Tag: author

  • Gearing Up for Boskone56!

    Gearing Up for Boskone56!

    Boskone56 is nearly upon us! Who’s excited? Me!

    Boskone NewsLast year at this time, I was a hot mess. Boskone55 being my very first convention ever, I had no idea what to expect. I knew authors were going to be there, talking on panels, signing autographs, walking around in the halls, talking to people, and existing in the real world! What that would be like, I could only imagine.

    Bumping into a famous author, like Mary Robinette Kowal, would probably be akin to the time when 7-year-old me rounded the end of the aisle in my local FoodMart and came face to face with my first-grade teacher, Mrs. Hogan.

    Startling. Disorienting. Somewhat surreal and frightening.

    So, yeah, that was basically how it went down when I met Ms. Kowal last year. It wasn’t even a surprise encounter. Then, at least, I could have chalked up my mumbling awkwardness to being caught off guard. No, the author I admire and respect was signing books. A structured event at a scheduled time, giving me an opportunity to plan out what I would say to her in advance.

    “Hello, Ms. Kowal. Big fan. Loved GHOST TALKERS. Would you mind signing my copy? Thanks so much. I was wondering what your daily writing process looks like?”

    That’s what I wanted to say to her. What I actually said was, “[incomprehensible mumbling].” Between that and my face purpling with embarrassment, it’s a wonder she didn’t think I was having an aneurysm and call for a paramedic.

    Boskone55 Panel DiscussionSo, while I thoroughly enjoyed the panels at Boskone55 (see my wrap-up post here), I spent a lot of time sitting or standing by myself, eyeing from afar authors with whom I wanted to talk and cursing myself for being so damned awkward. Pretty sure Marshall Ryan Maresca thinks I’m a crazy stalker fan. I’m totally not a stalker. Crazy is debatable. Certainly a fan.

    Never again, I vowed, will I be such a social tool at a writing convention. Within a week of returning from Boskone, I registered for ReaderCon (which happened this past July). You can read about my adventures at that epic convention here and here.

    Me and Sam Delany
    Me and Sam Delany!

    ReaderCon was a totally different experience. I actually spoke to people! Even more amazing, some of them were authors like Samuel Delany! All of them (except the rando at the bar) were friendly, approachable, excellent people. Which brings me to the reason I’m so excited about Boskone56.

    This time, I will know some of the folks there! I’ll have a few social “anchors,” as it were. Now, I’m not suggesting I became besties with any of the authors I met at ReaderCon, but I did talk with several folks during kaffeeklatsches and after panels. Heck, I even shared a drink with a couple of them at the bar and chatted up a few others at what was basically a meet and greet disguised as a party. And, I’m jazzed because several of those most excellent people are going to be at Boskone56 this year.

     

    Who I’m Looking Forward to Seeing (Again):

    So many people! Couldn’t fit everyone on this list, so know that there are many more folks I’m eager to shake hands with and say, “Hello” or “Hello, again.”

    [Show thumbnails]
    E.C. Ambrose 

    Andrea Corbin 

    Ellen Datlow

    Max Gladstone

    Auston Habershaw

    Nicholas Kaufmann 

    Marshall Ryan Maresca 

    Hillary Monahan 

    Ken Schneyer 

    Juliana Spink Mills 

    Paul Tremblay 

    Catherynne M. Valente 

    Many of the above I had the pleasure of meeting at ReaderCon. I got to hear many others share their thoughts on various panels at last year’s Boskone55.

     

    My goal for Boskone56?

    Say hello to as many authors who I admire as possible. Might even find the courage to strike up an actual conversation with some of them, about writing, and books, and… I don’t know stuff. If I could do it at ReaderCon, I can do it again. Deep breaths. It’s going to be awesome!

     

    Are you going to be at Boskone this year? Who are you looking forward to seeing? If you see me there, say hello. I'm friendly, I swear, once you get past the socially awkward exterior.
  • Book Review: The Martian by Andy Weir

    Book Review: The Martian by Andy Weir

    Andy Weir’s The Martian was the hottest science fiction book to hit the shelves in 2014. There was a resurgence of interest in the novel when the film came out. I finally got around to reading it this summer. I’d heard many a great thing about it.

    The Description from Goodreads

    The Martian 2014Six days ago, astronaut Mark Watney became one of the first people to walk on Mars. 

    Now, he’s sure he’ll be the first person to die there.

    After a dust storm nearly kills him and forces his crew to evacuate while thinking him dead, Mark finds himself stranded and completely alone with no way to even signal Earth that he’s alive—and even if he could get word out, his supplies would be gone long before a rescue could arrive. 

    Chances are, though, he won’t have time to starve to death. The damaged machinery, unforgiving environment, or plain-old “human error” are much more likely to kill him first. 

    Mars

    But Mark isn’t ready to give up yet. Drawing on his ingenuity, his engineering skills — and a relentless, dogged refusal to quit — he steadfastly confronts one seemingly insurmountable obstacle after the next. Will his resourcefulness be enough to overcome the impossible odds against him?

     

    My Opinion of The Martian? Meh.

    Book Closed

    Disclosure: I did not finish this book.

    I got halfway through The Martian, almost to the page, and it wasn’t grabbing me. The main character, the crew, the folks back on earth–I didn’t feel invested in any of them. So, I evaluated reasons why and moved on.

    Reading half the book gave me enough of a picture for this review, I think.

     

    Andy Weir’s writing is solid from a nuts and bolts perspective. Nothing wrong with his craft, per say. Had I read to the end, it’s possible my opinion might have changed. Maybe The Martian morphed into something spectacular five pages away from where I stopped. Lots of folks love this book. Love with a big fat capitol “L”.

