patrick Stewart and Ian McKellen work together again. They rock (in a Shakespearean, real thespian kinda way).

Quest for a dry basement: post the third (in which we hit a small snag)

So, on Tuesday past the dumpsters were delivered to our driveway: one for all the wood from the deck and the other for the rest of the assorted junk in the backyard and garage whose time had come. Quin left for the park that evening telling me all the things he was going to get started on later that evening.

He came back from the park looking a little gray. And sheepish, frankly. He'd been playing football with the other dads at the park and (forgetting that he's neither young nor particularly athletic any more) decided to do a "tuck and roll". One little pop sound later:

Guess which tear is his? Go on, guess. Did you say Grade 3? Bingo! He popped two ligaments and his arm is useless. Now when he takes the boys to the park, I have to stop working and help everyone with their shoes because he can't do anything with his left arm. He can't even sleep laying down yet (and they gave him Vicodin for nighttimes).

Luckily he has a brother who's a starving college student (well, more than, actually. Come September there will be 3). So he came over today to help Quin fill the dumpsters in exchange for food and cash. He'll have a recurring gig this summer, coming over on Saturdays to do all the things that Quin started but didn't finish. It's going to take up to 3 months for his shoulder to heal.

The good news is the concrete guy gets started on Wednesday tearing out the old patio (steps too!) and putting in the new one. I'll post pics when he's done.

The plot thickens

Truth is stranger than fiction, but it is because Fiction is obliged to stick to possibilities; Truth isn't. -Mark Twain.

So, as it turns out there is more than one potential villain in our little piece. Now, there is no doubt that Barbara Bauer sucks. She called up the ISP for Absolute Write (in the process of being reborn on a new server - go AW!) and demanded they take down the site because it contained her e-mail address and people there were spamming her. Her e-mail address also appears on her webpage, and she is totally googleable, so how she knows where her spam is coming from is anybody's guess. Also, bilking hopeful (yet sadly uninformed) new writers out of thousands of dollars is OK, but spam is totally evil! (Well, it is, actually, but so is that other thing).

(My favorite Barbara Bauer story is when she demanded $1 billion dollars from Writer's Weekly for defamation. I wonder, did she hold her pinky to the corner of her mouth when she said that?)

So. Lunatic woman makes a lunatic demand. Why did the ISP do it?

As it turns out, this is a husband and wife team who've been working on their own forum for writers and hey! What a coincidence! It turns up the very next day after Absolute Write is taken down. (I'm not giving the URL here, suffice it to say there's no one there but Stephanie and James, who are the husband and wife team, and a few Backspacers asking pointed questions that don't seem to be getting answered. Odd, that).

James gives his side of the story here. It seems our choices are between thinking they are mean-spirited and thinking they are just really stupid. The comment trail at Making Light is filled with techie-types explaining why nothing James says makes sense to people who know anything about running an ISP. Me? Well, the screed starts out with James asking us to excuse his spelling and "grammer". Perhaps if he hadn't pissed off every writer in existence he could have gotten someone to proofread it for him.

He also says we should go ahead and keep posting about him because he's taking down all our names and he's totally going to sic his lawyer on us. I know I'm shaking in my boots.

On somewhat related notes:

Miss Snark rocks.

The really stupid thing about attacking writers is that they are smart and creative.They don't call talk shows and whine...they build websites (or post really really sardonic yet useful comments on Making Light) - Miss Snark

Neil Gaiman contributes (and his blog gets a few readers, doesn't it?)

And also joining the fray are Andrew Wheeler, Jackie Kessler, Kristin Nelson (like Miss Snark, she's a real agent), Heather Brewer, EJ Knapp, Marie Lu, and my brother RoninHighlander. And those are just from the blogs I read regularly. (and now the whole "I never have time to read the newspaper" thing is making a lot more sense...).

The plot thickens

Truth is stranger than fiction, but it is because Fiction is obliged to stick to possibilities; Truth isn't. -Mark Twain.

