Author Archives: Julie Sondra

Ace of Arts Update: Chapter 2

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Finished writing the second chapter of the book I started at the beginning of this month. It’s not going too quickly. Not sure why. I have time to work on it right now; just haven’t really felt like it (except for the times I did feel like it and did so).

The new chapter is only 1,750 words long, bringing the manuscript to 5,429 words now. You get to see the inspiration for Megan’s drawings (though I don’t make that 100% clear until I guess the end of the chapter), and you get to meet her sister, Dyane.

I’m not sure what I think about her. She’s not quite what I expected, though that’s pretty common for me when I think up characters and then write them down. I’m a little worried that she’ll come across like a stereotype.

An earlier book of mine, Finding Mulligan, is New Adult but I entered it as YA in a contest once. One of the judges praised me for actually having a YA heroine whose family life isn’t horrible. “The parents are married and aren’t at each other’s throats and nobody’s experiencing abuse! Bravo!” So I guess it’s kind of become a cliché that our YA leads are coming from broken or dysfunctional homes. I’m a little worried about that because not only does Megan live with neither parent–she lives with her older sister in a dubiously legal situation–but the sister is clearly not a competent guardian.

Which I think is realistic given her sister is only twenty-four, and it’s not like Megan is much younger. (She’s eighteen, so she doesn’t technically need a legal guardian, but before she turned eighteen, her sister was acting as her guardian.) I don’t want the story to be too stereotypical and rely on broken-family tropes to manufacture problems. The focus of this book isn’t honestly on Megan’s home life, but I’m sure it will figure in, because it has to.

I initially conceived Dyane as sort of emotionally abusive in her interaction with Megan, but as I thought about it more, I wanted them to have a much more complicated relationship, where Dyane isn’t exactly happy that she’s had so little time to be a child but she loves her sister and watches out for her in weird, sometimes misguided, sporadic ways. I wanted there to be some clear love there even if her sister’s very immature.

I think the sisters’ interaction came out pretty good though. Megan’s clearly executing a practiced series of actions while dealing with her sister, which suggests her emotional state coming home at 3 AM is not uncommon at all, and Megan makes concessions for her sister that she doesn’t for others. I’m just not sure if this is a good place for this interaction yet, though. I’ll figure out how to arrange these chapters later, I’m sure, and I did want to get Dyane on the page as soon as I could, but now that it’s written, it kind of feels like a lull and I worry about whether it will mess with the pacing.

I have to send Megan to school in Chapter 3 so wish me luck.

Novel Update: Ace of Arts

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I’m pleased to announce that I did indeed start writing my new novel on November 1. Having 3600 words of a new book done is pretty badass.

Also, I doodled a Megan.

Blurry doodle
That thing on her nose is a nose ring, btw, don’t know if it’s clear

I got a better “look” at her in this first chapter, and though there weren’t any surprises for me about how she came across, I’m not sure how we’ll I’ll handle someone with such a pessimistic world view for an entire novel. I don’t want the book to be about her becoming an optimist or anything–it’s more about learning the circumstances under which it is beneficial to broaden one’s horizons and which it is beneficial to stand one’s ground–but I just hope the complaining and negativity doesn’t get grating for the reader. I guess that’s something I’ll only find out about when test reader time comes.

My first chapter is about Megan going to a gallery showing in which she has a piece. She’s clearly there reluctantly, but is also curious about what people think of her work. I managed to establish a few constants of her life: that she does not expect to ever “actually” make anything of herself or go to college or succeed as an artist; that she has a complicated relationship with her older sister; that her art teacher has been in her life for a fair amount of time and knows details about her living situation; and that there’s something mysterious about how she comes upon the subjects of her drawings.

I also established a few tone and setting details through background details. At one point her teacher pulls out a phone, which suggests it’s in modern times or thereabouts because otherwise she wouldn’t have a mobile phone. (This is kinda significant because the old short story from which I stole the characters was written in 1999, and nobody had cell phones.) And one of the art projects Megan looks at in the gallery is a humorous depiction of the artist’s coming out as gay, which suggests she’s going to school in an area that would allow such a piece to be part of a high school art show. And Megan gets to the gallery on a city bus and has no plans to get home (the buses stop running while she’s still out); her “plan” was just to stay out all night until the buses start up in the morning, which makes it pretty clear nobody’s following up on her safety or making sure she’s taken care of. (She’s also clearly not intimidated by the idea of hanging out in public places during the wee hours, which suggests she does not consider herself particularly vulnerable.)

