How Do I Know What I Think Until I See What I Say?

Jay Hears a Song #14 -- The Only Hope For Me Is You

2010-12-03T06:53:00.000-05:00

One of the bands I totally love is My Chemical Romance. I've loved them since the first time I saw the video for their song "I'm Not Okay (I Promise)," which looks like a movie trailer for the best revenge of the nerds video, ever. Take a look:

That is a great video. And it didn't hurt that the song was just as great--a fresh and angry take on being abandoned by someone you thought really liked you.

That song, their breakout hit, was on their second album. Their third was the epic The Black Parade, which deviated from the emo rock template and was both bloated and grand. Everything about The Black Parade was big. The songs, the videos, the tour, and the post partum depression that followed it, which is why it took four years for them to make a follow-up album.

The album -- Danger Days: The True Lives of the Fabulous Killjoys -- came out last Monday, and is...well, from a hard rock emo band like My Chemical Romance, it's a surprise. A wonderful one. There are a number of amazing songs on this album, but this one -- "The Only Hope For Me Is You" -- is my current favorite, and was released as a preview, so I don't feel bad posting it here even though it's not the current single. Listen to this*:

It's beautiful, right? It's haunting, and somehow familiar, although there's nothing like it on the radio. And it's sad, but also hopeful. And, compared to "I'm Not Okay" it's positively mellow. Just lovely.

Sample Lyrics:

Where were you when all of the embers fell?
I still remember them,
covered in ash,
covered in glass.
covered in all my friends.
I still think of the bombs they built

A post-apocalyptic love song. Fantastic.

But after a few listens, and a little help from my iPod, I realized why the song sounded so familiar to me immediately. It's because of the first fifteen seconds.

Listen to the first fifteen seconds of "The Only Hope For Me Is You" and then listen to the first thirty seconds of this:

That's right, the beginning of one of the songs off MCR's new album is eerily reminiscent of the beginning of "Your Wildest Dreams" by The Moody Blues, released in 1986.

That's not to say that they're copies of each other, the way some Nickelback songs are copies of other Nickelback songs,** just that the similarities are enough that MCR's song made me recall the Moody Blues' song.*** And the songs are similar enough in tone that that recollection wasn't jarring--so natural, in fact, that it felt like I'd heard the MCR song before, even on the first listen.

Is it intentional? I don't know. MCR's always been one of those bands who wears its influences on its sleeve (take a listen to anything on The Black Parade--it's so full of Queen that you expect to hear Freddie Mercury any second), but The Moody Blues hasn't been on the list of influences that they've mentioned thus far (although Danger Days is very influenced by the 80s in general). I doubt that they thought "let's remake the first thirty seconds of 'Your Wildest Dreams.'" I suspect it happened the way that influences make their way into my writing -- you hear something or read something and somehow it sticks with you, in your subconscious, until it seeps out into the work. And then, someone like me comes along and says to you "hey, that's sort of like this" and you look at it again and say "holy cow! You're right!"

Either way, it's a kickass song.

~~~

* The song hasn't been a single yet, so there's not a video for it.

** No, really. COPIES. Listen to this:

*** In fact, after the first fifteen seconds, the songs diverge and aren't really similar at all.

I am a fan girl

2010-12-01T06:36:00.002-05:00

Last week, Steph Bowe wrote a post about how she is not a fangirl. She's a fan of things, of course, but she's not obsessive. And it's a little embarrassing that I, a grown adult, am being out-matured by a 16-year-old, but there you go.

Because I'm totally a fan girl.

It started when I was 12, with a band, and then there was a book (and it's author), and then there was another band, and then a tv show, and another tv show, and now there's another band. I'm not one of those fan girls who falls in love with whatever's popular at the moment; in fact, the things I have fannish love for are about 50/50 split as to whether they're generally popular or not. But there's usually something.

And just like Steph can't explain why she's not a fan girl, I can't explain why I am one. Why do I spend hours of my life engaging with a cultural artifact that doesn't engage back? I've flown across the country, waited in line for hours, suffered through rain and sleet and dark or night, and spent money I shouldn't have spent to indulge my love for these things I love. I've even bought books in hardcover!

Some people think that this tendency in an adult is silly or immature. Maybe it is--I don't care. Because, honestly, part of the reason why I write, part of the reason why I'm so attuned to character, is because I'm such a fan girl. I hope that my books, my characters, turn teenagers into screaming fangirls and boys. Popularity is not something that the writer can control,* but if I as the writer could have the effect on one teenager that some of these books and bands have had on me? That would be the ultimate.

And now I have to go. The current love of my pop culture life has a new album out and I haven't memorized all the words yet.

~~~

* Lessons learned from fanfiction: you can never predict exactly what the audience is going to respond to.

Monday Miscellany

2010-11-29T08:28:00.000-05:00

1. This weekend, I went to see Burlesque with Cher and Christina Aguilera. It was AWESOME. Don't get me wrong, it wasn't a good movie, but it was hilarious, and campy, and had snappy dialogue, and Cher sang twice and Christina sang about a hundred times and the amazing thing that saved the tiny burlesque club from destruction is totally not the amazing thing you think it's going to be, and yeah...AWESOME. If you like Cher and/or Christina Aguilera, you should totally go see it.