    As an individual reader (n=1 for the scientists), I reached a point where I thought to myself, “Eh, I kind of don’t care anymore.”

    And that’s telling.

     

    Where the Book Failed Me:

    1) Lack of Tension

    There are two things everyone seems to gush about with this book: the “voice” and the science, and there was plenty of both, but neither were enough to keep me going.

    By the halfway point of The Martian, I was looking around going, “So, I have a clear picture of the problem, but has anyone scene the story?  It should have showed up by now. Should we call somebody?”

    I mean, yes, there was an inciting incident and (I guess) some rising action, but here’s the thing. Rising action is not always synonymous with rising tension. Their relationship is closely correlative but not causal.

    John StewartTension is what attacks our brains. Tension hooks us into a story and makes us want to know what happens next. In The Martian, the MC–Mark Watney–faces one problem after another after another as he fights to survive on Mars. And yet I wasn’t chewing my fingernails worrying about the consequences.

    I think I first heard of the storytelling concept of “Yes-but, No-and” from Mary Robinette Kowal during a discussion on the podcast Writing Excuses. The idea goes like this.

     

    1. A character faces an obstacle to achieving their goals. I’ll apply it to this book. Mark Watney’s goal is surviving long enough to get rescued. The challenge is… there were a bazillion to choose from in this book.
    2. Does the character overcome the challenge? If Andy Weir’s goal was to build tension, then… 
    3. If the answer is yes, it should take the form of Yes-but now Mark’s created another, bigger problem. Note bigger in that description, not different.
    4. If the answer is no, it should take the form of No-and now Mark’s chances of surviving are less than before. 

     

    Andy Weir throws challenge after challenge at his main character, but he does so in a consistent “Yes-and” pattern.  See the difference? Yes-and manifests like this: Mark Watney faces a problem that will kill him. He solves it. A different problem pops up that also might kill him. He solves it. Repeat. They aren’t building off one another, amplifying in magnitude. For all the science in The Martian, the story was (for me) kind of boring. 

    Quick aside: even for me–a science-loving, science-teaching, science geek–there was just too much science. IMO: It would have been a stronger story had Andy Weir cut out about half the step-by-step scientific explanations and replaced them with moments of emotional vulnerability on the part of the characters. 

     

    2) Emotional Disconnect with the MC

    Marty McFly CryingI love me some action, but you’ve gotta connect me to the character on an emotional level, and do so as quickly as possible, if you want to hook me into the story. Weir didn’t do that.  

    Weir chose to deliver the main character, Mark Watney,  through a filter. In the form of log entries. When you read the book (and remember, I only read half of it, so this might not be true of the entire novel), you’re not seeing Mark, not even hearing him speak, certainly not hearing his thoughts. You’re reading what the character wrote in NASA log entries. Sort of like a semi-personal, but semi-official journal. For me, that threw up a hazmat-suit kind of barrier between me and the guy on the other side of the fictitious keyboard.

    Now, this might be where people want to jump in and say, “Yes, but you’re wrong because the character is so snarky, and he swears a lot, and he makes jokes and stuff.”

    Okay… but, did you ever find yourself tapping into Mark Watney’s panic? The absolutely agonizing, muscle-seizing, grays-your-vision-around-the-edges pain of his initial injury? The heart-exploding relief at getting back to the HAB after the first time he drove out of sight of it. Of the hollowing crush of loneliness he was caught by? Rage? Frustration? True, Hulk-smash frustration? 

     

    Whatever gifYeah, he swore a lot and wrote flippant comments and cracked an Aquaman joke. Maybe a strong “voice” isn’t enough. It’s got to be welded to emotional interiority of the character. What few emotions we saw were… flat. I didn’t believe them. 

    Andy Weir was using a literary device. I get that. The emotional distance I felt might have been intentional. Maybe we don’t see much interiority because Mark Watney thought everything he wrote down was eventually going to be read and analyzed. He was holding back his deepest inner self. Wouldn’t blame him. Makes perfect sense. 

    I guess I’m not the type of reader who enjoys staying somewhat removed of characters’ emotions. There are literally hundreds of thousands of people who adored this book. Cheers to them, I say.  For me, it missed the mark.  

     

    Biggest Takeaway?

    Do not, fellow writers, trouble your minds with the worry, “What if this story I’m writing is no good?” Easier said than done, I know. This is, perhaps, the biggest darkest deepest shadow looming over all writers. But, I just read a book loved dearly by a LOT of people and I didn’t love it. You’re never going to please everyone, no matter how great a book you write.

     

    Maybe there could have been a different strategy for writing The Martian that would have pulled me in more effectively. Not really for me to say, I suppose. 

    Let me reiterate, however, this was a DNF book for me, so… take my thoughts with a big grain of salt.

     

    Curious about my other book reviews?

    Click here to read my review of Mackenzie Lee’s YA historical romance, The Gentleman’s Guide to Vice and Virtue.

     

    In the meantime, thanks for stopping by. As always, happy writing (and reading) to you. 

  • My ReaderCon 2018 Experience (Part 2)

    My ReaderCon 2018 Experience (Part 2)

    This year’s ReaderCon event was so huge and so fabulous that I couldn’t fit it all into one post, so here’s the rest of my incredible experience. Click here to read about the first two days of fun.

     

    Recap of Saturday’s Fun:

    Victoria JanssenI kicked off Saturday with a delightful Kaffeeklatsch hosted by Victoria Janssen, a skilled writer of erotic fiction. If that strikes you as an odd choice on my part, given that my focus is on writing YA and MG stories, check my part 1 post for the explanation. It was a great conversation that ran the gamut of topics from industry trends to work-life balance. During this Klatsch, I met Sam Schreiber, whom I re-met later the same day. More on that in a bit.

