Category Archives: Blog

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.

Just Didn’t Connect

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Sometimes when someone doesn’t like a book, they can explain exactly why. They might have a problem with the content or the message. They may have thought the character motivations were unclear or preposterous. They could have found the writing style awkward or dense or simplistic. And sometimes, when this someone is a person evaluating your work, it can be helpful to you if they explain their why.

But the most difficult thing to hear might just be “I just didn’t connect.”

Sometimes this a euphemism for “I thought your book was terrible for X reason or Y reason, but I either can’t or am not willing to relay those reasons to you, either for fear of hurting you or for fear of looking like a jerk (or both).”

But more often, it really is what it sounds like. The person just doesn’t like books like yours. Maybe they prefer books they can personally relate to, and yours isn’t relatable for them. Maybe they have trouble suspending disbelief for your science fiction concept, or don’t find romances compelling, or can’t drum up any enthusiasm for whether your fantasy novel’s questing party can recover the world-saving artifact. Maybe they have a particular difficulty connecting to books that are written in third person, or in present tense.

And this “I just didn’t connect to it” response goes all the way up to editors at big publishing houses and all the way down to readers deciding what to buy.

We all have preferences. It’s doubtful that anyone who reads is going to say they are equally interested in all well-written books. And unless you personally continue to “give a fair chance” to books that open with action that doesn’t grab you and books whose descriptions sound pretty boring to you, you should understand why this happens. Agents and editors frequently have to re-read books they sign multiple times, and both types of publishing professionals are gambling on whether readers will like what they like, because agents don’t get paid at all unless they sell the book to a publisher and publishers won’t make back the money they spent on producing the book if readers don’t like it enough to pay money for it.

Publishing works the way it does because readers work the way they do. Except for situations like school reading or other assignments, we generally don’t have any obligation to read things we don’t want to read, and publishing industry professionals are in the same boat. If they don’t want to read it, they probably won’t be able to convince others that they want to read it.

So don’t go into publishing, into story-writing, into creative careers in general if you think subjectivity doesn’t or shouldn’t exist. Don’t expect “equal” or “fair” treatment, or for anyone to humor you. No one is obligated to read a predetermined amount of your book before deciding they don’t want to read more, and no one is obligated to defend liking a book that you think isn’t as good as yours. People will like things for reasons you don’t agree with or don’t understand or don’t have in common with them. It could be you’re writing stuff that not many people are interested in, or it could be that you’re writing it in a way that doesn’t make it easy to fall in love with, but either way if you’re encountering lukewarm interest and “didn’t connect” responses every time you attempt to engage readers, you might try asking yourself what makes YOU connect.

What is it about the books you love that made you keep reading them after page 1? What is it about the books you love that made them work so well for you? What was it about the books you love that makes you call them the books you love? How did those authors draw you in? You might think you’re doing the same thing they are, or doing it as well as they are, but actually look at what they’re doing. What do they do on page one? What do they do over the course of their story? What do your favorite authors have in common? You may be skipping some steps. You may be including or not including elements that turn people on or off.

Or you may be showing it to people who just didn’t connect and there’s nothing you can do about it.

You should always look at your material first, think about what you might be able to improve, but it isn’t always your fault. It isn’t always an actual flaw or problem with your work. You should be open to the idea that it might be, but not eternally convinced that it must be if some readers tell you they don’t connect.

There isn’t one right way to write a book, but if your first tries aren’t getting you the results you want and you’re determined to reach those results, try doing what worked for the authors you like. It works a lot better than blaming your audience or throwing up your hands and quitting. And it feels a lot better too. I promise.