We’re supposed to get 3-5 inches of snow tonight. I’m not excited about this.
Yeah, I know. I live in Vermont and it’s December. Just not in the mood.
Writing’s going well, though.
Submitted a story last week. Fingers crossed on that one.
Revised “Mind Over Murder” and the editor’s pleased. Apparently she’ll have news on the anthology in a couple weeks. Hopefully, it’ll be stuff I can share with you.
Getting ready to submit another story that I’ve been rewriting. I have a spreadsheet of possible places to submit to. Alpha Reader thinks I should use the dartboard method. Seems as good as any right now.
Speaking of Alpha Reader, he has all the scenes I’ve written for The Travelers since August (41,000 words worth). While he’s reading those, I’m going back and outlining the thing. Um, yes, after the fact. Better late than never? It’s already proving useful as I’m finding scenes that aren’t necessary and others that need fleshing out.
Oh, and I have a movie to recommend to you. The Rabbi’s Cat! This is a film adaptation of Joann Sfar’s graphic novels The Rabbi’s Cat and The Rabbi’s Cat 2. Really delightful. The artwork and animation are great. The story and the characters are super fun, it has a good message, and the star of the show has me wanting a talking cat in a bad way.
Time to share another collection of links with you. A little bit of everything today. Enjoy!
Fat and fit? Andreas Heinakroon takes on another controversial topic with his typical aplumb. Something worth thinking about.
A Compromise: How To Be A Reasonable Prescriptivist
Kory Stamper talks about the ongoing duel between prescriptivist and descriptivist language folk. I have run-ins with the kind of prescriptivist she talks about quite often. A lexicographer’s trebuchet would be handy.
MLK: Sanitized for Their Protection
The sanitizing of Martin Luther King is something that’s troubled me for years now. The Weekly Sift looks further into the co-opting of a brilliant revolutionary.
So, it’s been a while since I’ve posted something that doesn’t have a video or a list of links attached to it. It’s been a busy summer, like I’ve said. Care for an update?
Over the last few months, I wrote and submitted two new short stories to a couple of themed anthologies. Still waiting to hear. There’s also been a lot of reading. I’ll be done with the next WOGF Challenge book soon and will have a review. I went old school this time; so far, it’s another good one.
The Travelers continues to limp toward its conclusion. I’ve mainly been typing up (dictating, really–my wrists have been sore lately) pages I’d already hand-written. That’s been interesting: 1) I wrote some of these scenes months ago (maybe longer), so I’m revisiting them with various levels of “cringe” and “oh, that’s not too bad”; and 2) Windows speech recognition doesn’t always hear quite what I said–latest fave mistake: “put a sock fuzz” for “bodhisattvas.”
Alpha Reader and I had a really good brainstorming session last month figuring out where The Travelers should end up. Lots of good questions and conversation. Let’s see if that translates into a good story!
In the realm of already-published business, Winter Well received a starred review from Publishers Weekly! There were good things said about my story “To The Edges,” which made my day, and continues to, even though the review came out last week.
I also ran into the dark side of attempting to get published yesterday, when I discovered that the latest issue of a magazine I’d submitted another story to was just terrible. (TW for rape; it’s on the right) It felt like a backlash against the really cool hashtag #DiversityinSFF that was happening on Twitter last week. Obviously, this place is not the home for my badass space detective. I immediately submitted somewhere else that feels a lot more welcoming to anyone who, you know, doesn’t find assault titillating. Here’s hoping they think my story’s a good fit, too.
In the what’s-happening-next category, I’m going to be posting an interview with Justin Robinson, author of the soon-to-be-published City of Devils. That’s going to happen on the day his book’s coming out, Sept. 24. I hope you’ll tune in for that. Should be fun. There might even be a giveaway!
That’s it for now, I think. How’ve you all been?
I love this photo: the composition, the colors, someone reading! Man sits on bench reading (Photo credit: Ian Livesey)
Well, this has been the longest break I’ve taken from the blog in a while now. Life has been busy. Last weekend involved a drive down to the Eastern Shore of MD to see family. Much fun was had and many crabs were eaten. We returned with many pics of family gravestones and pounds of scrapple. (You can’t get scrapple up here in New England. Yes, that’s a bad thing.)
These links have been sitting around for a while, so there’s a good chance you’ve already read them. You know, if you hang out in the same neighborhoods I do. Hopefully, they’re not too redundant. I like them, anyway.
Beta Readers Minerva Zimmerman shares her thoughts about a writer’s dearest asset, her beta readers.
These Are a Few Of My Favorite Things, On Tiers I used to be one of those folks who creates best-of lists. I was very Rob Gordon about it, but then I met Alpha Reader who refuses to makes lists like that. At first, I found that kind of quaint; over time I saw his point. It was interesting to see Scalzi’s take on the concept.
Your Ultimate Feminist Mixtape
A good collection of tunes from Vagenda’s Emily B. Fun suggestions in the comments, as well. What would you add?
It’s been kind of quiet over here, hasn’t it? Well, the dayjob’s been keeping me busy, as has the new story I’m working on. But now, I’m in the midst of a long weekend from work, and the story is almost ready to send to my betas. One more alpha read and it should be there.