    I rushed from Victoria’s kaffeeklatsch to Susan Jane Bigelow’s workshop.

     

     

    World Building GovernmentsSusan Jane Bigelow

    Maybe they didn’t expect many people to attend it? They put her in one of the smaller Salons in the hotel room. Big mistake. By the time I arrived at 9:04, every seat was filled, and folks were beginning to sit on the floor, myself included. No way was I going to miss Susan’s workshop.

    I’m fascinated by government systems as portrayed in fiction. And, since my current project is all about the upheaval of an existing government system, I thought it would be good to sharpen my world building tools.
    Also, I saw Susan for the first time at Boskone in February. She participated in a panel called “Governmental Structures in SFF” that was outstanding. I wrote a summary of the discussion here.

    I don’t know if Susan was inspired to create this workshop from the Boskone panel discussion or not, but she gave an epic workshop. She made all of her slideshow available on her website, too. Check it out.

     
    Topics discussed:

         What governments do.
         What forms governments can take.
         How governments go bad.
         Current government structures with examples from the US, Iran, and Italy.
         Historical government structures with examples from medieval Europe and China.
         Questions an author should ask/answer when creating a fantasy or science fiction government.

    Great, right? Yeah, it was.

     

    Space OperaAfter we gave her a standing ovation, I rushed off for my noon kaffeeklatsch with Navah Wolfe, which I wrote about previously. She gushed over Catherynne Valente’s new novel Space Opera.

    Best American Science Fiction and Fantasy 2017Serendipitously, I was working my way through The Best American Science Fiction and Fantasy of 2017 Collection, edited by John Joseph Adams and Charles Yu. I had picked it up during my final residency for my MFA in creative writing program at Lesley University at the end of June. Catherynne has a story in the collection called The Future is Blue. I hadn’t yet read it when this Klatsch happened, but I’ve read it since then, and Odin it was so good! Space Opera is now on my TBR list.

     

    The rest of my Saturday at ReaderCon was a whirlwind of panel discussions, followed by an awkward encounter at the hotel bar with a man who unintentionally offended me multiple times as he tried to chat me up while I ate dinner. Thank Thor, Sam Schreiber turned up and gave me a reason to extricate myself from a bad conversation for a much, MUCH better one. Sam is a member of the Brooklyn Speculative Fiction Group, and he helps produce the podcast Kaleidocast.

    I just listened to the first episode of season two, by the way. The story, “Playing Nice with God’s Bowling Ball” by N. K. Jemisin, was quite enjoyable, and the woman who narrated the story, Tatiana Grey, did an excellent job.

    Shameless plug, Sam (if you happen to read this), I would love to narrate a story for you fine folks.

    I discovered the existence of the Boston Speculative Fiction Writers Group pretty much accidentally while at ReaderCon. Had Sam not mentioned it in passing during our conversation at the hotel bar, I might never have stumbled upon its existence. This was after I used him to extricate myself from a very uncomfortable conversation with some Rando who was making me very nervous.

     

    Quick tangent…

    The hotel restaurant was packed on Saturday night, so I asked to be seated at the bar for dinner since there were actual seats available there. They put me next to an older gentleman who was also eating dinner at the bar. I ordered my food, got my food, ate my food, and then decided that it might be fun to try my hand at “Barconning,” so I ordered a beer and sat, hoping to see someone I had already spoken to earlier so I could say hello and try to have a conversation with him or her.

    Long story short, that was when the man sitting beside me, who was not part of the convention, proceeded to tell me that he’d like to beat the $h!7 out a fellow standing at a nearby table for laughing too loud.

    Reg flags up, warning bells ringing, iceberg dead ahead. Course correction needed five minutes ago.

    Then, he asked what the convention was about and I told him.

    The man with the violent tendencies and hair trigger then said, “I always wanted to write a book because I’m a pretty good writer, and I bought this house once to renovate it but when I went inside of it, it had this feeling like it was possessed, like not just haunted, you know, but possessed by evil, like that Amityville house, you know what I mean, with the walls just and voices screaming at me to just, just get out, get out, get out like it was pure evil. That would make a pretty good book, right?”

     The side of this boat has been torn off, folks. Evacuate if you can.

    That’s when I saw the guy from Victoria Janssen’s kaffeeklatsch. What was his name? Loki, why am I so terrible with names? Sam! His name is Sam! Okay, be cool. Keep the fear and desperation out of your voice.

    “Oh, hi there! You’re Sam, right? You were in Victoria’s Kaffeeklatsch with me.”

    Sam’s smile was as glorious a sight as a life raft to a drowning victim. 

     

     

    I jumped ship and did so without a shred of guilt. 

     

    End of Tangent

    On Sam’s suggestion, I skipped the Comedy Show happening at 9 PM in the ballroom and instead scoped out the Boston Speculative Fiction Writers Group, where I had a great conversation with author Elaine Isaak. [I later learned that the party was hosted not by the writing group but by the related Speculative Boston Readers Series Group. Not entirely the same thing.] 

    Elaine Isaak, at Arisia in 2013

    She’s a member of BSFG, and I’d seen her on a few panels at Boskone. It was great to see her again and talk to her in a smaller, more informal setting. She told me about another organization, Broad Universe, and invited me to check it out. I did, and I’ll be joining the latter group while wishing the former group was open to new members.

