To Pseudonym or Not to Pseudonym

I’ve recently started sending out short stories for reals (you know you’re a professional when you start plural-izing adjectives), and something hit me: Do I want to use my real name?

On the Yes Side:

For one thing, I don’t write this blog under my real name, mostly because I talk about my job and because the internet being what it is I would rather not have my personal and (dubiously) professional life connected.

Even if I did use a pseudonym, it would probably be just a cut-up version of my first name and my actual last name. This is because the fields I want to work in–hard science fiction and comic books–are traditionally male and I am named after a princess. I don’t want anyone seeing my girly-ass name on the cover of something and assuming it is a paranormal romance instead of blood n’ guts n’ spaceships. I’ve always kind of liked those authors whose names are asexual. Maybe that’s sexist of me. But I think it wipes away some of the preconceived notions (or maybe I’ve taken one to many Victorian Literature and Gender Stereotypes classes).

I’d also like to work in academia someday, and most Super Official Universities don’t go all hearts-and-unicorns if their professors write genre fiction. That said, I wouldn’t make a pen name a secret–more Lewis Carroll than Lemony Snicket. Sure, the pen name would be on there but if someone really liked my stuff it wouldn’t be hard to find that Ms. X isn’t my real name.

On the No Side:

What if I pick a pen name and decide that it sucks three years later? Then you have the issue of some works being under one name and the rest being under another. Or you have to see your stuff under the name of “H.G.P.G. McLongname” which you thought was totally creative when you were a perpetually drunken undergrad, but which you now see is stupid.

Or there’s the whole thing that it’s kind of nice to have stuff you’re proud of under your own name. There’s a little extra thrill, I think. You’re signing your credit card receipts with your Author-y Name.

Plus I’ve never quite understood how people get used to responding to another name. I forget to respond to my given one sometimes–let alone the years it took me to get used to one friend calling me by my initials.

But Then Again:

Maybe this is one of those self-inflating writer worry-fantasies and I ought to just go spend time writing more.

Yeah, that’s probably it.

Steampunk, Cowboys, Vampires, and Nobel Laureates (Oh My!)

Totally gonna be my new cosplay costume

It’s been awhile since I’ve talked about what I’m reading on this supposedly book-based blog. So that’s what we’re doing today!

Mostly, I haven’t been talking about books because up until a week or two ago I wasn’t reading books. Anyone who’s ever found themselves smack-up against the end of a school year knows that its downright crazy to try to do anything but desperately try to keep up.

But last week things slowed down and so I got  a chance to dive back into my lovely, lovely words. I started out with The Best Science Fiction and Fantasy of the Year, Vol. 5 and edited by Jonathan Strahan. This was a great book. Sometimes these year’s best anthologies are a mixed bag, but I raced through this one. Libba Bray’s “The Last Ride of the Glory Girls” was an absolutely fabulous sci-fi Western (don’t ask me to compare it to Firefly–I haven’t gotten to watching that yet. I know. I’m sorry) and the first of her short stories I’ve encountered. The book starts out, interestingly enough, with two stories about bees, both of which are gorgeously written. And the first has both Sherlock Holmes AND Neil Gaiman, so really what could have gone wrong? There was a definite magical realism-trend this year, which was a nice switch from the hard sci-fi that’s dominated for awhile.

See? There's an automaton on the cover!

And speaking of soft sci-fi, I also finished The Falling Machine by Andrew Mayer. Its a mash-up of two of my favorite things–steampunk and superheroes–and was a fantastic popcorn adventure book. Better yet, it’s the first in a trilogy (aka The Society of Steam) and the second book is already out. It was a lot of fun to read and I’ve got the next one on hold at the library.

I also went to a library a few towns over and got a two-foot-tall stack of graphic novels (no, really) which means that I caught up on some series I have sadly fallen behind on. Namely, I read the rest of Astro City, actually started the first two volumes of American Vampire and was super impressed by the lack of Twilight-ness and splattering of gore, and I found The Legion of Super-Heroes: Teenage Revolution, which is the first six issues of the “Threeboot” Legion continuity (if you’re not a nerd, don’t ask) but more importantly was written by Mark Waid. And I have never met a Mark Waid-written comic that I didn’t like. So as they say in California, I was like totally psyched.