So, as it turns out there is more than one potential villain in our little piece. Now, there is no doubt that Barbara Bauer sucks. She called up the ISP for Absolute Write (in the process of being reborn on a new server - go AW!) and demanded they take down the site because it contained her e-mail address and people there were spamming her. Her e-mail address also appears on her webpage, and she is totally googleable, so how show knows where her spam is coming from is anybody's guess. Also, bilking hopeful (yet sadly uninformed) new writers out of thousands of dollars is OK, but spam is totally evil! (Well, it is, actually, but so is that other thing).

(My favorite Barbara Bauer story is when she demanded $1 billion dollars from Writer's Weekly for defamation. I wonder, did she hold her pinky to the corner of her mouth when she said that?)

So. Lunatic woman makes a lunatic demand. Why did the ISP do it?

As it turns out, this is a husband and wife team who've been working on their own forum for writers and hey! What a coincidence! It turns up the very next day after Absolute Write is taken down. (I'm not giving the URL here, suffice it to say there's no one there but Stephanie and James, who are the husband and wife team, and a few Backspacers asking pointed questions that don't seem to be getting answered. Odd, that).

James gives his side of the story here. It seems our choices are thinking they are mean-spirited or stupid. The comment trail at Making Light is filled with techie-types explaining why nothing James says makes sense to people who know anything about running an ISP. Me? Well, the screed starts out with James asking us to excuse his spelling and "grammer". Perhaps if he hadn't pissed off every writer in existence he could have gotten someone to proofread it for him.

He also says we should go ahead and keep posting about him because he's taking down all our names and he's totally going to sic his lawyer on us. I know I'm shaking in my boots.

On somewhat related notes:

Miss Snark rocks.

The really stupid thing about attacking writers is that they are smart and creative.They don't call talk shows and whine...they build websites (or post really really sardonic yet useful comments on Making Light) - Miss Snark

Neil Gaiman contributes (his blog gets a few readers, doesn't it?)

And also joining the fray are Andrew Wheeler, Jackie Kessler, Kristin Nelson (like Miss Snark, she's a real agent), Heather Brewer, EJ Knapp, Marie Lu, and my brother RoninHighlander. And those are just from the blogs I read. (and now the whole "never have time to read the paper" thing is making a lot more sense...).

Barbara Bauer, you just picked the wrong fight

For my non-writer friends, let me bring you up to speed. When you write a novel and you want to sell it, you can't just send it straight to the publisher (well, you can, but that don't mean they're gonna read it). You have to get yourself an agent. There are millions of people trying to be writers. The number who ever get published is much smaller. That the sort of situation that just screams "grift me baby!". By which I mean there are a lot of scammers who pretend to be agents in order to bilk naive young writers out of their money by insisting they need to pay "office fees" or for "editorial services" or the like (hint: your agent gets a percentage of what you earn when he or she sells your book, and they don't see a penny before that happens).

Writers Beware is a group (started by two sci-fi writers as it happens) that has worked for years now compiling reports of bogus agents and getting the word out. If you're looking to query your novel with agents, it behooves you to check out their website first (and Preditors and Editors). A few weeks back, Writers Beware put out a list of the twenty worst offenders (most are scam artists, others are just overwhelmingly incompetent - what good is an agent that can't sell your book?).

Here's the list:

The Abacus Group Literary Agency
Allred and Allred Literary Agents (refers clients to "book doctor" Victor West of Pacific Literary Services)
Capital Literary Agency (formerly American Literary Agents of Washington, Inc.)
Barbara Bauer Literary Agency
Benedict & Associates (also d/b/a B.A. Literary Agency)
Sherwood Broome, Inc.
Desert Rose Literary Agency
Arthur Fleming Associates
Finesse Literary Agency (Karen Carr)
Brock Gannon Literary Agency
Harris Literary Agency
The Literary Agency Group, which includes the following:
Children's Literary Agency
Christian Literary Agency
New York Literary Agency
Poets Literary Agency
The Screenplay Agency
Stylus Literary Agency (formerly ST Literary Agency)
Writers Literary & Publishing Services Company (the editing arm of the above-mentioned agencies)
Martin-McLean Literary Associates
Mocknick Productions Literary Agency, Inc.
B.K. Nelson, Inc.
The Robins Agency (Cris Robins)
Michelle Rooney Literary Agency (also d/b/a Creative Literary Agency and Simply Nonfiction)
Southeast Literary Agency
Mark Sullivan Associates
West Coast Literary Associates (also d/b/a California Literary Services)

Writers Beware aren't stupid; they expected the people on this list to stir up trouble. So they asked that every dessiminate the list all over the internet. Post it everywhere! (Go ahead! Copy/paste this to your own blogs and web pages). They can't shut us all down!