    At around 10:30 PM, I finally made it up to the eighth floor, where the ReaderCon Suite resided. All weekend long, folks had been mentioning the ConSuite up on the eighth floor. I had envisioned it as a secret VIP room for the chosen few where high powered con-goers sat around schmoozing with one another high above the lowly commoners (like me). A ridiculous notion, I know, but I’m still new to the world of book and writing conventions. Cut me some slack.

    Sam Schreiber was the one who got me to swallow my misguided fears and get into the elevator. Turns out, it really was just a place to hang out, eat free food, drink free beverages, and chat with entirely ordinary people! I had a long conversation with a book dealer who woke me up to the existence of CanLit (Canadian Literature). We also discussed Joseph Campbell, Carl Jung, and Plato. Peter, from Ontario, it was a pleasure debating the philosophy of myth and religion with you, sir.

    I called it a night at 12:30 AM, an obnoxiously late hour for me.

     

    Sunday:

     

    Second Name Drop

    Me and Sam Delany
    See?! It’s me and Chip!

    Ready for this?! I ate breakfast with Samuel Delany. Can you freaking believe it?

    Despite getting to bed at a ridiculously late hour (for me), I got down to the restaurant at 7:30 AM for breakfast. Just in time for the rush, apparently. The guy standing in line ahead of me shifted, and I noticed he was wearing a ReaderCon badge (on a lanyard, so I had to stare at his belly to read his name and hope he didn’t notice and take offense).

    Samuel Delany? Oh Sugar Honey Iced Tea, I must talk to this man. I must open my mouth and stammer out a hello to this giant in the sci-fi literature world. Be cool. Be cool. Just say hello. That’s all you have to do.

    “Hi, are you Sam Delany?”

    What a nice guy. Just as open and friendly as Ken Schneyer had been on Friday. After a few minutes of talking about the convention and the panels, the waitress said she was ready to seat him. He turned and asked if I would like to share a table with him because he was all by himself–his spouse, Dennis, had elected to sleep late. Gee, um, let me think. Okay!

    So I got to spend Sunday morning chatting with Samuel Delany about his career, his process, his love of genre fiction, his love of ReaderCon, and other random stuff over eggs and bacon and oatmeal. He even let me snap a selfie of the two of us together, because who would believe me that I’d had breakfast with him unless I obtained photographic evidence?

    After breakfast, Sam and I walked together to his and my first panel of the day:

     

    Curses, World Building Through Explitives

    Curse Word AlternativesIt was, of course, a highly entertaining and thought-provoking hour. In hindsight, I wish Catherynne Valente and Scott Lynch had been on the panel, as they both make lovely use of expletives as world building tools in their writing. Still, Francesca Forrest, Sarah Smith, Vinnie Tesla, Yves Meynard, and Sam had the audience laughing and scribbling notes like crazy.

    They talked about the fine art of inventing curse words. Vinnie brought up the standard technique of blending “high” and “low” into a contrasting and therefore ironic and insulting combination (“holy shit,” for example). Sam mad the excellent point that the preferred pejoratives a culture uses tell a lot about systems of power and dominance in a fictional world. A culture that tosses around “bitch,” “slut,” and “cunt” is probably patriarchal. Curses that invoke a world’s religion(s) or god(s) will always be blasphemous, and Yves Meynard brought up the use of swears that denigrate certain professions or geographies as excellent and quick ways to tell readers who the underclass are in a world.

    Bloody great stuff, am I right?

    Then, it was off to the next discussion:

     

    Crime and Punishment Panel

    The panelists were Josh Jasper, Scott Lynch, Tamara Vardomskaya, and Chris Gerwel.

    The discussion kicked off by identifying familiar “criminal” archetypes in fantasy and science fiction. Rogues, thieves, burglars, tricksters are the big four.

    1984The nature or purpose of incarceration both in life and in fiction generated lots of questions and comments from the audience. Is the primary purpose of imprisonment to punish the individual or to send a message to the broader populace? Or is it a tool to rehabilitate, and if so, who decides what constitutes “rehabilitated?”

    The discussion was fascinating and unsettling all at the same time.

     

     

    Final Panel of My ReaderCon Experience: How Horror Stories End

    This was the panel I’d been most looking forward to all weekend.

    Horror is my favorite genre. It lives and breathes deep in my psyche. In the second grade, I filled a notebook with short stories, all of them involving bloody deaths and vicious murders and witches eating babies for breakfast. All accompanied by my own gory illustrations in bright Crayola colors. It’s a wonder I didn’t end up meeting regularly with the school psychiatrist.

    Anyway, I love horror stories, so this was my panel for ReaderCon. It was hosted by Nicholas Kaufmann, Jess Nevins, Elsa Sjunneson-Henry, Ellen Datlow, and Jack Langen.

    Nick opened things up by asking the question: Can a horror story have a happy ending?

    Short answer, no. Not really.

    Characters can survive. They can even defeat the enemy and save the day, but it still isn’t a happy ending because said characters have been forever changed (probably damaged) by their ordeal.

    The Haunting of Hill HouseThe discussion then shifted to the concept of definitive versus ambiguous endings in horror novels. Ellen Datlow professed that ambiguous endings get tiresome. She likes a story that ties up all the loose ends. [Correction: Ellen did not actually say that. That was my (mis)interpretation.  Rather, she said that reading too many stories with ambiguous endings gets tiresome, and there seem to be many of them, so the stories with definitive endings are a welcome break from that.  That’s not a direct quote either, but I think I’m correctly capturing the spirit of her words.] Other panelists tried to come up with concrete examples of horror stories that do that. The Haunting of Hill House was mentioned as a horror story with a concrete ending. I suppose it is for the characters, but (and I applaud Yves for pointing this out) it still contains a level of ambiguity because Hill House survives. It continues to exist, so the potential for future horrors remains. I thought of Stephen King’s first novel, Carrie. The ending is definitive for the characters, but King tacked on a “letter” at the end of the book that left the door of ambiguity open.