2. When I am 69 years old, I want to look like Cher. In fact, I'm willing to look like Cher now.

3. Lately, I've been watching Law & Order UK, and it's fascinating to see the familiar cases from the original Law & Order remade from an English point of view.* The English legal system fascinates me, and the stories are just as good as ever. The original was on television for 20 years for a reason.

~~~

* And the barristers wear wigs! Really ill-fitting old fashioned ones that look crazy at first, like this:

But you get used to it quickly.

I Do Not Think That Means What You Think It Means

2010-09-04T10:25:00.003-04:00

Recently, I've been seeing a lot of commercials that, superficially, seem to say one thing* but also saying another much less flattering thing. This cracks me up, because it seems like, if I'm seeing these things, shouldn't the people who get paid a lot of money to create the commercials see them, too? But let me give some examples, so you can see what I'm talking about:

1. The Swiffer Commercials

Look, I love Swiffer. I use Swiffer (the plain ordinary wipe-on-a-stick ones, not the crazy jet ones). But this series of commercials is way screwed up. Take a look:

There's a whole series of these, in which the broom or mop essentially stalks the woman (never a man, notice) who has switched to Swiffer. On the surface, oh, ha ha, the broom and mop are sad that you left them. What a cute-ish commercial! But even if we set aside the fact that the commercial is essentially making light of stalking behaviors (since stalking by a broom is, you know, not very likely), the commercial has another, even more disturbing implication, namely that the woman in question was...um...romantically involved with a broom. And a mop. That is at the very least an uncomfortable suggestion and at the most? eww.

Really.

EWW.

2. The Microsoft "Windows 7 was my idea" commercials.

These are the commercials where various regular people take credit for inventing the new Windows operating system, which, as a Mac user, crack me up anyway, because really? You want to take credit for that? But even looking past my own Mac bias (which is large), the message of the commercials is odd. Take a look:

On one hand, the commercials along this vein are awesome, because each of them demonstrates a new feature of Windows 7 and makes that feature look easy to use. On the other hand, these commercials basically state that Windows 7 users are (a) stupid, and (b) not as attractive as they think they are. Oh, and that Microsoft steals ideas from its customers.

For real. The common features in each commercial are these: (1) a Windows user talks about how he or she had this idea for a cool new feature. (2) We see a flashback, in which a hyper-attractive version of the user (not played by the original actor cleaned up to look better, but a totally different, much hotter actor) has the idea. (3) The we're back in the present, where the schlubby user demonstrates the new feature, and (4) then the schlub takes credit for inventing Windows 7.

I'm sure they're trying to counteract those smug Mac v. PC ads that were so successful from a year or two ago** by reassuring their customers that PCs are for normal people. I get that. But really, what these commercials are saying is "PC users are deluded and maybe not so bright." And that's never a message customers want to hear about themselves.

3. The Clorox Mad Men Commercial

I love Mad Men. I do. I've watched it since day one, and one of the really interesting things about it is watching the social attitudes in the show about women's roles, and parenting, and masculinity in the workplace and all those other things that make it feel like a slice of life from the 60s (even though, you know, it's really not). But while I admire the show, many of the attitudes of the characters (about adultery and the treatment of women, especially) aren't things I particularly admire. Don Draper is hot, for sure, but I don't want to be his wife or girlfriend.***

So when Clorox bleach decided to run this ad, I can only assume that it was the result of an anachronistic three martini lunch. Take a look:

Yep, that's right. Here's a laundry detergent company, whose primary market is probably women, married women, suggesting that it's product is best for getting rid of the incriminating evidence of their husbands' affairs.

This one, unlike the two commercials above, isn't a muddled message, it's just a bad one. Unless the product is being marketed to (a) men who have affairs or (b) mistresses who do their partner's laundry before sending him home****, who the heck is this commercial supposed to be appealing to?

What commercials with mixed messages (or just plain bad ones) have I missed? I'm sure there are millions out there -- I do have a DVR and a tendency to skip them.

~~~

* That one thing being "this product is awesome and you should totally buy it."

** Although some people would argue that the Mac v. PC ads really just portrayed Mac users as smug hipsters and PC users as cool funny guys like John Hodgman (who, by the way, is a Mac user. True story.).

*** Jon Hamm is another matter altogether, though. Wow. That is an attractive man.

**** I've never been anyone's mistress, but it seems to me that one of the advantages of mistressing would be never having to do the guy's laundry.

On Series Fiction

2010-09-01T09:11:00.002-04:00

Lately, I've been reading a lot of series YA books,* books that have two or three or four sequels, and I have to say that it hasn't been going so well. Usually, this is what happens:

(1) I love the first book. It's awesome and original and the characters are great.
(2) The second book is good. Maybe the idea isn't as good, or the characters seem a little stale or something. But it's still a pretty good book, and I'm looking forward to the next one.
(3) I read book three and think "really"? and put it down halfway through after skimming to the end to find out who dies.

For a while I wasn't sure why I was having that reaction. I mean, these are all different authors, writing about very different topics, so how was it possible that my reaction was pretty much the same each time? Was it ME? Could I be the problem?**

Then I realized what was happening--it was the adults.

I went back to confirm and, sure enough, in each of these different series, the first book is all about the teenager. Who the character is, what problems the character faces, the relationships between the characters and the big conflict, that's all about the main character, the young adult.

But starting in book two, that focus starts to shift. Suddenly, adults matter more. Suddenly, there are politics. ::shudder::*** And here's the thing: I don't care about adults. I mean, in real life, of course I care about adults. And I care about adults in books, too, when I read books about adults.

But, for me at least, YA fiction is supposed to be about teenagers. Young adults. Not the political machinations of adults who use teenagers as their pawns or try to manipulate them or control them. So when a series becomes more concerned with the doings of the adults than the doings of the main character I signed up for? That's when I start checking out.

I think this happens, at least in part, for two reasons:

(1) the people writing the books are mostly adults. So they sometimes lose sight of the fact that the goings on of the adult world? Not all that interesting to kids (and readers with the minds of kids, like me :) ).

(2) in a series, you need to raise the stakes. So something that starts as a deliberate and focused story in book one (that maybe was never even meant to be a series, keep in mind), has to get bigger and badder in book two and three and four and etc. Suddenly, the boy just out to save himself now needs to save the whole town or the whole world. The stakes get bigger, the cast gets bigger, and BAM! suddenly you're in the middle of a debate on the floor of the Imperial Senate wondering how you got there and why your main character is suddenly a spectator instead of an actor.

And that spells trouble. Right here in River City.