Barbara Bauer has already tried to cease-and-desist websites who post this list with her name on it. Yesterday she finally came across one that caved: Absolute Write. Not the people running the website, mind you, but the ISP that hosts it.

You want some trouble? Shut down the message boards where writers go to chat. How are we going to procrastinate with writing if we can't chat? Actually, these boards have been around for a long, long time. I've lurked there myself, never posted. Way too immense for my tastes. But in this situation, "immense" also means "full of valuable information". The data's not gone, but it's not reachable to the rest of us by the magic of the internet.

That should change soon. The writers are pissed. Many options are being bandied about on how to resurrect the site using an ISP with a back bone (and more legal know-how, not so easily punked by a con-woman).

Do you know what googlebombing is? It's when we all get together and say the same thing on our blogs and websites, so when someone googles, say, Barbara Bauer, all they get is her name on this list of scam artists. Care to join me? All you have to do is mention her by name, and link her name to http://www.sfwa.org/beware/twentyworst.html. Show her what happens when you try to come between writers and their boards!

(Oh yeah, and freedom of speech. Woo-hoo!)

Quest for a dry basement: post the second

The concrete man was supposed to come over on Friday evening to go over with Quin what we want done, but it rained so he cancelled. Ironic.

In the mean time, Quin has taken all the long nails and is working on taking out the stairs himself:

I've been told that I have to walk around the house to water the plants now. I said, "Yes, dear," but secretly I'm still jumping out the sliding glass door. I have to get these chores done during school time, and if I went out the front door I guarantee all school activity would halt. By jumping out the back door, I am in visual contact of the table where they're working at all times.

Quin also trimmed back the shrubs and trees around the patio so they wouldn't get in the way when the concrete man starts ripping things apart:

It's weird; we can see the whole yard now. I would have taken a "before" picture but he didn't forewarn me that he would be doing this. But those of you familiar with our house can see, it's a big change.

I tried to get a picture that showed the crack in the pavement. The patio is really two separate slabs, and we're only replacing the one under the stairs with more concrete. This pic is really too dark to see it; the new patio will end where the basketball hoop is now:

Quest for a dry basement: post the first

The rain has finally stopped (and it sounds like we didn't even get the worst of it: New England, you have my sympathies). Now the real work begins. My husband has a plan that will make water drain away from our house instead of into it. Something about a trench and some clay... it would take an engineer to explain it. Suffice it to say step one was dismantling our deck, which was built on top of the concrete patio (removal of which will be step two, but will require the aid of a professional).

I'm not a deck fan myself. I don't like to be up high. I like a patio, close to the ground, preferably under some trees. So losing the deck wasn't a heartbreak for me. Plus, it was getting kind of punky anyway; and the boards on the steps would tip when you walked on them - not a feature I look for in stairs.

So the deck is gone, and my back door now looks like this:

The space between the sliding glass door and the top of the concrete steps is somewhere between a big step and a little jump. Add to that fact that they're not on a level, that you have to step down to get to the concrete. See those metal brackets? They are all covered in rusted nails, all spiny and sinister-looking. And the steps have long twists of metal coming out where the fellow who put on the addition blasted out the space. See those pots in the background? Those are my tomato and pepper plants, the ones that need to be watered daily. Plus the patio is one of my favorite writing places, when none of the neighbors are leaf-blowing, melting styrofoam in their Coleman grills, or murdering their children (to be fair, I'm sure it only sounds like they're murdering their children).

Note: When trying to make a big step down do not hold onto the sliding glass door for support. It tends to move.

All this is just so when I don't blog for a while, you'll know I'm in the hospital with puncture wounds and tetanus. Oh sure, I could go out the front door and walk around the house, but it's such a long way...