Finally, I got Love in the Time of Cholera by Gabriel Garcia-Marquez from the library, because I need to maintain my reputation as a high intellectual (ha). Also, I decided that I’m going to read all of Garcia-Marquez’s (major) works. I mean, I love the guy. But so far I’ve only finished One Hundred Years of Solitude, Chronicle of a Death Foretold, Memories of My Melancholy Whores, and a smattering of short stories. But there’s dozens of other works. I’d resisted Love for awhile because it was for one an Oprah Book Club pick (ugh) and not magical realism, which are the works of Garcia-Marquez’s that I like best. But now that I’m into it I like it. Over the next couple months I want to read the other major works, like Autumn of the Patriarch and The General in his Labyrinth. Maybe also his nonfiction work, News of a Kidnapping.

In summation: Go read some books! (and comics. They deserve more love)

100 Days of Writing

Today is my 100th day of writing daily. Honestly, I am as surprised as anyone (including the first grade teacher who thought I was illiterate–take that!). I thought that for sure I would’ve screwed up on Easter or just flat-out forgotten at some point. And yet here we are, and I totally did not write 80,000 words of fanfic (seriously! I did serious stuff too!).

And overall, I’m happy with what I did. Unfortunately, I didn’t keep a record of how many words per day exactly I did between days 31 and 92, so I can’t give exact stats. But I did start a new novel, finish a short story, and yes, wrote a lot of fanfic.

But I realized that some of my other general life goals were kind of being forgotten. Mainly I realized that I was becoming one of those pale little geeks who never sleeps and never leaves the house. So I’m going to try to bike or walk at least 3 times a week and hopefully lose ten pounds by the time I’m at a year of writing daily. Which I realize isn’t a lot, being something like .3 pounds/week, but I’m not like Biggest Loser-fat or anything (thank you very much) and I like reachable goals. Also I’m going to try to not put of my writing until 10:30 at night, because then I don’t get to sleep until 1 or 2 in the morning. I’d like to turn off my laptop by 10:30 or 11 and then be asleep by midnight.

Yeah, let’s see how that goes.

So good luck on your writing, and here’s to another, let’s see what the sidebar says…8 months of writing before I hit a year? Damn.

 

Reading Jeffrey Eugenides’s The Marriage Plot

I’ve been trying to expand my horizons lately. Which basically means not rolling my eyes at people who practice homeopathy and trying to read more Literary Fiction instead of stories with spaceships in them. Some of my first forays weren’t that helpful–”meaningful” non-endings, and characters who Never Talked About Their Feelings Because That Is Bad. Then I saw that The Marriage Plot was coming out.

Jeffery Eugenides is the type of author who you always hear about. I hadn’t read Middlesex or The Virigin Suicides yet (though I am going to soon) but I figured that his new one would be a good jumping-on point.

It opens like this:

To start with, look at all the books. There were her Edith Wharton novels, arranged not by title but by date of publication; there was the complete Modern Library set of Henry James, a gift from her father on her twenty-first birthday; there were the dog-eared paperbacks assigned in her college course, a lot of Dickens, a smidgen of Trollope, along with good helpings of Austen, George Eliot, and the redoubtable Bronte sisters. There were a whole lot of black-and-white New Directions paperbacks, mostly poetry by people like H.D. or Denise Levertov. There were the Colette novels she read on the sly. There was the first edition of Couples, belonging to her mother, which Madeleine had surreptitiously dipped into back in sixth grade and which she was using now to provide textual support in her English honors thesis on the marriage plot. There was, in short, this mid-size but still portable library representing pretty much everything Madeleine had read in college, a collection of texts, seemingly chosen at random, whose focus slowly narrowed, like a personality test, a sophisticated one you couldn’t trick by anticipating the impactions of its questions and finally got so lost in that your only recourse was to answer the simple truth. And then you waited for the result, hoping for “Artistic,” or “Passionate,” thinking you could live with “Sensitive,” secretly fearing “Narcissistic” and “Domestic,” but finally being presented with an outcome that cut both ways and made you feel different depending on the day, the hour, or the guy you happened to be dating: “Incurably Romantic.”