It's also something for me to keep in mind as some of the stories I'm writing could serve as a jumping off point for a series. And if that happens, I have to make sure that my books don't fall victim to the same sorts of problems I'm seeing in these books.

~~~

* Some of these are new series, and some of them are old series (like 60 years old).

** Maybe I am also part of the problem. I'm willing to consider that possibility, but it doesn't make for a very good blog entry.

*** For a perfect example of how politics can ruin a good story, see the prequels to Star Wars. I'm sorry, we went from Darth Vader and Han Solo to the debates of the Imperial Senate? Guess who couldn't care less about that?

Monday Miscellany--The Contracts Edition

2010-07-19T06:37:00.000-04:00

Lately, I've been seeing a lot of blog posts about writing contracts and clauses. As a lawyer, the contracts part of the publishing business is one of the interesting parts of the business for me, and since I don't do publishing contracts myself, I thought I would gather up all the posts into one giant linkfest. Enjoy!*

1. Here's Jane at Dystel and Goderich Literary Agency on the importance of reading your contract, a post that was inspired by a publisher sending out a notice of amendment for their contracts.

2. Here's a post over at Bookends LLC by writer Sally MacKenzie, about how she realized there's no such thing as a "boilerplate" contract.**

3. Here's Agent Kristin at Pub Rants talking about why you might not want a multi-book deal. (Hint: it involves the term "cross-collateralization."

4. And here's Agent Kristin again, on how one unethical person can ruin things for the rest of us. (Long story short: an agent tampered with a PDF version of a contract and made unauthorized changes and tried to get it through at the publishers. This is NOT a good idea, people.)

5. And here's Stroppy Author's blog, a whole blog about reading your publishing contract.*** Note that she's in the UK, where contracts vary from those in the U.S.

6. And finally, here's Agent Kristin again with why publishers shouldn't be holding a reserve on returns on ebooks.
~~~

* And even if you don't "enjoy" reading about contracts, they are a really important part of the publishing journey.

** Sally also talks about some other aspects of the business of writing that might not occur to writers before they get a contract.

*** Please note that Stroppy Author is just that, an author, and isn't a lawyer. And that your results should you follow her advice, may vary. It's still a good introduction to things to be thinking about when you read your contract.

On Titles

2010-07-16T06:44:00.000-04:00

I used to be awesome at titles. For real. My fan fiction has awesome titles, catchy and intriguing and epic in scope.

That has changed recently.

I don't know what's up with me, but right now my titles are boring and descriptive. Agent Ted and I are agonizing* over what to call The Book. And my Next Book is titled something so boring I can't even bring myself to type it here for fear that you might fall asleep just reading it.

And there are so many good titles on the market, recently.** The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo, The Dead and the Gone, The Forest of Hands and Teeth, Winter Girls, Don't Judge A Girl By Her Cover, Shiver, ...I could go on and on and on. We're having a real title renaissance at the moment, I think, and, as a result, I'm having a bit of title jealousy.

Jane, over at Dystel and Goderich, had a recent post about titles, and so did Eric over at Pimp My Novel. Neither of these posts have fixed my title malaise (yet!), but they're a good place to start.

~~~

* By "agonizing" I mean "sending emails back and forth saying stuff like 'do you like this one? Or this one? What about this one?'" So...not so much agonizing as discussing. You get the point.

** I mean titles, not the books that have the titles, although they might be good books, too, but I haven't read some of them. I'm just talking about the titles here.

Workin' On It Wednesday #53 -- On Belief

2010-07-14T06:57:00.000-04:00

I'm in the middle of revision. Again. I'm always in the middle of revision, if you want the honest truth: as a fast writer, someone who screams through a first draft and puts stuff like [INSERT DRAMATIC SCENE HERE] in my drafts, the moment I put something down on (figurative) paper, I'm already revising. Really, my writing is, like, 80% revision, and I have no fear of it.

But sometimes, I get tired.

We all do. As I talked about here, it's really important that the author isn't the one to give up on a book before anyone else does, but that's sometimes hard to remember the fifth (or eighth, or tenth) time through a manuscript.

And, on top of being tired, there are the doubts. Because the fifth (or twelfth, or fourteenth) time through the book, there are moments when I look at the book and I think "jesus, this isn't very good."

Unlike weariness with a project--which can be fought through--there's nothing to really do about the doubts. I can push through the tiredness with sheer grit and determination. But doubt? There's no pushing through doubt, because the more I push, the more I think "if this were good, would I have to push this hard? Shouldn't 'good' be easier than this?"

That doesn't make sense, of course, especially not for me, an inveterate reviser. But sense or not, the doubts are there.

This week, though, I read Kristin Cashore's blog post about how she faces her doubts and how she deals with them. This is what she said:

I can see the book as a whole now, and every single day, I struggle with the voices that are telling me it's not going to work, it's going to fail. It isn't about anything. I'm not good enough to pull all the loose ends together. I'll get to the climax and realize that it's a dumb climax. It's a mess and revisions won't solve the problems.

The good news is that they're just voices, they can't control me, and I'm used to them. ...

You acknowledge the voices, but you write anyway. This faith is performative. I believe in this book.

And for some reason, even though I don't know Kristin, her words made me feel better, and I think I'm going to make them one of my mottoes.

This faith is performative. I believe in this book.

Monday Miscellany

2010-07-12T07:05:00.000-04:00

1. Elmo got a ticket this weekend. 87 in a 70.* But it's not my fault that Elmo doesn't really settle in until 75. I have a need for speed!**

2. I have been seeing a lot of baseball lately. A lot. And today was a very exciting game -- Brewers v. Pirates, which the Brewers won with a walkoff homer by Corey Hart. Not this Corey Hart:

This Corey Hart:

The thing that cracks me up is that Corey Hart, the baseball player, was born in 1982, which is a mere TWO YEARS before Corey Hart, the musician, became famous for "Never Surrender" and "Sunglasses at Night." Sometimes, the world works in mysterious ways.

3. I love high summer. The only thing bad about summer is that it's followed by fall. Stupid fall.

4. I'm visiting with my niece this week. It's only the second day, and I have already seen enough Hannah Montana to last me a lifetime. ::shiver::

~~~

* Actual exchange between me and the polite officer who stopped me:

Him: Do you know how fast you were going?
Me: No. [this is true.]
Him: I clocked you at 87. Any reason why you were going that fast?
Me: [thinking "at least he didn't catch me when I was 95"] No, sir.
Him: You should slow down. License and registration, please.
Me: sigh.

** Seriously, though, I would never drive that fast if the road wasn't perfectly visible and empty of traffic. Tailgating is a sin against the gods of driving.

Ooh, AND!

2010-07-11T21:08:00.002-04:00

My very own beloved Agent Ted has a BOOK OUT.

I know!

You can buy it here from Amazon, or here from Barnes and Noble. (Mine is on order from my local bookstore, but I should get it next week!)