    Panelists and audience members alike tossed out example after example, each with an ending that seemed to contain both definitive and ambiguous notes. Given that the human psyche wants neat endings, wants things wrapped up and resolved, wants problems solved. Ambiguity is inherently horrifying to us.

    In my opinion, the only successful use of a genuinely definitive ending in a horror story would involve the heroes losing and the villains winning. I’m thinking of a recent superhero film that shall not be directly named, to half-heartedly dodge spoiling it for folks who haven’t yet seen it. Pretty unambiguous but definitely horrifying.

    It was a great panel!

     

    And Then I Went Home

    By the end of “How Horror Stories End,” I was well and truly done. Fatigue slammed into me like a wrecking ball loosed from its chain. I might have actually staggered. I checked out of my room, quickly and without difficulty, caught the shuttle to the Redline, the Redline to North Station. So as not to miss my stop should I fall asleep, I set an alarm on my watch. Thank Thor for a bit of foresight, because I did indeed tumble into the land of Nod shortly after the train started moving. An hour later, I was home. It took me a week to recover from four days of high-octane interactions and very little sleep, but it was worth it!

     

    So, that was my adventure at ReaderCon 2018. It took two ridiculously long posts to cover all the fun, I know, but I gotta say, I had an incredible time. If you’re a fan of science fiction and fantasy stories, you have to get to ReaderCon. You won’t be disappointed.

    Except, maybe, by the lack of towel hooks.

     

    Thanks for dropping by and as always, happy writing to you.

  • My ReaderCon 2018 Experience (Part 1)

    My ReaderCon 2018 Experience (Part 1)

    I went for three days without seeing the sun.

     

    Not best practice in terms of health, but it tells you something about how busy I was at ReaderCon this past weekend.

    ReaderCon

    Quick disclaimer: This is going to be a long post, as will be the part 2 follow-up. I’m trying to paint a clear picture of my experience to help others unfamiliar with ReaderCon decide whether or not to give it a try next year. That will take more than a few quick words.

    What, you ask, is ReaderCon? Until last summer, I’d never heard of it. Then, one of my instructors in my MFA program suggested I attend. “It’s about the best Con in New England, and it’s local for you.”

    So, I looked into it.

    To quote from ReaderCon’s homepage:

    “Readercon is the only small convention regularly attended by such giants of imaginative literature as Gene Wolfe, Samuel R. Delany, John Crowley, Barry N. Malzberg, Kit Reed, and Jonathan Lethem.

    The program consists of two tracks each of panel discussions, author readings, and solo talks or discussion groups, plus kaffeeklatsches (intimate gatherings with an author) and autograph signings.

    There is a large bookshop full of new, used, and rare and collectible books and magazines (and yet more great conversation; if a Readercon attendee is not at a program item, they’re probably here).”

     

    This convention is all about the people!

    ReaderConI met many authors (both established and aspiring) as well as avid readers, all of whom were open and friendly and willing to chat with me. You might remember from my post about Boskone that I sometimes have trouble engaging with folks in new and unfamiliar settings. That was not a problem this time around. That said, I did rig the game of talking to people slightly in my favor with judicious use of name tag add-ons.

     

    Without further ado, here’s what my four-day, three-night romp at ReaderCon looked like.

     

    Thursday:

    I checked into my hotel room at the Boston Marriott in Quincy at around 6:30 PM. First impressions of the hotel itself? Meh. I doubt folks are attending because of the fantastic rooms. The carpets were difficult to look at, the closets seemed designed to dissuade anyone from actually using them, and (oddly) the bathrooms lack any towel hooks. For whatever reason, that last detail really bothered me. Why, Marriott, do you have zero places for me to hang up a towel in the bathroom? Why?! That is, however, the limit of my complaints. The rest is all glowing praise.

    Thursday night’s program kicked off at 8 PM with panel discussions that were free and open to the public. Despite that, attendance was sparse. Probably because it was a Thursday. The two panels I attended were:

     

    1) Writers Who Edit, Editors Who Write
    Scott Edelman
    Author and funny man, Scott Edelman

    The panel consisted of Sabrina Vourvoulias, John Lawson, Scott Edelman, Mimi Mondal, and Mike Allen.

    For an hour, these folks talked about the tricky task of balancing being an editor of others’ work and writing your own stuff.

     

    “There’s a long history of writers who became editors and then stopped writing their own work.” – Scott Edelman

    “My rule to keep me working on my owns stuff is this. Add three sentences to your own story every day no matter what.” – Mike Allen

    “When we edit, we’re reshaping the bones of a story. When we write, we’re creating the bones from scratch.” – Sabrina Vourvoulis

    “I’ve had people tell me to stop writing and just be an editor because I was so good at editing.” – Mimi Mondal

    “As a writer, I feel inspired by the submissions that come across my desk. I learn a lot from both the good and bad pieces that I edit.” – John Lawson.

     

    The advice that stuck with me most came from Scott Edelman, however. He said, “Learn how to say no!” His comment was in reference to taking on editing projects, but I think it’s useful to writers who don’t edit, too, because there is always going to be someone asking you to do something for them.

     

    2) Fabric Goods in Fantasy Settings

    The panel consisted of Victoria Janssen, Natalie Luhrs, Sarah Smith, Tom Greene, and Elaine Isaak.