I think the next chapter will involve some introduction to her artwork method and some interaction with her sister. And by Chapter 3 I definitely need to introduce Brady, who’s really important to the rest of the story–a boy in her homeroom who is instrumental in her figuring out the rest of her life. I’m really looking forward to finding out how it all comes together. 🙂

New Novel: Ace of Arts

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“Ace of Arts” is my placeholder title for the new book I’ve started writing. Though I’m liking it more and more as I’m getting used to its association with the project.

I’ve been planning to write this book for a long time–though I have not formally outlined it–and it uses characters from a short story I wrote in 1999. I wrote its first chapter on November 1, 2015, and the book is now officially in progress.

It’s a YA contemporary novel with an asexual protagonist, detailing Megan’s adventures as she struggles with relationships and attempts to get into art school.

See you on the other side!

New book on the horizon

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I think I’ve decided to start writing my next book after my Halloween party this year.

I’m making no promises about starting immediately on Sunday or anything (although I might), but I really want to start writing this. It is not going to be a NaNo novel. It is not going to be a thing I rush to get done at all costs, though if I write at my usual pace it’ll come out pretty damn fast. I have a vague goal of finishing it by the end of the year, but I’m not going to sacrifice quality if I just can’t do it.

Stuff I know about the book so far:

  • It is a contemporary YA book with very slight magical realism flavor.
  • The protagonist’s name is Megan.
  • Megan is asexual and homoromantic. She doesn’t know that at the beginning of the book.
  • Megan is a very serious artist. She likes to draw cities and buildings and inanimate objects, and prefers to draw in ink.
  • Megan is a senior in high school.
  • She is trying to get into art school based on the enthusiastic reception of some of her drawings at a show.
  • Megan lives with her older sister Dyane.
  • Megan is on the tall side of average, heavyset and curvy, half Hispanic/half white, and has brown hair and brown eyes. She doesn’t have much hair actually–it’s buzzed to peach fuzz. She has pierced ears and a pierced nose.
  • Megan sits behind a boy named Brady in homeroom. Brady is important.
  • Brady is attracted to Megan. Megan is not attracted to him.
  • Megan doesn’t talk very much and is externally kind of intimidating. That’s on purpose.
  • Megan’s sister Dyane is an aspiring actress and has a serious boyfriend. Megan has a loving but sort of disconnected relationship with her sister.
  • Megan had some very bad experiences with boys when she was in middle school because she hit puberty early. When she learns about asexuality, she struggles to decide whether it describes her or whether her bad experiences explain her lack of interest.
  • Megan joins a GSA during the course of the book and dates a girl for some of the time in the book.
  • Megan’s drawings operate on specific rules and go in a certain order that she feels conflicted about breaking when she’s called to diversify her portfolio.
  • Megan sees a school counselor about several things in the book. The counselor is a man, and he’s not useless.
  • Even though Megan learns she is an ace lesbian in the book, her most important relationship in the story is a friendship.

Stuff I don’t know yet:

  • A title. But for now I’m tagging my posts “ace of arts” because that’s funny.
  • What the deal is with Megan’s parents.
  • Megan’s last name.
  • The exact circumstances of her crisis with getting into art school.
  • Megan’s girlfriend’s name and what her “deal” is, except in my head she’s kind of a jerk and probably has cool hair that’s at least two colors.
  • How exactly Megan’s voice will come off in the book.
  • How exactly the sorta-magical-realism bit will go, though I suspect it will feel a little like lucid dreaming.

I’m excited to get started, but also worried it will fall on its face and just turn into a ramble-fest that eclipses the plot.

So, you know, the same thing I feel before starting every book. 😉

Published Paperback: The Invisible Orientation

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The Invisible Orientation is now out in paperback.

You can get it at various sellers, some of which are listed on my Purchase Page!

The new edition has some updates, corrections, and a little bit of new content. It is not completely rewritten or revamped, but it is new and improved. (And comparatively inexpensive, wink wink.)

When Authors Screw Up

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There are lots of articles out there on what you should do if you screw up. Most of them involve instructions on the basics: stop doing the thing, and apologize (authentically) for doing the thing. But what is your role in this business if someone you admire screws up?

I’ve wondered about that because now and then authors I like screw up on social media and it kinda breaks my heart.

Your first instinct is to defend. Someone you like–someone who created something you might have loved–has sinned. Don’t they deserve forgiveness? Don’t they deserve gentle correction instead of the pile-on they’re experiencing? Isn’t it also important what they’ve done well? Can’t we emphasize that?

Well, the answer is no. Now is not the time to emphasize that.

It is the responsibility of the person who screwed up to try to make right, and the way they do so is going to tell you a lot about the kind of person they are. The way you act is your own biz, and I urge you to carefully consider what you’re getting into–and what it says about you–if you defend someone’s terrible behavior just because you like their work.

Here is a list of stuff to keep in mind when this happens.