Congratulations Agent Ted!

Monday Miscellany (the Tuesday edition)

2010-06-29T06:52:00.003-04:00

1. I get what Swiffer is trying to do with those commercials where the broom, abandoned by its owner/operator, finds love with a bowling ball or a lawn flamingo, but I wonder if they realize that they are implying that the broom was having sex with a person. Think before you take the joke too far, Swiffer.

2. I love Friday Night Lights. I go on and on about why, but if you're watching the show, you already know, and if you're not watching the show, then you won't believe me anyways.

3. Revisions have eaten my brain. Fortunately, I wasn't using it for much anyways, so it doesn't seem to have affected my day-to-day life.

4. We had thunderstorms this weekend in Ohio. I love thunderstorms. I love them even more when no branches fall on my roof of hit my gutter, but I guess you can't have everything. Seriously, though, if I could live in a place where it's almost always summer, I would.

Monday Miscellany

2010-06-21T06:42:00.000-04:00

1. Even though I am not a championship marksman, I am really enjoying Top Shot on Discovery Channel. The funny thing is, when you're dealing with a bunch of people who are experts at handling firearms, you're not going to get a lot of really excitable drama queens -- that's sort of the opposite of the personality who becomes a marksman, you know? -- so the show is just about a lot of really talented people making really hard shots. It's delightful.

2. I've been thinking about the title for The Book a lot lately. Normally, I'm phenomenal at titles, but The Book has been particularly challenging. Agent Ted and I have settled on a couple of titles, all of which were adequate and none of which have been awesome. sigh. It's getting to the point where I'm going to open the manuscript to a random page and pick a word.*

3. I don't like vacuuming, but I like having vacuumed. Vacuuming is like exercise in that way.

4. Live Free or Die Hard is more entertaining than any fourth movie in a series has any right to be. The first one was epic, of course, the second and third ones were adequate, but the fourth one, almost (almost) as good as the first. That never happens. Just ask Alien.

5. If you haven't already seen Hyperbole and a Half, the blog written and illustrated by Allie Brosh, you are missing out. GO. Go now.

~~~

* How well will a book called "The" sell, do you think? And, of course, there's also the fact that if and when The Book sells, the publisher may want a different title altogether. It's maddening.

Jay Hears a Song #13 -- Graduation Songs

2010-06-11T06:53:00.000-04:00

It's June, when I start seeing the graduation signs and notices everywhere (and some parents really go out of their way when it comes to embarrassing their children with graduation announcements), and my thoughts inevitably turn to graduation songs.

By "graduation song" I don't mean the songs that are actually played during graduation, which are always some combination of "Pomp and Circumstance" and the school alma mater, which none of the students would have ever heard until the day of graduation rehearsal and have to fake singing during the ceremony.

No, a graduation song is the song that will come to symbolize the moment of gradation for the student for the rest of her (or his) life, the song that, every time it comes on the radio (or the ipod, or what have you) will take the graduate back to that moment when she left one moment and moved on to the next one. It's different for everyone, of course, but there are some songs that seem to capture that moment for many people. The list below has some of those, and also has some of the songs that might be graduation songs, just for me.

1. "Forever Young" by Alphaville (

This one was recently bastardized by JayZ,* but the original is an epic graduation song, full of nostalgia for what has just passed and hope for the future. This song will always be the epitome of graduation songs for me.

Can you imagine when this race is won
Turn our golden faces to the sun
Praising our leaders, getting in tune
the music's played by the mad man.

2. "Friends Forever" by Vitamin C

This is one of those songs that was obviously written with the intent of becoming a graduation song and, for that reason, it's just not as good as most of the others. It seems too...obvious. Graduation songs are supposed to just happen, not be forced. Still, the list wouldn't feel right without it, so here you go. It's also a little sad, because it's so untrue.

As we go on
we remember
all the times we
had together
and as our lives changes
come whatever
we will still be
friends forever.

3. "End of the Road" by Boys II Men (

This is what I mean by a graduation song just happening. This song is actually a love song, but the year it came out, practically every high school in the country picked it as a graduation song.

Although we've come
to the end of the road
still I can't let go
It's unnatural
you belong to me
I belong to you.

4. "Good Riddance (Time of Your Life)" by Green Day

This one is also epic. Green Day allegedly wrote it as sort of a "screw you" to the music industry, which was demanding another punk song from them (which in a way is the most punk thing they could do), but it's also just a really beautiful song, that perfectly captures that blend of sadness and inevitably that the really good graduation songs have.

Another turning point, a fork stuck in the road
time grabs you by the wrist, directs you where to go
so make the best of this test and don't ask why
it's not a question but a lesson learned in time
it's something unpredictable, but in the end it's right
I hope you had the time of your life.

What am I missing?
~~~~

* Normally, I'm in favor of remixes, but this one is just...bad. I'm sorry, Jay Z, but no. Just no.

** Bonus Song! Which is a bonus because it's not really a graduation song, but a prom night song, which is close, but is not quite the same thing.

"Existentialism on Prom Night" by Straylight Run

We're glad for what we've go
done with what we've lost
our whole lives laid out
right in front of us.

On Bad Reviews

2010-06-09T06:34:00.000-04:00

I don't have any reviews yet--one of the perks of being unpublished, right?--but this quote from author Roddy Doyle in the Guardian newspaper seems like an accurate summary of what my feelings would be:

"An Irish Times review of a reading I gave of one of my children's books, Rover Saves Christmas, in Dublin. The reviewer referred to 'the stench of celebrity vanity'. I've seen him many times since. I've even said hello to him. But I will, eventually, kill him."

I'm sure I'll have more to say once I get a bad review. I can hardly wait.

Monday Miscellany

2010-06-07T06:35:00.001-04:00

1. This weekend I went to Cedar Point (which is an amusement park, if you don't live in Ohio). It was great fun, but I have learned that eight rollercoasters is my limit. After nine, rollercoasters go from "whee!" to "blurg."*

2. Glee's season finale is this week. I still watch it, and I still enjoy it, but I'd be lying if I didn't say that my enjoyment is tinged with regret for what might have been. There was so much promise in the show that just hasn't materialized. But that's always the risk when you sign up for a new show, and when it works out (I'm looking at you, Friday Night Lights), it's like heaven.