    Fabric Goods PanelThe discussion centered around the economics of producing the clothes that characters wear in fantasy and science fiction stories. Consensus? Few authors drop any references into their worlds of the supply chains involved or the various professions involved (other than, perhaps, tailors and blacksmiths). What’s missing? Where are all the animals providing the leather? Where are the fields of cotton or flax? Where are the silkworm farms? And, where are the people who tend the animals, tan the leather, gather the cotton, process the flax into linen, harvest the silken threads, or dye the woven cloth? (I’m looking at you George R. R. Martin, famous describer of every single character’s outfit to the last button).

    By the time 10 PM rolled around, I was happy but tired, so instead of hitting up the BarCon — a term I became familiar with this weekend –, I went to bed. It was the earliest I would manage for the rest of the convention.

     

    Friday:

    I popped out of bed bright and early at 6:30, showered, dressed, then loaded up on breakfast in the hotel restaurant. As a chronically light eater, I opted not to go for the buffet. Given the price, I would have had to be a bottomless pit to make it financially feasible, so I ordered from the regular menu. It must be noted that the hotel restaurant is quite expensive, but there was a hotel shuttle ferrying folks to and from the redline T-stop every half hour. If I’d wanted to, I could have headed into Boston and found better food for less money. But it was my first time at ReaderCon, and I didn’t know how it worked. I didn’t want to risk missing out on anything significant, so I stayed inside the hotel (hence the three days without actual sunlight touching my skin).

     

    First Name Drop:

    On my way out from breakfast, I stopped at the Starbucks at the hotel bar to grab some caffeine. A man was waiting to be seated who looked familiar to me.

    He’s an author, I thought. I’ve seen him before. I should talk to him!

    Ken Schneyer
    Ken Schneyer, a master storyteller!

    Boskone is the only other place I could have seen this gent, so I asked him if he’d been on any of the panels. Why, yes, he had. I offered a hand to shake and introduced myself. Imagine my surprise and delight to find myself shaking hands with Mr. Kenneth Schneyer, prestigious and prolific author of many excellent speculative and science fiction short stories (and a few novels). Turns outs, he’s not just a great writer but also a great human being. It came out in the quick exchange that I was pretty new to writing conferences. Ken went out of his way for the rest of ReaderCon to smile and say hello and talk to me whenever he saw me. He wasn’t the only one, either. I’m telling you, ReaderCon was terrific!!

     

    Getting Registered:

    I wandered back to the registration table and queued up to officially register and get my name badge. There were two options for how one could wear the plastic badge–either clipped to your clothing or dangling from a thin black lanyard around your neck.

     

    Interlude: A Rant about Placement of Name Badges

    Take this piece of advice to heart. Do NOT go for the lanyard option, and here’s why. Someone sees you from across the way. You look like an interesting person. They would like to meet you, say hello, learn your name, chat you up, hear your thoughts on books and writing and life. They swallow their nerves and approach you. The natural instinct is to check your name badge, but oops–to do that, they have to break polite eye contact and allow their gaze to drift down your torso to your midriff where your name badge is dangling. Awkward. Worse, there’s a 50/50 chance that the plastic card is flipped around backward and they have raked their eyes up and down your body for no reason at all. Twice as awkward!!

    Please, use the clip option, and affix your name high up near your shoulder. Easy peasy fresh and breezy and no awkward body-gazing needed. End of interlude.

    ReaderCon had an ingenious name badge add-on option available. You could write anything (within reason) you wanted on fabric tags that could then be securely adhered to the bottom of your badge. I saw lots of folks using them as a chance to clarify preferred gender pronouns (thank you so much to folks who did that, by the way).

    I chose to use my add-ons as a way to invite people to talk to me, and to give them a conversation starter as an “in.” It worked quite well.

     

    Kaffeeklatsches!

    KaffeeklatschesAt the sage advice of a volunteer manning the registration table Thursday night, I wandered over to where the Kaffeeklatsch sign-up book lay at around 9:45 AM, fifteen minutes before sign-up officially opened. Good thing I did, too. There was already a line of folks forming, and people were already filling up the slots with their names.

    If you don’t know what a kaffeeklatsch is, fear not. I didn’t know either until Boskone when I missed all of them because I didn’t realize you had to sign up for them in advance. Hence my 9:45 AM appearance at the sign-up table. A kaffeeklatsch is a small, intimate affair in which an author (or editor, or agent) sits down with ten to fifteen folks and spends an hour shooting the breeze, talking about whatever people want to talk about.

    I thought I would sit quietly at the tables and let others ask their questions and share their thoughts. After all, this was my first time attending these things. Best to sit back, watch, and learn. That didn’t happen. The authors were too friendly, too engaging. So were all the other folks at the table. The conversations were lively, and I quickly found myself sucked in, laughing and chatting away with everyone else. So great!

    Here’s the list of folks who I got to meet and talk with via the Kaffeeklatsches at ReaderCon: 

     

    1) Nicholas Kauffman

    Horror writer extraordinaire and a super nice guy. I pre-ordered his upcoming new book “100 Fathoms Below” within 20 minutes of his klatsch ending. The pitch that sold it for me? Disabled American submarine in Soviet waters with a vampire on board. Yup. That’s for me. Thank you!

     

    2) James Morrow 

    Okay, I signed up but didn’t attend. One of the problems I had at ReaderCon was having no free time to feed myself. By the time this klatsch was starting up, my hands were starting to shake, and I was feeling panicky from hunger. I had to eat. Sorry, Mr. Morrow. I’ll try to catch you next time. Your book, The Asylum of Dr. Caligari, is fantastic, by the way.