So, that’s hopeful. Today’s batch of links is a mixed bag of goodies. I hope you’ll find something interesting here.
10 Literary Authors You Didn’t Know Wrote Science Fiction Jason Diamond at Flavorwire tries to fool us with a list of literary authors who wrote science fiction. Interesting list. I never thought of Woolf’s Orlando as science fiction, but okay,
Top 10 worst sex scenes in modern literature As a member of Livejournal’s weepingcock community, I’ve read way worse sex scenes than most of these, but these actually got published! I’m torn between the lepidopterist and Zorro (both of which made an appearance over at wc) being my “favorites.” What are yours?
Huh. Now that I’m coming up with links randomly, I’m getting a decent list more quickly. That’s good, right? Or maybe I’m spending too much time surfing? That is a possibility. Nice mix today. What do you think?
The World Needs Writers
Johanna Harkness on writers and storytelling. Telling those tales is important.
Take a Closer Look at Bizarre Dinosaurs And thanks to that last link, I just spent half an hour playing with this National Geographic interactive dinosaur thingie. Much fun.
Big Nosed Dinosaur! Illustration courtesy of Lukas Panzarin
Alpha Reader finished the sub-zero still-not-finished draft of The Travelers last week, and he had thoughts, the main one being that he didn’t really see what one of my characters brought to the story.
Um, that would be a guy named John Teague, the character that kind of got the whole story rolling because I thought he would be interesting.
That’s a bit of a problem, isn’t it?
Apparently, the interesting bits are still in my head. Which, okay, Alpha Reader is right. I know this. It’s just all those bits are really vague and/or scattered at this point.
Let me be honest. Mr. Teague intimidates me. Not in a scary, violent way; he’s not that kind of guy. But his story is huge. Deep and wide. Stuff like that. And I’m not really sure how to tell it, including not knowing what to leave out. I really don’t want to fuck it up.
So, I’ve been avoiding that by telling the rest of the tale. Which Alpha Reader likes! So, I have that going for me.
Kitteh’s not sure what I’m all happy about, but she approves.
And I’ve written another 40 pages or so since the last time I updated you on The Travelers. We’re now into the Summer of the Novel and it feels like we’re in the third act and heading toward a conclusion of some kind. Since I’m more of a pantser than a plotter, though, that conclusion is covered in mist. Kind of like John Teague is.
But that’s why I write. Both the conclusion and the character are in my head somewhere, and the easiest way I’ve found to get other things out of my head that seem stuck is to pick up a pen and write. Here’s hoping that works in these cases, too. The only way out is through.
So, last Sunday, I mentioned that the weekly link post wasn’t doing it for me anymore. However, I still find links that I must.share.with.everyone because that’s just how I am.
I decided that a more random approach might be worth a try. Random, in that there won’t be a set day during the week these posts will go up. And perhaps random in that I’ll post them whenever I have a certain number. I’m thinking right now that 5 is a good number. I like 5. (of course, that could change; hence random)
But what do you know? Today the number’s 5 and I already have that many.
69 reasons not to send a message to space
Rico Simpkins at Worlds Without End brings up some reasons the METI project might be a tad premature. As I said on Twitter the other day, it’s always good to lurk for a while before commenting.
Gender Policing of Girls in Children’s Sports
Tracy I at Fit, Feminist, and (almost) Fifty on gender policing. When I was a kid, I was a “tomboy” with short hair, so yeah, I know where she’s coming from.
Today I have the pleasure of turning over the mic to Susan Jane Bigelow so she can share her thoughts about her new book, THE DAUGHTER STAR. Published by Candlemark & Gleam, it’s out today!
I first discovered Bigelow and her writing when I read BROKEN (Extrahumans #1), her debut novel from 2011. It’s a wonderful tale about superheroes. THE DAUGHTER STAR is the first book in Bigelow’s Grayline Sisters series. I was curious about Susan’s process in writing the book, and here she is to tell us all about it.
Sometimes, stories really don’t end up where you thought they would, and sometimes stories change so utterly in tone that they don’t seem like the same thing anymore. THE DAUGHTER STAR was like that.
This book started out in a rather unusual way; I wrote it as a “pace book” when I was working on THE SPARK (Extrahumans #3). What that means is that I’d work on it when THE SPARK had worn me out, or I was interested in doing something else. I’d never written two books at the same time before, and it seemed like a fun challenge. So what I came up with originally was a much lighter book, because that was what I needed to counterbalance the melancholy, tense and serious nature of Dee’s story in THE SPARK. The first draft started out being a fun, silly kind of space adventure, and I didn’t take it entirely seriously. I remember writing at the time that I was writing a Jenny Starpepper Mystery (or a kind of pulp adventure novel. It makes sense if you’ve seen the movie Paul. Why haven’t you seen this movie? Go see this movie! It’s like a love letter to SFF fandom, and it has Sigourney Weaver).
However, as I explored the world and the characters more deeply, I felt that this lighter approach wasn’t working. There were all these massive issues of an alien species basically taking advantage of humanity, two sisters who run away to war together, and Marta Grayline’s whole process of growing up, and I felt like I was dancing around them instead of tackling them head on.