3. I've been writing a lot, which means I've been reading a lot of nonfiction (I can't read a lot of fiction when I write, because I get contaminated), and I didn't realize until recently that there re good and bad nonfiction writers. I don't know why I didn't realize that, because, DUH, of course, there are good and bad nonfiction writers, but it just never occurred to me to pay attention. I will say this: a good nonfiction writer can make me interested in any stupid topic.

4. I also painted my living room this weekend. (I know, contain your excitement.) Still, it's a great feeling of accomplishment, painting a room. Now I only have to do the trim.

~~~

* I didn't puke, in case you care, but it was close going for a few minutes there.

On Persistence

2010-06-04T06:44:00.004-04:00

Recently, Moonrat had a post on Editorial Ass about a conversation that she's had (and hear others have) about books. According to Moonrat, at some point in most projects, someone gets tired of the book and says "it is what it is," and sends it on to the next step, even if it's not quite 100%.

You know what, it's true.

I mean, I haven't seen it happen in the publishing industry--I don't work in the publishing industry--but I do write in my day job, and there's a point in drafting the contract or the brief where the team says "F*** it; print it and let's go."

And it's not because the lawyers on the team are lazy or untalented or don't know what they're doing. It's because they're tired. Because they've poured their time, their blood, sweat, and tears into the work, because they want to win. But there's only so much you can give before you have to throw up your hands and take a break. And if you're facing a deadline and can't take a break? Well, then, it is what it is. And the contract goes to the other side and you think you'll catch it in the next round of revisions.

So if it happens in the law, where people are already getting paid for their work, then of course it happens in the publishing industry, where most people are laboring for love (at least at first). It's hard to keep going back to a project over and over again with no end in sight, wondering when you're going to be good enough to go to the next step (which will just require more work).*

But Moonrat also has a good point about dealing with the inevitable fatigue:

The best professionals in any sector of the industry are the ones who fight it out a couple more rounds before throwing up their hands. Since you can't guarantee that anyone else who will be working on your book at any other stage will have the time, energy, and bandwidth to give it their all to the bitter end, you, the author, would do yourself a favor by not being the lazy one.

You may be tired. You may be fed up. You may be exhausted. But fight it out a couple more rounds, if you can.

~~~

* Some of the commenters on Moonrat's post are a little righteous about this fact. They say things like "I will never be the one who gives up on my work" and "I love everything about writing and would never be tired of working" (I'm paraphrasing). I hope that it's true for them, but it's never been true of anyone else I knew who worked in publishing.

Workin' on it Wednesday #52 -- On Love Triangles

2010-06-02T07:21:00.001-04:00

I've been doing a lot of YA reading lately, and I've come to the conclusion that the love triangle is a real problem for most writers. So here are Jay's Rules for an Effective Love Triangle:

1. Each love interest must be a viable choice for the protagonist.

I know I don't usually talk about specific examples here, but I'm going to now, just for a minute--Twilight.* Actually, it's not so much Twilight I want to talk about as New Moon, the sequel, because that was where the love triangle went off the rails, in my opinion, and when I stopped reading the series.**

New Moon is where the love triangle between Edward and Bella and Jacob really takes off. Jacob's not much of a presence in the first book at all, and we don't find out about his feelings until New Moon. But once Edward leaves, Jacob jumps in and here's where the love triangle both starts and, in my opinion falls apart.

Because Jacob is never really a viable alternative for Bella. Sure, he's hot, and sweet, and can turn into a werewolf and whatnot, but it doesn't matter. Bella's never going to love him. She's so head over heels for Edward that she barely sees Jacob, and when she does, although she feels awful, she still doesn't love him. You can be Team Jacob all you want,*** but Bella's never going to be into him. Ever. And that's clear from the very start of the their relationship.

2. Each potential love interest should offer something different to the protagonist.

Sometimes I read books and the distinction between the two love interests is that one is a blond and one is a brunette. But that's not a difference. If I can change it with a box of L'Oreal it is not a difference. A protagonist should be attracted to two different people at the same time because they appeal to two different sides of her (or his) personality, because they offer two distinct possibilities.

3. Each love interest must have adequate "screen time."

If only one of the love interests gets to show up, then there really isn't much point in being invested in the other guy -- he's not getting picked. Think about it: if Bella had chosen between Edward and Jacob at the end of Twilight instead of...much later, would anyone have cared? No, because Jacob's hardly in Twilight. He's a tertiary character. It's not until we get to spend time with him in New Moon, that we really see him as a possibility for Bella. Until New Moon, the Twilight Saga doesn't have a love triangle, it has a love straight line.

4. The protagonist MUST CHOOSE.

And not after 350,000 words.

5. The protagonist should not be a jerk.

This is a corollary to rule 4, because part of the choosing process is that the protagonist has to weigh his (or her) options, and then decide between the two.**** If, during the course of this process, the protagonist starts acting like a jerk -- leading people on, vacillating between the two, doing inappropriate things with one (or both) of the romantic interests -- then it's hard for the reader to be happy when the protagonist picks someone.