     

    3) Ken Liu and Anatoly Belilovsky 

    The conference room in which the kaffeeklatsches happened accommodated two groups at a time, divided by a mobile wall. Ken and Anatoly’s klatsches were scheduled for the same time slot. Because they knew each other and did similar stuff regarding translating Chinese (in Ken’s case) and Russian (in Anatoly’s case) fiction to English, they opted to break down the dividing wall and combine their klatsches. I found the ensuing conversations about balancing their own writing with the job of translating others’ works to be fascinating. I also enjoyed listening to Ken and Anatoly discuss the many nuanced elements that go into translating literature from one language to another.

    My mind kept returning to the two versions of Ovid’s Metamorphosis that I and my beloved own. It’s the same story, but the two translations (we sat and read the story of Apollo and Daphne back and forth to each other one morning) created different tones and different points of thematic emphasis.

     

    4) Max Gladstone 

    I love, love, LOVE Max’s Craft Sequence books, and so I was very excited to sit in a room with this man and bask in his presence. That’s all I wanted to do. However, Max’s klatsch happened immediately after the “Bureaucracy in Fantasy” panel. More than half of us in Max’s klatsch (including Max) had attended the panel, and Max had asked the last question fielded before the man with the bright red “STOP!” sign ended things. So, Max’s kaffeeklatsch turned into an extended discussion of bureaucratic systems both in the real work (in China, specifically) and in fantasy settings. It was great!

     

    5) Victoria Janssen

    Why, you might be asking yourself, would I sign up for this kaffeeklatsch? After all, I’m a self-proclaimed YA and MG writer. Victoria writes adult erotica! Well, the YA novel I’m working on at the moment takes place in a secondary world in which women are the unapologetically dominant gender. That means my characters have never experienced male-induced body-shaming or sexual-stigmatization. They are fully realized and fully confident sexual beings. Sex is not shied away from in this world I’ve created. It is openly discussed, and even more openly practiced. Yet, as I pointed out, it’s a YA novel. I’m walking a narrow and tricky line here. How do I write sex scenes that are 1) well-done and 2) strike the right balance of on-page/off-page references so that this manuscript doesn’t get kicked back to me with a “thanks but a little too edgy” comment in the rejection email I get from every YA agent I sub it to? This was my chance to sit down with a woman who knows how to write sex scenes in their many iterations and ask my questions. The conversation was, as you might guess, both stimulating and enlightening. I’m so glad to have met Victoria and to have had a chance to benefit from her experience and insights.

     

    6) Navah Wolfe 

    A chance to sit down with the senior editor at Saga Press?! Yes, please. Let me sit and be showered with insider tips and suggestions for the SFF publishing industry. Which, by the way, is exactly what happened. Plus, I received an impromptu education into the joys of Eurovision. Didn’t even know that was a thing!

    Navah talked faster than an auctioneer after her third espresso, and her energy and enthusiasm was infectious. I don’t know how old Navah is, but she looked too young to be a senior editor. After spending an hour with her, however, I realized that she’s got the advantage of youth on her side because her job (and her clear love of and commitment to it) sounds exhausting.

    That’s it for the kaffeeklatsches. I spent the rest of my time at ReaderCon attending panel discussions, chatting with friendly folks at the bar and at the after-parties up on the eighth floor of the hotel.

     

    Friday Panels:

    Every time slot was quadruple-booked with interesting panel discussions. If only I had Hermione’s time turner, I could have gone to every panel that sounded interesting (all of them). Alas, I had to pick and choose.  Here are the one’s I sat in on.

     

    On Dislike – Between Meh and Rage

    On Dislike PanelThe panel consisted of KJ Kabza, Lauren Roy, Graham Sleight, J.R. Dawson, and Auston Habershaw.

    Take-away from this discussion? Life is short. If a book isn’t hooking you for good or ill, dump it and move on.

     

    The Bureaucracy of Fantasy

    The panel consisted of Victoria Sandbrook, Ken Schneyer, Phenderson Djèlí Clark, John Wiswell, and Alex Jablokow.

    Of course, the Ministry of Magic was brought up and discussed at length. I get it. Harry Potter is practically universal; most of us who are fans of fantasy and science fiction have read it. But… there are so many other interesting examples that could have been mentioned. I still can’t believe no one brought up the movie Brazil!!

     

    Feminist Socialism in Fantastika

    The panel consisted of Veronica Schanoes, Tamara Vardomskaya, and Marissa Lingen.

    Wow. In the best possible way, wow. These three women knew so much about the topics of socialism in literature, feminism in literature, and the combination of the two in literature. I was blown away. Humbled, really. I added about ten books and authors to my TBR list.

     

    Friday Night Fun

    Muppet PartyThe final events of Friday were purely social in nature. At 9:00 PM ReaderCon hosted a “Meet the Prose Party” in which participating panelists printed witty one-offs from one of their published works on sticky mailing labels and walked around a big ballroom with them in hand. The idea? Folks like me could walk up to someone carrying printed labels and ask for one. It gave us shy people a way to engage with authors when we might otherwise not.

    Also, there was a bar at the back of the ballroom. I do not often partake of the alcoholic beverages, but a beer gave my hands something to hold onto, and the ethanol settled my nerves. Win-win.

    The mailing label thing worked like a charm, too. By the end of it, I had both sleeves of my shirt lined with snippets from over twenty published authors, and each time I requested one, I read it and asked the giver to tell me more about the work from which it came. Hooray for socializing!!

    At 10:30 PM, music started playing, and the 80’s/90’s themed dance began. I had my 80’s outfit ready to go up in my hotel room but never went up to put it on. Too much fun being had to pause for a costume change. By 11:30 PM, most folks had either called it a night or headed off for other, smaller parties elsewhere. A natural night owl I am not, so I climbed into bed at 11:45 PM, read for about two minutes and crashed.