Was there ever an opening that spoke to a book-lover better? One paragraph, and I was in love.

This isn’t a review. All I can say on the book is that Eugenides deserves every ounce of his reputation (especially for providing an actual honest-to-god satisfying ending) and writes brilliantly. The characters–cliched as it is for me to say, especially about a book that is themed on subverting romantic cliches–breathe. There’s no self-indulgence or pretension or sentences you have to have a doctorate in English to understand grammatically.

The main problem people have had with it is that it is heavy in philosophy and allusions to literary theory. I wasn’t bothered (its what I take classes in, after all) but I think even if I was its integral to the book.

Pick it up. It’ll go quick, but you won’t want it to.

Artsy Etsy and the Three R’s

Note: The following is for Castle Ink’s Paperless Scholarship. You can find more information about it here. All comments and likes are greatly appreciated

We get a lot of stuff thrown at us about being green. I remember watching a video in first grade about how all the fish were going to die if I didn’t turn off the tap while brushing my teeth. Then sometime around middle school we all got a “Green Group” club and like a million of the blue trashcans (is calling them trashcans politically incorrect? I can’t keep track anymore).

But I don’t think that’s the point. Yes, it’s good to remember to toss your used up notebook paper in the recycling bin (ah! that’s it) but ultimately that’s a tiny gesture.

I don’t like the phrase “being green” for two reasons. First, I think it conjures the idea that to be truly ecologically friendly we all have to live like Woodstockians and go on a raw diet while washing our hair with flower sap. Second, I think it takes away one of the most important parts of the Reduce/Reuse/Recycle movement: that it’s actually kind of cool.

Up through now, American culture has move more and more towards disposability and trading up. We buy cars to last us two years and books that we know will be mulch by the time we care to find them on our bookshelves again. iPods will never be heirlooms.

Until the vintage kick. Sometime around the millennium it became chic to re-wear, trendy to upcycle. I adore vintage/upcycle movement (I own more cardigans than any girl should), and what I love most about it is that it is all about taking things that would be tossed and making them beautiful again. We don’t need new, we need reimagined. That is what the real goal of the three R’s should be. Not to browbeat people into separating their plastics and their glass, but to create a culture of producing wonderful new things out of the old.

There are people on Etsy who make pet beds from Mac Apple computers, fine art from ruined dictionaries, and clocks from records. They take things that are outdated and useless and turn out chic, desirable creations. The pure imagination of the artisans on Etsy have shown me that we don’t need to consume to produce.

I had an old pair of jeans that was just wasting closet space. Maybe a few years I ago I would have tossed it in the basement with a vague idea of eventually donating it. But I’ve been watching an awful lot of Downton Abbey lately, and also (more socially acceptably) have been thinking quite a bit about trying to buy more secondhand things. So instead of merely tossing the jeans I decided to try and make them into something that someone else could appreciate, and sewed a little dress for my sister’s Bitty Baby. The act of creating this way is even more rewarding because you know that you’re doing something good for the environment as well as making someone happy.

Now, I am not a great sewer and I doubt I’ll ever be a doll dress designer, but I’ve tried to incorporate this same philosophy into my other crafting love: jewelry making.

One of the aesthetics that I play in a lot is steampunk, which lends itself brilliantly to going green. Most of my hardware came from a stash my grandfather had or leftover from home improvement projects my family or friends completed. One of the projects that I’m most proud of, a military-esque choker, is 98% from recycled hardware–mainly lighting chain, tiny screws, and an eagle decorative door hook from the 50′s. The only new part was the wire to hold it together and the clasp. After I made that project I finished a bracelet made from a pipe clamp (also from my grandfather’s miscellaneous box), nuts, and beads out of a craft kit I’d gotten as a kid.

This is what inspires me–taking the old and making something new out of it. And I think that a lot more people should give it a try. We don’t need to pick another thing up off the shelf when we need clothing or jewelry or whatever it is. We need to see the artistry and the character and yes, the green aspect of what is already here and embrace it.

Writing While Traveling

As you may have guessed from lack of posts, I was out of town (Washington, D.C.) for a week. One of the things that I wanted to do was keep up my writing streak. And this time I actually managed it, after changing from the way I used to try and do it.