Any other Rules of Love Triangles that I'm missing? Let me know in the comments.

~~~

*I know. It's been critiqued mercilessly, for writing, for characters, for you name it, but it's a good example because so many people have read it that almost everyone knows what you're talking about when you say the name.

** If it's any comfort, I stopped reading Harry Potter at book four. I don't read things that I'm not interested in. That's not a quality judgment or anything--some books do it for me and some don't and I don't read the ones that don't. It doesn't mean they're not good books, and I'm sure J.K. Rowling and Stephenie Meyer couldn't care less.

*** I was.

**** Sometimes, very occasionally, the protagonist can get away with deciding not to go out with either of the love interests -- choosing herself, in other words (aka the 90210 Option). But this option has to be handled carefully and is hard to make work. It didn't even really work on 90210, if you want the truth.

Monday Miscellany

2010-05-31T06:03:00.000-04:00

1. Happy Memorial Day!

2. Spring may finally have arrived in northeast Ohio. Maybe. Although I wouldn't be surprised if it snowed next week the way this year has been going so far.

3. Turner Field in Atlanta is a beautiful baseball stadium, but it's not in a very nice neighborhood. Also, the taxi drivers in Atlanta never turn on their meters and just quote prices once the cab comes to a stop. Still, the rest of the people there (besides the taxi drivers) are very friendly and helpful.

4. This is the best song in the world:

"Booty Man" by Tim Wilson. I have never laughed so hard in my entire life than I did when I first heard this song. "Breakfast booty?" Sir, I don't even want to know.

5. Whenever I come back from vacation, I want another vacation to recover. I think I should be allowed to live a life of leisure, but so far I haven't been able to make that happen? Any ideas?

Why Friday Night Lights Is A Better Show Than Glee

2010-05-28T06:38:00.000-04:00

At the moment, I'm a fan of two shows on television: Friday Night Lights, which is in its fourth season and is about a high school football team, and Glee, which is in its first season and is about a high school glee club.* But even though I'm a fan of both shows and watch them religiously, FNL is an infinitely superior show to Glee. Infinitely. Like the Sistine Chapel compared to a doodle I made on some meeting notes yesterday.

Why? What makes one show so much better than the other? One word, one that I'm sure will be no surprise to anyone whose read anything on this blog before:

Characters.

FNL is a show so based on character that it actually interested me despite the fact that I don't actually care at all about football.** At all. Ever.

The way FNL works is that it develops characters, then puts them in motion, and the stories and conflicts arise out of them. Take for example, Tim Riggins.*** Last year I wrote this about Tim's character:

From a story perspective, they could certainly keep Tim in town--he's allegedly going to college in the fall, but Tim Riggins is not the type of kid to actually succeed at college. Without his brother, and Lyla, and his coach to keep him in line, Tim is a one semester and out kind of kid.

And sure enough, what happened in the first episode of the show? Tim Riggins, who had gone to college at the insistence of his brother and his girlfriend, dropped out and went back home. Is it sad? A little bit, yeah, because people think that everyone should go to college all the time, no exceptions. But, frankly, Tim Riggins is not college material. He can't really do the work, and more than that, he doesn't want to do the work.****

That's the beauty of FNL. I know Tim Riggins. I knew, way back in March, that the college situation wasn't going to work out for him. It couldn't, because of who Tim is. And knowing the characters makes the stories more dramatic, because we can see the conflicts before they come. When a character does X, we know that something, Y or Z or Q, is going to happen. (We don't know exactly what is going to happen, though, because FNL is not a predictable show.)

And that's the problem with Glee. With the exception of Kurt, who is fully realized and three dimensional*****, the rest of the characters have no center, no guiding principles. I've talked about this a little bit before, but in the second half of the season, the show has really gone off the rails in terms of characterization.

An example: over the course of the hiatus, the two leads Finn and Rachel have somehow ended up together, even though at the end of first part of the season, Finn had just broken up with his pregnant girlfriend and lost what he thought was his baby (it was actually his best friend's baby). But now, somehow, he's with Rachel? Um...okay.

And maybe you're willing to accept that because Rachel is a very...demanding person and could probably make anyone to do anything just by sheer force of will. But then the show goes and breaks them up right away. Again, fine. Finn is obviously ambivalent about being entangled with Rachel (and wisely so). It makes sense, from a character perspective, that they shouldn't be together at this point. Rachel wants it too much, and Finn doesn't want it much at all (at the moment. He is interested in her).

But then, by the end of the SAME SHOW, after Rachel has decided to move on to another boy, Finn decides that no, wait, he really does love her and want to be with her and she has to take him back.

Um...what?

WHAT?

Because Finn, the Finn that the show has shown us (in fits and starts, sort of, throughout the season), is the type of person who thinks about things. He's not a very fast thinker, but he's a thorough one, and he understands people, and he wouldn't do something so stupid right off the bat. He might be jealous of Rachel's new boyfriend, but he wouldn't try to get her back right away. He wouldn't even necessarily want her back right away. It's just not true, from a character perspective.

But it's not just Finn, it's all the characters. Rachel, who has a dreamy new boyfriend (Jesse) who loves show choir just as much as her and who is just as talented as her, decides to make a video in which she pretends to be the girlfriend of Jesse AND Finn AND another boy, and then shows everyone the video. ::eyeroll:: Because Rachel would totally insult a boy who is completely into her (and who she is totally into) in favor of making some lame video for no reason. It's just mindboggling that the writers would do this to her character.******

It means that Glee is unpredictable in a bad way -- I can never trust what I think about, what I know about the characters, because they are mercurial and random. I can't get too invested in what happens, because the next thing that happens might not make any sense. But FNL, there's a show I can sink into, immerse myself in, because I can rely on the characters. I don't know what they're going to do, but I know who they are. That's a good show, right there.

~~~

* Can you tell that I'm a YA writer? Seriously, I have the brain of a 14 year old girl.

** I'm a baseball girl, myself. Football? YAWN.

*** You'll have to fight me for him, though. sigh. Oh, Tim Riggins. CALL ME.

**** Which is part of the reason that he and Lyla were such an awful couple, in my opinion. Tim Riggins isn't stupid, but he's not intellectually engaged enough for Lyla, who is super bright in a school way. He just doesn't care about stuff like that.

***** In part, I think, because his experiences are based on the show creator Ryan Murphy's real life experiences.

****** Although they've certainly done worse.

Jay Hears a Song # 12 --Total Eclipse of the Heart

2010-05-21T20:29:00.004-04:00

A few weeks ago on Glee*, they sang "Total Eclipse of the Heart" by Bonnie Tyler. The song, which came out in the 80s, is currently undergoing a bit of a renaissance** as it should, because it is an awesome song. It's one of those major ballads, full of drama and melodrama,*** that goes on forever and that you can't help but sing along to. It's a classic song, one that never fails to make you feel better when you hear it.

"But, Jay," you might be saying, "I agree that 'Total Eclipse' is a good song, but five versions? Why would you need five?"

Well, anonymous reader, here's why:

1. First, you need the classic version by Bonnie Tyler. Yes, it's cheesy, and yes, it's long, but there's a reason why this version of the song was a huge hit and that reason is Bonnie Tyler.****, *****

2. And then, of course, you need the dance remix version sung by Nikki French, which is superior to most other remix versions, because French resang the song, and didn't just speed up the vocals. (Also, the typos in this version of the video make me laugh a little.)