Why I shouldn't watch Sesame Street

Big Bird: Telly, don't you want to boing?
Telly: No.
Maria: But Telly, you love boinging!
Telly: Not anymore. I fell off.
Big Bird: You fell off? But you're the best boinger on Sesame Street!

And of course there was a song, Boinging is For Me: "Boing fast, boing slow; boinging is the way to go..."

I swear, the writers of the show are only pretending this is all about a pogo stick.

*sigh*

I'm guessing by Monday I'll have ducks swimming in my backyard. On a somewhat related note, I should learn not to complain outloud over commas in books I'm reading. My husband sent me this e-mail this morning:

Kate

I opened, Aidan's windows,. Just, giving you a heads, up, because rain is likely.

Thank, you

Quin

Ha ha. Very funny. I better take out my swimsuit; I'll probably need it to work in the basement this weekend.

Vicarious thrills

I haven't blogged about basketball in a while (as if you missed it!). My home team, the Timberwolves, made the decision not to play Kevin Garnett or Ricky Davis for any games in the last two weeks of the season. Alledgedly, they had injuries. Not that this fooled anyone; by the terms of our trade to the LA Clippers, we would get a first round draft pick only if we ended up one of the ten worst teams in the league.

Yeah, that's a fun prize to watch your team chase. NOT!

The funny thing was, they still screwed up and won the first few games. But in the end we were the seventh worst team and so we get our draft pick. As if one player is going to matter. I feel bad for Kevin; I don't think he's ever going to take this team all the way.

But I have been keeping up with the playoffs. I took great pleasure in the Phoenix Suns beating Kobe Bryant and the Lakers. This is partially about me hating Kobe, but it's also a bit about liking Steve Nash. He always seems to be having fun when he plays; he's a joy to watch. Plus he's good. And that's not just me, he got MVP this year. He was MVP last year too, so hats off to Steve Nash! And a big thank you for spanking Kobe Bryant!

So now it's the Phoenix Suns against the LA Clippers. I'm torn on this one; I'd be happy for either team to win. I'm pleased that Sam Cassel has been doing so well with his new team. I think it was a mistake we ever traded him, and not just because of his skills as a point guard. We have so many young guys on the Wolves now, we could really use the leadership Sam has been showing with the Clippers.

(And I should really let the Kobe thing go. My boys got little Lego minifigures of NBA basketball players at their Lego Club a month ago - 3 to a box. Oliver got the box with Kobe in it and wanted to give it back, and he was rather loud in his protests against the Kobe. But I convinced him to keep it. It also had Steve Nash.)

A link for writers

This is a must read:

http://www.evileditor.blogspot.com./

I'm not sure who this guy works for, but he is hilarious. I haven't laughed this hard in a good long while. It's a bit like Miss Snark's Crapometer: he posts novel queries that people send him and makes... suggestions for improvements. I suppose a large part of the humor for me is a byproduct of being very nervous about making that query plunge when the novel is done (which is a ways off, but I like to get started early on the whole worry thing). But this quote really sent me off the deep end (Evil Editor's words are always the ones in the blue brackets):

Resolution is my 86,0000-word novel [If that's too many zeros, fine. If that's a misplaced comma, we need to talk.]

Of course it's possible this is only funny if you're a writer...

Two good fantasy novels!

So I'm back from my vacation, which was happily rattlesnake-free. I read three books - three books in a week! I can't remember the last time I did that. That's not true, actually, it was last July. I read the first five Harry Potter books while waiting for book six, which I ripped out of the FedEx man's hands and devoured in a day. So that was six books in two weeks, but it was mostly rereading which always goes faster for me.

At any rate, two of the three books I read were first novels from fantasy writers. Finally I found some good ones - and two in one week! The first was Doppleganger by Marie Brennan. Please, do not just this book by its cover:



Woman with tight leather, cleavage-baring outfit - I'm not a fan. Especially since the woman in the book wears clothing made from something called windsilk that covers every inch, including the face. Think ninja. But cover art gripes aside, I enjoyed this novel. It played on the theme of the price of magic, which is one I always get into. The plot unfolded in a very satisfying way, revealing the mechanics of the relationship between the witch Miryo and her Doppleganger Mirage (the warrior woman) bit by bit. Everytime I thought I'd found an unintentional loophole, it was neatly resolved. There is already a sequel in the works, and I could see this going series, but it doesn't leave anything unresolved at the end, only the sense of possibilities for more. Most admiringly, although there was clearly quite a bit of world-building going on, the book doesn't attempt to tell you everything about this place. The emphasis is on this story and these characters, no long essays on their political structures or what have you.