My Top 3 Travel Writing Tips:

1. Don’t Worry About Daily-ness. I wrote about 365 words a day. But I know I didn’t write that many every day. If you’ve got a few hours on a plane, then whip out 900 words on the plane, and if you’ve got a day where you’re up from 6 am to 10 at night then you don’t write much that day. I counted my total words for the week and averaged it out.

2. It’s Okay Not to Type. I didn’t have computer access, so I did everything in a notebook and typed it up the night I got home. Usually I only count typed words but for travel I made an exception.

3. Write Crap! I didn’t worry about what I was writing. I didn’t work on my current novel, just did a fanfic that a friend asked me to write and an assignment for Intro to Creative Writing. And that was fine, because I was still working on something. Even if it was smutty slash fic. Every bit you write helps you get better.

After I got back I did notice that my typing speed was down. On a good day I can do something like 50-60 wpm (not because I have any sort of technique–I kind failed elementary school typing class–but out of sheer repetition) but after returning I was only doing around 30 and I was sloppy at it. Typing definitely degrades if you don’t do it regularly.

The biggest thing about writing while away is to remember that you’re on vacation. You don’t have to be a stringent as you would be on a “work”day. Yes, try as hard as you can to stick to your goals. But you can let other things go. Have you always had a poem idea rattling around in your head? Write that instead of scraping up some more words for The Great American Novel. Try handwriting, or cursive instead of printing, or start a short story in second-person. It doesn’t have to pan out.

Have fun. That’s what writing is supposed to be.

Finish the Damn Thing!

The ending makes a book. Like wine or chocolate, its something to savor when its good and it ruins the whole meal when its bad.

But you actually have to write the ending to figure it out.

I have several friends who think up brilliant, original ideas. For a few weeks (or a few months) they’re infatuated, and write daily, giddily sharing their explorations of this Utterly! Fantastically! Wonderful! new book that is doubtlessly the one that will succeed, unlike the last three. This phase lasts awhile, and then they hit a hard bit.

Maybe a character won’t go where they need to go. Maybe a plot point turns out to be utterly unfeasible. Maybe their rose-tinited glasses crack and the realize that a novel is 75,000-frakkin words and a heck of a lot of editing work after that.

And so they decide that this just wasn’t it, and go onto the next brilliant idea.

Lather, rinse, repeat.

But here’s the thing guys: if you keep writing the first 5,000 words of pieces, you will never get to the end. You will get really, really good at first chapters but be completely inept at endings, should you ever progress long enough to get to one.

And damn, endings are the hardest part of a story. I know, because I’ve actually done them. Even the ones that I’ve revised multiple times I am not completely happy with, just satisfied. Ends have to be satisfying, complete, and concise enough to not drag the story on. It isn’t a skill you develop by just writing endings.

Perhaps the worst thing is that some of these people actually are good writers. They have great descriptions, compelling characters, and nicely thought-out settings (or at least some of those things). But they’re not going to get very far, because you don’t sell an unfinished book. They have these great dreams of being professional writers but can’t seem to just push through.

It’s not going to be fantastic the first time around. But you can’t edit a blank page.

 

 

Dear 80′s: You Have Failed Me

Interestingly, my father was the spitting image of Ferris in college. This has all sorts of weird psychological implications.

One of my absolute favorite movies is Ferris Bueller’s Day Off. Usually I sit stony-faced through comedies, but I laugh at this one every single time even though I’ve probably seen it 25 times. They just don’t make movies like that anymore. How can you beat third-wall-breaking Matthew Broderick?

I have a great affinity for times which I did not live through. It probably would have been perfect for me to have been born in 1952, because then I would have been  16 in 1968 (a year I would give anything to live through, despite the upheaval and political assassinations and riots). And I would have been able to see all of John Hughes’s movies in theaters.

So I was doing some false-nostalgia googling and guess what? There was a Ferris Bueller television show! How awesome is that? I practically squealed with joy. How had I never heard of it before? Surely it had to be classic, a TV-masterpiece that I had only missed because I lived under a rock. Surely it would blow my…

…mind.