  1. Liking someone’s work if they have behaved in an unacceptable way does not make you guilty by association.
  2. Liking someone’s work even if it has problematic aspects does not require you to find a way to excuse those aspects before you are “allowed” to like the work as a whole without being a bad person.
  3. You can and should accept that your heroes can believe bad things and can be spreading terrible messages. If they do this, you are not required to abandon them as one of your favorite content creators.
  4. You can and should be able to be critical about your heroes. You can and should be able to agree with those who are calling them out, and if you have something to say on the matter, you may even want to join them in echoing the callout.
  5. If the creator (and perpetrator of the bad message) is worth respecting, they will learn from this experience, not judge critics as bullies and dig their heels in while doubling down on a bad message. You are in the same boat.
  6. It is actually okay to decide you no longer want to support someone who believes/says those things. It may lead you to look at their older work in a larger context and like it less. It may not. Both responses are okay.
  7. You cannot completely separate a creator from their creation. If someone believes racist things, they are likely spreading racist messages even if they don’t mean to, and you may not have noticed it if you weren’t looking for it or aren’t sensitive to those messages because of your background. It IS important.
  8. You should look at the actual statements the person made. And you should look at several criticisms of the statement the person made to try to understand why there’s a problem if you don’t immediately see why. You don’t have to agree with the criticism, but you should definitely listen to it before you try to defend.
  9. If someone you like is getting dragged and your knee-jerk reaction is to assume they don’t deserve it, please do not announce that the real problem is the PC agenda, oversensitivity, or people looking to be offended. You must understand that the outrage is real, even if you can’t feel it. Chances are the person who Said the Thing doesn’t understand why it makes people upset either, and judging the group as hysterical, unreasonable, overreacting, or guilty of mob-mentality witch hunting is not going to stop this from happening next time.
  10. It is possible for someone to have worthwhile messages to contribute while having absolutely no business speaking on certain issues. It is possible for an author to say wonderful things about racism while being tone-deaf to the sexism in their work. It is possible for an author to spread great messages of religious tolerance and support while supporting hateful erasure and discrimination toward disabled people. Intersectionality is a thing and if someone is wrong or ignorant about one thing, it is not appropriate to say we need to ignore their ignorance because they’re doing it right on another axis.

I am not going to name names here, but keeping all this in mind, this is how I’ve reacted to bad behavior committed by some of my favorite authors. When an author I enjoyed said a casually racist thing in a very public context, I observed his sincere apology and decided I could still read and support his work, but I remain baffled by his poor judgment and certainly wouldn’t defend it. When an author whose work I was just getting into said something really tone-deaf about women, I decided it was gross (and explained a lot) but that it wasn’t egregious enough that I wanted to disown him from my library or stop reading his books. And when an author made some terribly ignorant, strongly worded statements about the lack of need for diversity in books because we already have all we need and pushing diversified characters is an unnecessary agenda, I observed her unrepentant reframing of the situation and her protest that she can’t be wrong because she has diverse characters too, and I quietly removed several of her books from my wish list. If she thinks the book world is fine the way it is and refuses to listen to the people who don’t feel represented, I’m sad about it, but I don’t want to invite more of her world view into my brain.

I absolutely agreed that all of these people did bad things. They left a terrible taste in my mouth after I enjoyed their work and had no idea they thought like this. The way they react to being called out has a lot to do with whether I want to continue to see their writing. I’m okay with ignorance, especially when the ignorant party acknowledges their ignorance and says they’re working on it. I’m okay with mistakes, especially when the mistake-maker draws more attention to themselves by saying “I did this, it was terrible that I did this, I apologize in a heartfelt manner and I have learned from this.” I’m not okay with buying more books by an author who repeatedly declares that other authors’ voices and other readers’ needs are irrelevant.

And for the record, analyzing and acknowledging problematic aspects of work you like can actually make it more enjoyable. You do not need to defend the parts that are awful (regardless of how intentional or egregious those parts are) to enjoy the rest of the work or the work as a whole. You also do not need to agree with the public outrage to respect that people have a reason to express said outrage. And if you still want to support someone who’s done something bad, that does not require you to defend what they did wrong, nor should you diminish its importance or point at people who are doing worse things.

Look at what the person did and ask yourself, “Do I want to pay this person to talk to me? Will the fact that they believe this infect the other messages they’re sending me? If I was part of the group they’re insulting with this message, would I find it less acceptable?” And it’s okay to be conflicted about it. Like I said, it can be heartbreaking when one of your idols turns out to believe and say horrible things. Your actions regarding how you react to their work post screw-up are up to you, but don’t make the mistake of considering these controversies irrelevant. We do shape the literary world by reacting passionately (for better or for worse) to messages that inspire strong feelings. You should not dismiss or scoff at the importance of these explosions just because you think they don’t really affect you.