And none of my gripes from before pop up at all. In fact the literacy thing is an issue raised in the novel (albeit briefly).

The second book I read was a contemporary fantasy, which isn't what I write, but then again neither is high fantasy in fictional worlds. It's called The Strange Adventures of Rangergirl by Tim Pratt.

(Blogger is pissing me off. It says my image was uploaded, and yet it isn't here. So even though it has a better cover than Doppleganger I can't show it to you. You can take my word for it or see for yourself at Amazon.com here).

The plot is nothing new - a girl opens a door to another place (Dreamtime/land of fairy/medicine lands all rolled up into one), but doors to other worlds is an old favorite of mine; I don't think I can read to many stories on that conceit. And if the girl in question is one who writes and draws her own comic books... dude, I'm so there. Plus, this one has the addition of a cast of very engaging characters. They are all art students or former art students, and most have their own unique shadings of mental illness, but they all feel very real. My favorite was Denis, the obsessive-compulsive fan of modern art, who preferred intellectual approaches to art over emotional ones (the exact opposite of me, actually). Denis is an asshole, sure, but he's a very engaging asshole.

The third book I read was not fantasy or even fiction. It was The Opposite of Fate: A Book of Musings by Amy Tan. It actually came out before Saving Fish from Drowning, I'm not sure how I missed knowing it was out there (it certainly seems like Amazon.com emails me every time there is a new release remotely like a previous purchase). It's a collection of essays, many about her mother, all about writing in one way or another. It was a very interesting read, and I would particularly recommend it to other writers. It's not about the craft per se, not the way Stephen King's On Writing is, but the musings of a successful writer are always worth a read, in my opinion.

While reading Saving Fish from Drowning, I was wondering what drew me to her work. After all, I don't have mother issues, but I don't think it's Schadefreude that's drawing me to these stories about mothers and daughters. I think it's because Amy Tan seems to share my underlying world view, a sort of yin and yang between rational science and irrational magical thinking. Her books all have that interplay between them, where it's possible to simultaneously believe that there is no such thing as ghosts because there is no scientific proof and all those sounds coming from the atiic have very mundane explanations, and at the same time believe that there actually is a ghost up there. To believe that there is no such thing as fate while you stock up on good luck charms.

It sounds paradoxical, but that's just the way my brain works.

Just a quick post...

...to say I'll be going out of town for a week, so no more posts until I get back. We're making our annual pilgrimmage to AZ (here's hoping it's less eventful than last time). We're going to the Grand Canyon, so I'm sure there will be a post full of pics when we get back.

Friends and the First Amendment

So the woman trying to sue some of the writers of Friends for sexual harrassment lost her case. Here's the full paper, but those interested in the First Amendment can skip up to page 37 for the Concurring Opinion. Have I mentioned I'm the geek that likes reading this stuff? I have? OK.

Here's the gist: the woman was hired as a typist/transcriptionist, so her job was to sit in the writers' room and type up what was said (why can't I have that job? I suppose the lack of shows being produced in the Twin Cities area is a factor). Apparently she found the degree of sexual banter going on disturbing. It all sounds rather juvenile: a bunch of guys bragging up their exploits, pretending to masturbate, and defacing words and pictures to make them dirty. Sounds a lot like high school. Nothing was directed at the woman in question (a lot of it was in reference to the actresses, who probably won't sue but I wouldn't be surprised if they never again work on shows where those guys are writers). This woman just found the environment intolerable.