3. And then I have another dance remix version, but that's just because it was on a remix CD that I bought for a dollar for another song.******

4. And then I have the hard rock version by Swedish punk band Stickboy, just because you gotta mix it up. It's a credit to this song that it sounds just as good as a punk version as it does as a ballad or a dance song.

5. And finally, I have Tori Amos' live cover of the song, which is just. Yes. It's totally different from all of the other versions, but you can still hear the epicness of the song, even in this stripped down version. Total Eclipse. Of The Heart.

I wonder -- am I the only one that does this? Buys more than one version of the same song, just because it's an awesome song and it's fun to listen to over and over again? Because it's not just "Total Eclipse of the Heart" that I have more than one version of (although it is one of the ones I have the most versions of). I have three different versions of "Always On My Mind." I have three different versions of "Take On Me" by a-ha (including an a cappella version). I have three different versions of "The Sun Always Shines on TV" also by a-ha, which I'm sure most people have never ever HEARD OF.******* I even have two versions of "Ziggy Stardust" by David Bowie, which my mother thinks is blashphemy. I can't be the only one who does this, can I? Surely not.

~~~

* Yes, I still watch it -- I can't help it -- but don't get my started on the crap characterization and the manipulative gimmicks they've been using in this second half of the season. It's ridiculous. RIDICULOUS.

** It also made a hilarious appearance in the movie Diary of a Wimpy Kid. All of the parents in the audience (and me--I was with my niece) were crying with laughter, and all the kids were looking at us like "huh?"

*** It should be. It was written by Jim Steinman, who is famous for writing every song that Meatloaf ever made famous, including "I Would Do Anything For Love (But I Won't Do That)" and the entire Bat out of Hell album, which used to be my favorite album when I was, like, nine, because saying the title meant that I could say "hell."

**** See, also, her song "Holding Out For a Hero" from the Footloose soundtrack.

***** Also, this video is the subject of a hilarious Literal Video, where they sing what's happening in the video.

Hee! Twirl around, Ninjas!

****** "Heaven" by DJ Sammy, in case you care.

******* I'm a big a-ha fan. There are maybe 20 of us in the whole U.S. but we're rabid.

"Who Do You Run With?" -- About High School Popularity

2010-05-15T09:33:00.004-04:00

Because I write YA, the characters I write about are almost all in high school. So it's important to me that my high school setting feels realistic, like it could actually exist. This morning, I read a post by Choco on her blog In Which A Girl Reads where she talks about how her experience of high school seems very different to her from the high schools she reads about in YA literature. It's a really good entry, and all YA writer should read it just to avoid the cliches it's so easy to fall into, but Choco's experience (just like my experience, just like your experience) is not universal. Let's take one example of that: popularity.

Choco makes a great point about how popularity is portrayed in YA books and movies. In a lot of them, there is some sort of "ruling clique" that determines the lives of the other students. But here's how she describes her high school:

And another thing: I don't know if my high school is just the odd-one out, but I can barely tell who's popular and who's not. I'm kind of wary of using the word "popular", even though I have been. Popularity is such a weird term, anyhow. There is most definitely no queen bee that I'm aware of. There's no "in" group, in which the nerds and every other person is aspiring to be part of.

It was at this point that I realized that Choco's experience of high school and my experience of high school were very different. Because at my high school, there was an "in group" and everyone knew who they were. It was extraordinarily easy to know who was "popular" and who wasn't. They made it very obvious. And they were all the typical people -- cheerleaders, football players, star athletes.

But that doesn't mean that my high school experience was a cliche, either, because at my high school, the "unpopular" outnumbered the "popular" by a ratio of at least 3:1. And most of the "unpopular" could not have cared less about being in the "popular crowd" or doing what they did. It was more like the popular crowd was the crowd that all the rest of us knew about, like they were minor league celebrities, whose lives all of us unpopular people shared in common. On a given day, I couldn't tell you who in the stoner group was dating or not dating, but I knew that about the head cheerleader, not because I cared, but because the head cheerleader's life was broadcast on the high school grapevine in ways that the stoner kids' lives were not.

Also not a cliche was the fact that my crowd -- the choir/band/theatre crowd -- was a lot (A LOT) bigger than the popular crowd. I went to a large high school, the a cappella choir alone had more than 100 kids in it, and that didn't include the show choir (although, of course there was some overlap), the madrigal choir, or the junior varsity choir (yes, there was a jv choir). And it didn't include the orchestra or the band (two separate groups, although again there was some overlap). And it didn't include the theatre kids who didn't sing (I believe they are called "actors"). All told, my "crowd" had over 500 kids in it.

But that doesn't mean that popularity doesn't exist in high schools, even in ones where the out crowd could kick the in crowd's ass in a rumble.* When I was a senior, there was this boy who was interested in me. He was younger--a junior maybe--and a jock. Football, I think. And I was between boyfriends at the time and he was cute and I had never dated a jock before, so when he asked for my number, I gave it to him. And when he called, he asked me the question that is the title of this post -- "who do you run with?"

He was wondering whether I was popular enough to go out with. He himself was very popular, in the traditional sense of the word,** and dating someone who wasn't apparently mattered to him, because after I told him (he said "oh. cool," in a way that meant "oh. dammit.") we talked a few more times on the phone and then he tried to bootycall me a couple times (it didn't work), but we never actually went out. I wasn't popular enough. Being part of the in crowd wasn't a huge deal to me and the in crowd didn't run my life, but it certainly ran his, and, in that way, it affected me.

But Choco's point remains the same -- you don't see portrayals of popularity like this in YA books a lot. Most of them stick to cheerleader=popular=awful*** and that's as far as it goes. And that's lame. And boring. And, as Choco points out, not very realistic.

~~~

* I'm so S.E. Hinton, I kill myself. :)

** Which is sort of another question -- if the "unpopular" are legion and also don't like the popular people, then what the hell does "popular" mean in high school, anyways? How is it defined?

** And seriously, can we step away from that a little, please? I just read a book in which the head cheerleader was so over-the-top bitchy and mean that I couldn't believe that anyone could ever be that way. They were plenty of bitchy cheerleaders at my school, don't get me wrong, but even they had days where they just couldn't be bothered. Characters need dimensions, people.