I’m not saying lighter books can’t deal with these sorts of issues, they totally can and do! I am probably not the author to write books like that, though, and as I went through rewrites it seemed like the book had a split personality. Parts of it were silly or nonsensical, while other parts were haunting or sad, and it just didn’t work together in a way that made sense to me. Also, pieces of the world felt one-dimensional, and I really wanted this universe to be as real-seeming as possible. I decided to remake the book.
What I eventually came up with after numerous rewrites and revisions is a book that is a lot darker than the original drafts. The stakes feel higher, Marta’s development is clearer, and Beth’s decisions feel a lot more frightening. I also changed what I wanted to do with this series; instead of a serial of adventure stories featuring Marta, I decided to explore the defining story of each of the three Grayline sisters in three separate books. This means that the next book will be about Violet, and the third will center on Beth. This allowed me to wrap up Marta’s story in a way that felt satisfying, instead of leaving her unfinished. I finished the first draft of Violet’s book, THE SEEKER STAR, between when I turned DAUGHTER STAR in to my editor and got her revisions back. That experience really helped me sharpen DAUGHTER STAR’s focus a lot more, and pieces of the world made a lot more sense to me as well. The final book is darker and more serious, but it’s also a way better book. It didn’t feel to me like something I’d written until the final version, if that makes any sense at all.
I… suspect that this piece makes it sound like my creative process is nothing but pure chaos. This is often true—at least with the rough drafts. I will often have no idea how a book will end when I begin writing it. The real work, and the place where I become a lot more methodical, is in the reimagining and reworking. THE DAUGHTER STAR changed more than many books over time, but every book I write goes through that dramatic refining process.
I hope people will check out THE DAUGHTER STAR, which releases today. Thank you all for reading, and for M. Fenn for having me!
Look at my blue eyes, look at my brown hair, look at my color. What color do you see?” he demand [sic] to know. “My mother was 100 per cent white,” Jeffries said, his blue eyes glinting in the New York sun. “My father is Portuguese, Spanish, American Indian, and Negro. How in the hell can I identify myself as one race or another?” – Herb Jeffries
So, it’s Memorial Day here in the U.S. I’m enjoying a long weekend that still has another day after this to go. Long weekends are lovely.
I was thinking that, for today’s music video, I’d go with something related to my novella “To The Edges,” which Crossed Genres published this past Friday. The protagonist, Zed Bleakstead, is a fan of cowboy movies, including some really old ones, even though most of the heroes in those films are all men and all White. At one point in the story, though, she sits down to watch (and fall asleep to) a film called Bronze Buckaroo. The film’s from 1939 and is one of the first westerns in the sound era to star an all-Black cast. Herb Jeffries (credited as Herbert Jeffrey) plays the lead. You can watch the whole thing on Youtube, if you like. It’s an interesting bit of history as well as being a silly, old cowboy movie. And have there been all-Black westerns since then? I know, in my research, just finding westerns with people of color as protagonists was a disappointing task.*
What does that have to do with music, you ask? Well, Herb Jeffries didn’t just play a cowboy, he was a singing cowboy with a beautiful voice. And he’s an interesting person (still alive at this writing–he’s 99) who I want to learn more about. Louis Armstrong discovered him performing in Detroit and suggested he try his luck in Chicago. When he was asked for his background by a prospective employer, Jeffries stated he was “a creole from New Orleans,” choosing to pass as a person of color instead of as a white man, which he could easily have done.
Interesting choice. When he performed, he darkened his skin further. Which is, well, it’s hard not to think “blackface” and wrinkle my nose, but the thing is, he lived as a Black man offstage when American apartheid was in full swing, and he could have done otherwise.
“In those days, my driving force was being a hero to children who didn’t have any heroes to identify with,” Jeffries says. “I felt that dark-skinned children could identify with me and, in “The Bronze Buckaroo,” they could have a hero. Many people don’t realize (to this very day) that in the Old West, one out of every three cowboys was a Black… and there were many Mexican cowboys, too.” —herbjeffries.com
Jeffries succeeded in becoming a hero to a lot of people. Herbie Hancock‘s parents named their son after him, for example. But then, when he married Tempest Storm in 1959, he labeled himself White on the marriage certificate. Jet magazine asked Jeffries about that, which is where the quote at the beginning of this post comes from.
Identity and race are complex things, especially during periods of time when the folks with the most power would prefer that they weren’t.
Hm, has there ever been a time when that wasn’t/isn’t the case? I don’t know.
But I do know that, after he was done playing a singing cowboy, Herb Jeffries went on to sing with Duke Ellington‘s orchestra. Yes, indeedy. Here he is singing his hit “Flamingo.”
And here’s a clip from Bronze Buckaroo with Jeffries and the Four Tones singing “Got the Payday Blues.” Pardon the skipping, please; it’s the best I could find. Beats the hell out of Roy Rogers, though, doesn’t he?
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*I didn’t discover this site until after “To The Edges” was done.
M. Fenn 