The paper is interesting. It makes references and comparisons to several other harrassment judgements. It really shows how pervasive harrassment has to be to be considered, well, pervasive. It's quite a few notches beyond the point where I'd be looking for a new job, that's for sure. I've never been in a workplace like that, so it's a bit disturbing to read about them. And yet this Friends woman I can't summon a lot of sympathy for, mostly because no one was actually talking to her. Partly because HELLO! Had she never watched the show before she took the job? Plus, sitcom writers toss out dozens of jokes for every one that makes it into the show (which is why that job doesn't appeal to me - I'm too in love with my own words to toss them out and watch them get shot down like that. Plus, me? Not so funny). Count the sexual jokes in just one episode of Friends than multiply it by, say, 20. That's a lot of sex talk. And it's hardly surprising if a bunch of writers trying to amuse each other go a lot more blue then prime time TV will allow.

Most of what they were doing sounds exceedingly juvenile anyway, too juvenile to be remotely threatening. One writer brags up the shot he had with one of the actresses that he didn't take. Sorry, now I'm laughing again. It's like your geek friend who could have nailed that cheerleader when she was all drunk at that party that one time but he didn't, but he tells the story a million times and it never becomes more believable.

But my favorite is this quote:

Reich also acknowledged he and others altered inspirational sayings on a calendar, changing, for example, the word “persistence” to “pert tits” and “happiness” to “penis.”

Now that's funny. Juvenile, but funny. Mostly because I have a strong dislike to "inspirational" anything, I guess.

What is missing in this picture is the corresponding circle. The woman in question apparently only worked with the male writers and listened to them drone on and on about their exploits in the writers' room and the break room and the hallways. (And the idea that writing only happens in the writers' room strikes me as kind of funny. But read the Concurring Opinion for the perspective of the creative merit of what's left on the cutting room floor - still protected by the First Amendment even though you didn't use it on prime time TV). At any rate, what this poor woman needed was some time with the women who worked with these naughty boys. I guarantee you they were having some laughs at the expense of their male brethren. I can see them discussing the guys' famous exploits, and speculating on the fine ladies of the Niagara Falls area these guys were scoring with. Certainly much fun was had at the expense of the fellow that could have made it with one of the actresses (I'm so not believing that).

What throws me out of a fantasy novel

For writers looking to query their first novel, Miss Snark recommends reading other current first novels in the same genre to get a good idea of what your competition is like (rather than comparing yourself to, say, George R.R. Martin, etc.). So I've been reading a lot of first novels these past few weeks. Or should I say starting a lot of first novels. I've only made it all the way through two: The Prodigal Troll by Charles Coleman Finlay (which was a bit too much like Tarzan for my tastes, but otherwise the writing was good and I expect his second novel will be one I really enjoy) and Crystal Rain by Tobias Buckell (which is labeled sci-fi, but with its focus on forgotten knowledge and old gods it kinda feels like a fantasy, but on the whole could best be classified as a kick-ass adventure story except no one has a shelf for that). Otherwise, I've been doing a lot of grumbling out loud while reading these things. Believe me, reading that Amy Tan book last week was like a tall, cool glass of iced tea on a hot, muggy day. Bliss.

The book I threw across the room last night was so bad even the commas were pissing me off (to which complaint Quin said, "What is it with you and commas? Have you ever brought up commas and not have it all end badly?" Which is true, but those are stories for another time). But I don't really feel like complaining about the writing (although if your MC does the exact same thing, like "cry out in horror" 3 times in 2 pages, that's pretty much the end of the book for me, OK?). I'm going to talk about the other things that throw me out of a fantasy book. Most of it has to do with research.

Now I love fantasy, it's my genre. Because I love it, I expect more from it. (Be glad I'm not your mom). So here is my semi-list of a few things that throw me out of a fantasy novel.

First one: hallways. There is some question as to when historically hallways came into fashion (read this debate if you're interested, it hits most of the points I'm thinking of), and of course it depends on what part of the world we're talking about, and how rich the homeowners in question are. Here's the grub: if you tell me your blacksmith's house has a hallway in it, I'm going to want to know how he heats and how he lights it (and what he wants the dead space for anyway). The idea of bedrooms branching off a hallway is pretty ingrained in our modern brains, but back in the day it was a lot more efficient to just heat one room and have everyone sleep there (particularly if they are poor and the weather's cold). The one room house makes a lot of sense to me, but you don't see it much in fantasy (everyone wants their characters to have more privacy, I guess). A step up from that is interconnecting rooms, each with its own fireplace. This was the model for even rich people's homes for a long, long time. It solves the light and heat issue and gives some privacy since the rooms have doors between them (which makes me think of Nicole Kidman and her ring of keys in the movie The Others).