Wait. Who the heck is the kid in that advertisement? That ain’t no Matthew Broderick. And why does it say in one episode he…took a chainsaw…to a Matthew Broderick cutout?! What the hell, 80′s? Did you take one of the greatest teen movies of all time and try your damnedest to screw it up? Because I don’t how else you could have tried to make a TV show based on a movie and somehow produce something that had not a single one of the original actors. In fact, it wasn’t even set in Chicago, Ferris’s parents’ names were changed, and Ferris was called–and I quote–a  ”nerd.”

Did anyone involved with this series actually watch the movie?

Good lord--Jennifer Aniston?

So there I am on Wikipedia, getting angrier and angrier at faceless TV executives. And then I see that there was also a Superboy television show around the same time. I clicked, almost apprehensively.

A creepier Superboy was never conceived of.

The series featured John Newton as Superboy.It oh-so-wisely was produced after Superboy was erased as a character from DC Comics continuity.

Apparently it focused on Superboy’s college life, mainly his relationships and working on the school newspaper. Lex Luthor had hair.

Good god. I know the 80′s had plenty of bad music and even more bad fashion. But can you really screw up a decade’s worth of really awesome premises with crappy actors and wacky misinterpretations of what a series should be? Whatever happened to leaving well enough alone.

You have disappointed me, 80′s.

So I’ve Got a Thing for Watson…

How can you resist?

Anyone who knows me knows that I am utterly in love with the new Sherlock Holmes films–especially Jude Law as Watson. I adore him. And I thought that it was merely because Jude Law himself is rather good-looking, and throw in some Victorian bromance and it’s my kryptonite.

And then I finally got into the BBC re-imagined Sherlock series. Yesterday I watched the last episode of the second season.

Oh. My. God.

I repeated: Oh my god. I think I am in love. Sorry, Robert Downey Jr. movies, I still like

Adorable

you, but you’ve been replaced. And my favorite part of the series is again Watson. Martin Freeman as Watson is absolutely brilliant (and cute). I suppose we could attack this psychologically by theorizing that Watson acts as the human element for us to empathize with rather than the freakishly perfect ( and “high functioning sociopath”) Sherlock. Or maybe I just really have a thing for Watsons. Because Watson is awesome.

Another thing that I need to write a love letter to: BBC. One of the reasons I’d like to live in England sometime in the future is for the television, stupid as that sounds. There’s just so much good stuff!

So if you’re looking for a show to watch, and like to take semi-anonymous bloggers suggestions, then go watch Sherlock. There’s only six 90-minute episodes–hardly more than sitting down at the TV a few times. It’s currently smack at the top of my list.

Also, I really want one of these:

By melrosestormhaven on Deviantart.

Stupid Literary Fiction

I know how she feels.

The following is a conversation I had with my mother about In Zanesville, a literary fiction novel by Jo Ann Beard that I quite enjoyed.

MOM: What’s that book about?

ME: Two girls growing up in the 1970′s. I really liked it.

MOM: Oh, what do they do?

ME: Well…lots of things. They get in a fight and the one’s dad is depressed and they basically just grow up.

MOM: So in the end they make up again?

ME: Well sort of.

MOM: So what problem do they have to solve? What’s the plot? Does the dad get better?

ME: Um…no, he doesn’t, and the plot is just them growing up. That’s it.

MOM: Um…right…you go with that.

This is what you do to me, literary fiction. Could you please create one book that doesn’t sound crazy to describe? As anyone who tries to sum up One Hundred Years of Solitude knows, eventually all you’re doing is babbling.

And while we’re at it, dear Lit-Fic, would it kill you to give me an ending once in awhile? Yes, I know that In Zanesville had one, but what about the three I read before it that just broke off. Call me uncultured all you want, but I enjoy an emotional climax and conclusion, thank you very much.

I believe in books’ ability to be meaningful and beautiful. Despite science fiction being my favorite genre, most of the books that have stuck with me have been literary fiction. A Tree Grows in Brooklyn. One Hundred Years of Solitude. The Age of Innocence. The list goes on and on.

And you know what? None of these books needed overmuch ambiguity or a “make-you-think” ending to pull me in. Yes, they made me think, but it wasn’t a trick. It didn’t made me angry. They didn’t need three different points of view and inverted typography to be inventive and meaningful.

I want my good books.