Workin' on it Wednesday #51 -- On Avoiding Things

2010-05-12T06:05:00.000-04:00

Recently, several of the blogs that I've been reading have been talking about avoiding things. For example, Gretchen, over at The Happiness Project, wrote recently about her aversion to plotlines that involve unjust accusations. I don't share that aversion, but I've noticed that there are certain story lines that I don't appreciate and will avoid if a realize that a story is heading that way.

For example, I avoid movies in which an animal gets killed. I can read books where that happens, depending on the book and the purpose of the animal's death, but I have actually refused to see movies where I know the animal dies.* It's a soft spot that I have, and I won't subject myself to movies (or television shows) that are going to tearjerk me by killing an animal.**

And it's not exactly an aversion to a storyline, per se, but a character will lose me if he or she cheats on a spouse or significant other. It's not enough to make me avoid a whole book, but if I can't relate to a character who does such a thing, and it's almost impossible to get me back on that character's side. There's just something about that level of betrayal that makes me angry and unforgiving.***

Gretchen's post is also really interesting in terms of what other people object to. Pretty much every device used for creating conflict in a story is someone's pet peeve. There's no way to avoid this, as a writer, so I guess the only thing to do is hope that you haven't alienated everyone with your choice of plot.

~~~

* I Am Legend, for one. I saw the trailer for that movie and I knew immediately that the dog wasn't going to make it.

** True story: I saw Iron Man 2 this last weekend and in it, Mickey Roarke has a bird. He leaves it (for a variety of spoilery reasons) and asks someone to get it for him, but instead they bring him a different bird. That bothered me. What about the original bird? What happened to it? And then, after he bonds with the second bird, one of the bad guys takes it and puts it in a bag and we never see it again. That bothered me, too. What happened to that bird? Is it okay? We know what happened to the bad guy who put the bird in the bag, but the bird itself? No idea. It's not as bad as if the birds were actually killed in the movie, but it still bothered me.

*** People always assume that I feel that way because I was cheated on, but I actually never have been (at least, not that I'm aware of). I don't know where I get the distaste from, just that it will turn me against a character almost as fast as the character stepping on a kitten.

Monday Miscellany

2010-05-10T06:29:00.000-04:00

1. I saw Iron Man 2 this weekend. It was fine. It wasn't the first Iron Man and only Mickey Roarke was actually good in it (yes, I'm including Robert Downey, Jr. in that assessment), but it was entertaining.

2. Friday Night Lights is back! Yay! FNL is one of those shows that, when it comes on I can just relax, because whatever happens, it's going to be good.* I literally breathed a sigh of relief when I heard the theme music come on.

3. This weekend I also saw a-ha in concert. Who, you're asking? You know them as the band that made this video:

But they've actually released NINE studio albums, and are huge internationally.** But you should know them for this song:

Or this one:

Seriously, they're a much better band than you think.
~~~

* In all honesty, there was a misstep at the beginning of season two (known as the Unfortunate Accidental Murder Incident), but hey, the misstep only serves to bring the awesome of the rest of the show into stark relief.

** True story -- they hold the world record for the drawing the largest paying audience for a concert in the world.

Workin' On It Wednesday # 50 -- On Parents and Other Adults

2010-04-21T06:21:00.002-04:00

Since I write YA literature, I spend a fair amount of time thinking about what role the parents are going to have in the story. Because my main characters have to have parents*, of course, but parents aren't usually the most interesting parts of the YA story. If they were, that wouldn't be YA, it would just be...A.

Recently, Liz B. over at Tea Cozy wrote a post about a New York Times article that dissed the role of parents in YA literature. In that article, author Julie Just says:

Maybe you can think of more recent examples than “Adventures of Huckleberry Finn” (1885) — the gallant, no-good father from “A Tree Grows in Brooklyn” (1943)? — but in the classic stories, from “Cinderella” to “The Wonderful Wizard of Oz,” the hero’s parents are more likely to be absent or dead than cruel or incompetent. ... And then the young adult novel came along.

I have a question for Ms. Just: are you high?

Seriously? Because on what planet is Cinderella's father not cruel or incompetent? Or the other "classic stories" like, say, Snow White, in which her father throws her over in favor of his new wife**? Or, I don't know, Rapunzel, whose parents abandoned her to a sorceress who imprisoned her in a tower. That's some awesome parenting there.

Don't get me wrong--I'm not saying that the parents in modern YA lit are models of sanity and dependability. But...this isn't something new. This didn't happen, as Just suggests it did, with the invention of YA literature. It's archetypical. Joseph Campbell points out that most stories start with the call to adventure.***

And really, isn't that the point of YA lit? Isn't that THE archetypical story of YA lit? The call happens and the main character has to step into a role she didn't expect and maybe doesn't want, a bigger role, a more adult role. The main character is called to adventure and adventure ensues!

And if that doesn't happen--if the parents are great and there's no problem and everything is shiny and happy--well...where's the story in that?

~~~

* This isn't a Disney movie, where I can kill off the mom in the first five minutes and then fade to black.

** Maybe Snow White and Cinderella were cousins or something?

*** That's right, I'm getting all Hero With A Thousand Faces on you. What are you going to do about it? :)

Monday Miscellany

2010-04-19T06:16:00.000-04:00

1. You know what I love about hotels? Room service. There were never two more delicious words in the entire English language, were there?

2. Spring is finally here, which I am thrilled about, because I hate winter, but I am also ambivalent about because I hate yard work. If only I could have the easy no-yardwork days of winter with the warm temperatures and blooming flowers of spring. In other words, I need to make enough money to hire a gardener.

3. I am the official owner of a SA 2005 rated driving helmet! It's for track driving, but I'm thinking about putting it on and just driving around town and seeing what people do. Who'm I kidding--they aren't going to notice.

4. Sorry about the blogging lapse there -- some stuff came up (not interesting stuff, just stuff), but I think I'm back on track.

5. This morning in the shower, I had an idea for a scene for a book that I'm not even supposed to be thinking about right now. Isn't it weird how that happens sometimes? I thought about writing a whole post about it, but...think this is all I have to say about it.