On a related note, baby sleeping in its own room. Didn't happen until, what, the Victorian age (and again only with the rich). Still doesn't happen in most parts of the world. Even if the mother is rich, she has a wet nurse and the wet nurse sleeps with the baby. But a baby sleeping alone in it's own room? I don't think so.

Some people are bothered by food in fantasy novels. The whole how did Samwise get potatoes since that's a New World vegetable thing. Unless your novel is actually set on Earth in the past, this isn't going to bother me. What does bother me is characters in an arctic climate eating tropical food. Or someone eating fresh, red apples in springtime. Do some research. What's the climate like where your story is set? What sort of food would grow well there? What could be tough to grow but worth big bucks if you managed to get a crop in? And what would be a rare delicacy from a far off place? Read some history books about what life was like for the commoners back in the day: only the rich had anything like a varied diet.

Another deal-breaker: literacy. If every character in your story can read and write, I'm going to have a hard time swallowing it. Let's go back to the blacksmith with his spacious home (he was in the book I couldn't manage to read last night). He and his wife were leaving notes for each other around the house. Let's leave out the rarity of paper for a bit. This young blacksmith would have been working at his father's side, learning the trade, ever since he was old enough to hold a hammer (and I'm going to bet those weren't often just 8 hour workdays). When did he have time to learn to read? Who taught him? Why? He's a blacksmith: you come up and tell him what you need and he makes it. He doesn't take written orders, now does he? No one was writing books that would interest a blacksmith until after the printing press, not to mention books were just flat-out rare and very expensive.

Also, everyone in these books is always fully literate: no one struggles with unfamiliar words or has dyslexia or anything.

*sigh*

You can see how seldom I'm pleased by a book these days. If you don't mind, I think I'll dip back into George R.R. Martin for a bit. I have a novella of his I haven't read yet. Once that's recharged my batteries I'll plunge back into these new novels.

Then I'll probably write another list.

Saving Fish from Drowning

About a year ago I read I book I really hated called The Lovely Bones. The narrator is a dead girl who is raped and murdered in Chapter One, and the rest of the book is her watching her family move on. They move on very fast. They are all very serene and accepting. Even when Mom leaves to relive her youth, no one is particularly upset. Some therapeutic sex is had - in one case rather disturbing therapeutic sex. But it kept reminding me of a MST3K quote from the short A Date with your Family: "Emotions are for ethnic people." It didn't seem to be a book about real people, or at least not the sort of people I know and identify with. I said at the time that if Alice Hoffman had written it would have been much improved. Not that Alice's characters are particularly ethnic (I don't know why that quote was always in my head), but they are always emotional.

(And what was with the fixation on women and children as victims? The book almost seemed to imply that when men are murdered it's not tragic. Why? They must have been asking for it? They should have been strong enough to make it a fair fight? I just keep thinking of a kid that was killed in Brooklyn Park some years back. He was 18, honors student, already accepted to college. He was sitting on the steps of his apartment building talking to a girl and was shot in the head with a stray bullet. The fact that he was 18 and not 8, man and not woman does not lessen the tragedy for me). Anyway, like I said, hated the book.

Which pretty much brings us to the novel I just finished, Saving Fish from Drowning. Not by Alice Hoffman but by Amy Tan, which would have been my second choice I'm sure. This is also narrated by a woman who dies mysteriously in the first chapter. Now this book I like (although it's not my favorite Tan; that would still be The Hundred Secret Senses). Is it just that I have more in common with crotchety old Chinese women than I do with dreamy young girly-girls?

No. I've said before the actual writing in The Lovely Bones is, well, lovely. Alice Sebold was a poet before she was a novelist and it shows. No, I hated that book because nothing made any freaking sense. The girl dies and she sort of hovers about, dogs sing in choruses and there's ice cream. She never once wonders when she's getting to heaven or anything of the sort. Did she have no expectations for life after death? Doesn't she feel ripped off or lied to? And we're told she's watching her family because that's how she wants to spend her time, but we're never told the mechanics of how she gets inside their heads.