Chances are, if you think they aren’t relevant to you–if you won’t learn from others’ mistakes–then they could be you one day.

Video: Acknowledgments

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In this month’s video, I give some advice on what you might consider for your acknowledgments page.

This video does apply to folks who don’t have a book deal or even those who haven’t finished their books yet. Start keeping these things in mind now, and I promise it’ll save you a lot of headache later!

Why do you write?

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“You just want attention.”

Recently I had the misfortune of interacting with someone who claimed my “desire for attention” was the reason I write. In context, the suggestion that I “wanted attention” was an unflattering description; it was framed as being childish, needy, silly, and narcissistic to “want attention” for my work. And it was also suggested that I write as a substitute for “real” human interaction.

Whew! A lot to unpack from that, huh?

Most of what that person said was so ignorant and pointlessly oversimplified that I just didn’t care and remained mildly irritated but mostly just baffled. Really? It’s only immature attention-mongering desires and inability to interact “normally” that can explain why I write? And enjoying when someone likes my work or benefits from it is evidence of self-centeredness or a poorly conceived attempt at a social interaction substitute?

It struck me to wonder after I was faced with this question, though: Hey, why do I write, anyway?

Because I have ideas.

That’s pretty much it.

I had an idea. I wrote it down. I liked writing it down. I like making stuff up.

I like creating worlds. I like creating characters. I like the actual experience of writing. I like entertaining myself with the stories. I’ve gotten ideas for things since I was a tiny child. I didn’t even show the majority of them to anyone at all, though some of them got shown to parents or friends. I just like writing stuff.

But then there’s another layer of enjoyment from sharing a story, sure. If I’ve written something and I entertained someone or they learned a lesson from it or they got valuable information from it or it helped them feel less alone, that’s great. It’s not what motivated me to write, but I’m not going to say positive feedback and knowing I helped someone is irrelevant.

I do think it’s VERY disingenuous to claim that if I appreciate good feedback or like feeling that I helped someone, it’s therefore a hobby I engage in because I’m needy and I have to do this to feel fulfilled.

Not to mention that if writing was the one way I could access approval and self-worth, who the hell would you be to tell me it’s inauthentic, mock-worthy, or pathetic? If something that makes you feel good, needed, productive, or happy is working well for you, it seems kind of mean-spirited and even vindictive to barge into someone’s life and tell them they’re not doing life right. This is irrelevant to me because I do not write for those reasons, but coping mechanisms are a thing, especially for people who are sensitive or have particular needs. There’s no reason to say people who do write because they enjoy the attention and approval they get should be torn away from it through belittling comments about how that person should be striving toward fulfillment. Especially if you’re not a writer and you don’t understand what could be rewarding about it.

It’s just so gross to imagine that anyone out there wants to characterize something like writing as a cry for help from a desperate person who wants “empty” attention, or that people like this want to shame people who have different or less-than-perfect coping methods. What exactly is so bad about attention? Why is it so frequently categorized as vapid or even pathological to want something you do to get attention?

Actually, don’t assholes also frequently make fun of people who don’t get attention (or the “right” kind of attention), characterizing you as a social failure or a hilarious loner regardless of whether you desire whatever is considered a “normal” amount of social contact? (Because if you’re not very social and you’re fine with that, they’ll still assume you would be interacting with friends more than you do if you had any, and make fun of you for not having enough friends or not being likable.) I can’t even tell you how often people see that I like to read and write and do things on the computer and react to my choices with “HAHAHAH IT’S FUNNY THAT SHE PRETENDS SHE’D RATHER BE HOME READING THAN OUT AT THE CLUB, BUT SHE DOESN’T WANT TO ADMIT THAT SHE’S TOO AWKWARD OR WOULD BE EMBARRASSED AT HOW NO ONE WANTS TO HIT ON HER ETC.” You know, because if I actually do want to spend the evening at home, I’m making excuses because I know I would fail at being coveted and popular in a social setting. What I get from this is you’re supposed to flourish from getting attention, but you’re never supposed to be seen deliberately doing anything that suggests you want it.

I think it’s pretty cool when people like what I’ve written. I don’t do it because I’m desperately hungry for their attention and have nothing else worthwhile to live for in my life, no. But writing things people like and appreciating it when people like them is not ridiculous.

I can certainly think of some worse ways to spend one’s hours on the planet. Particularly, spending a bunch of time criticizing how others spend THEIR time.

Video: Writing to the Market

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Here’s another new video from my writing channel offering a discussion of what it means to “write to the market” and what compromises you can expect to make if you want to be marketable.

Spoiler alert: The practical upshot here is that attempted trend-riding will get you nowhere, and attempting to be marketable should not lead you to compromise the soul of your work.