I'm a spec-fic writer. We're all about the mechanics of how.

So. Saving Fish from Drowning. The MC in this one is a Buddhist, but a Chinese Buddhist which as she tells us means a bit of this and a bit of that. Her expectations for the after life and how they differ from what she's experiencing are brought up more than once. In Buddhist thought, the soul does not go on to the next incarnation right away, so there she is floating and waiting. Her friends were going to go on a tour to China and Burma with her as their guide; at her funeral they say a little prayer that she will be with them "in spirit", so of course she has to go. And how does she get inside the minds of the other characters? The MC tells us it's something Buddha would have called "the Mind of Others", and how she understands this changes as the book progresses.

And the characters are very real. It's an interesting catalogue of all the ways people can miscommunicate. I particularly liked the character of Harry Bailey, who works with dogs and constantly thinks that people will respond to the same behavior controls that dogs will. Sometimes he's right and sometime's he's wrong, but he was always amusing.

The Stephen King novel Misery also plays an important (and nongratuitous) part in the story, which I found amusing since the two writers are friends and bandmates in the Rock Bottom Remainders.

Just a quick post (with pictures)

So the mold in my office has been dealt with, the walls painted, and the furniture back. For the curious, here are some pics:

The exciting paint-buying post, which is really about comics

Last night the whole family piled in the car and went to the hardware store to buy paint for the office. We have such good family fun! Oliver has been lobbying hard for Mace Windu purple; since I don't have particularly strong feelings about home decor or color options, we went with lavender (real purple would be much too dark in that room; it gets no direct sunlight). While the employee was mixing the color, my husband suggested we stroll down the mini-mall to the comic book store.

Like I'm gonna say no.

It's really a comics and collectibles store, so while Quin, Aidan, and Oliver looked at action figures I wandered the comic book section. I had half an idea to get another Hellblazer (origin for the movie Constantine), but they all have fancy titles, nothing obvious like Volume 1 or Volume 2, so I wasn't sure what would come next (an advantage of online shopping, you can always find out in two clicks of a mouse and never interrupt anyone doing their homework behind the counter).

Then I saw it. FRAY. I have heard of this Dark Horse limited run and always intended to track it down, but never quite remembered that I wanted to. And then there it was, a nice eight-issues-in-one-volume collection. The only one left. I think it was waiting for me.

For those not in the know, FRAY is a comic that Joss Whedon wrote about a vampire slayer in the future. I read all eight issues last night (my sleep schedule is so out of whack; it always takes a month for me to "spring forward" and usually even longer to "fall back". The government is evil. Wait, where was I?).

I would have dearly loved this comic when I was a teenager (I love it now, but you know what I mean). Back in those days I sought out all the woman-oriented Marvel titles - Dazzler, Firestar, Magik, Red Sonja - and while I liked them all in their own way, they were never quite there except for Kitty Pryde and Wolverine.

It's not just the writing in FRAY that is spot-on; the artwork is exceptional, particularly in regards to how the women are drawn. But that's apparently not a coincidence. As Joss says in the intro, "I had come to Dark Horse with one stipulation: No cheesecake. No giant silicone hooters, no standing with her butt out in that bizarrely uncomfortable soft-core pose so many artists seem to favor. None of those outfits that seem to casually - and constantly - reveal portions of thong. I wanted a real girl, with real posture, a slight figure (that's my classy way of saying "little boobs"), and most of all a distinctive face. A person."

At any rate, I was standing there in the comic store gazing longingly at my amazing find when Oliver comes up to me with a graphic novel of his own clutched tight to his chest. And he has a look on his face that says he knows he has to ask, but he also knows Mom is never going to refuse to make a comic book purchase. So he brought home Star Wars: Darth Maul. I'm not sure exactly what it is; he read it with dad at bedtime. Why he picked Quin I don't know; there was a lot of loud grumping on not knowing how to read comic books (Dude, top to bottom, left to right. If you can't tell which came first, they're probably meant to be simultaneous).

My son is already a comic geek. I'm so proud.