    I still had all of Saturday and the half-day schedule on Sunday ahead of me, but by the end of Friday I’d gotten my money’s worth from ReaderCon. You can check out the rest of my adventure in My ReaderCon 2018 Experience–Part 2 (coming soon). You’ll want to read all about my second name-dropping moment, which also happened in the hotel restaurant over breakfast (involving Samuel Delaney). In the meantime, you can check out my Instagram for pic’s from this year’s ReaderCon29. 

     

    Are you a writing convention enthusiast? Which Cons have you attended? Any you’d like to recommend to the rest of us newbies? Do share in the comments!

     

    Thanks for dropping by and as always, happy writing to you.

  • Neuroscience Hack #2-Writing That Hooks Readers

    Neuroscience Hack #2-Writing That Hooks Readers

    In my previous post, Writing that Hooks Readers-Neuroscience Hack #1, I discussed how elements of change affect our brains as we read. As promised, I”m back with the next installment of this multi-part exploration of the neuroscience behind writing that grabs our attention and pulls us in.

     

    If you’ve ever watched an Olympic sporting event like the floor routine in gymnastics, you might have seen shots of athletes preparing to compete. They stand to the side, eyes closed, twisting their bodies around in odd ways. You know what they’re doing. They’re envisioning their routine, imagining the jumps, the turns, the tucks. The term for it is pre-visualization, and there’s plenty of data in the field of neuroscience to show that it improves performance in the live competition. The same things happening to those athlete’s brains occur inside readers’ minds when they read. Provided, that is, an author uses a few key tricks when they write.

     

    Brain Hack #2: “Monkey See, Monkey Do” is a Truer Statement Than You Think

    In 1996, a team of Italian scientists inserted electric probes into the premotor cortices of monkeys. They tracked neuron (nerve cell) activation in the animal’s brains when they reached for a toy or grasped a piece of food or brought a cup of water to their mouth to drink. Each time a monkey did something, the scientists noted which neurons fired during each activity.

    Interestingly, they discovered that when a scientist reached for a toy or grasped a piece of food, the neurons in a watching monkey’s brain would fire in the same way as if the animal were the one performing the actions. The lead scientist said, “…we realized that the pattern of neuron activity associated with the observed action was a true representation in the brain of the act itself, regardless of who was performing it.” (G, Rizzolatti, et al. “Mirrors in the Mind.” Scientific American, 2006. pp. 54–61. Print.)

    The Story Telling AnimalWhat does that mean? From a neuroscience, it means our brains simulate what we observe others do and experience. In the book The Storytelling Animal, author Johnathan Gottschall suggested that this phenomenon offers us a “safe” way to learn new skills. It also lets us assess possible consequences of specific actions without endangering ourselves.

    To better understand this idea, you have to know about a couple of specific types of neurons.

     

    Motor Neurons

    Motor Cortex MapThese are the nerve cells that stimulate our muscles when we kick, jump, or swing a bat. They originate in a region in our brain called the motor cortex and end in our muscles.

     

    Mirror Neurons

    Illustration of the mirror neuron systemThese are the neurons our Italian scientist friends saw firing in their monkeys. The science is far from conclusive on why these cells exist. However, many folks believe mirror neurons help us understand the intent of other people’s actions. They also help us learn new skills by imitation.

    Whereas motor neurons fire when we kick, jump or swing a bat, mirror neurons fire when we watch (or read) someone else kick, jump, or swing a bat. If a person is hooked up to a fMRI brain scanner while watching a film of an X-games freestyle skier launching off a half-pipe doing some crazy, twisty, flip thingy, the mirror neurons in their motor cortex light up brightly. Inside their brains, it looks like they’re the ones coming off the half-pipe. Even if they’ve never been skiing!

     

    Writers Can Use Mirror Neurons to Deepen Reader Engagement

    Include strong action verbs that reference specific body parts in your writing to stimulate your readers’ mirror neurons. The key to this brain hack working, however, is the specificity of your descriptions.

    “He did a flip off the diving board.”

              – this sentence uses an auxiliary verb (did) versus an action verb (flipped). Flip, in this sentence is a noun, a thing, not an action than can be mirrored in our minds.

    “He flipped himself backward off the diving board.”

               – in this sentence, flipped is an action verb, which is a stronger choice. Reading about an action, at least in theory, can stimulate mirror neurons. Also, we know something about the direction of the action (backward) and a rudimentary setting (the diving board). However, the verb flip refers to the whole body rather than specific body parts, so it doesn’t stimulate mirror neurons all that much.

    “Pumping his arms like pistons, he heaved his weight downward against the edge of the diving board, then rode its recoil high into the air, tucking his knees tight to his chest as he spun, and craned his neck back as he sought to find the water.”

               – I went a bit over-the-top with this one, but I wanted to make a clear point. This sentence contains multiple action verbs (pumping, heaved, rode, tucked, spun, craned, sought, and find). Many of the verbs reference specific parts of the body (arms, knees, and neck). The last element embedded into this sentence that is absent in the prior two examples is a clear goal. The individual is seeking the water. It’s the most engaging of the three because it does the best job of stimulating your motor cortex via mirror neuron activation.

    So there you have it! Neuroscience hack #2: Mirror Neurons. Next time you sit down to write a scene, or edit a scene for that matter, pay attention to your use of verbs. Your readers will be pulled in and feel as if they’re living the story.

     

    More posts about a neuroscience hacks writers can use to make their writing more engaging will be coming soon, so stay tuned.

     

    Thanks for stopping by, and as always, happy writing to you!

  • ReaderCon29, Here I Come!

    ReaderCon29, Here I Come!

    As John Arnold said in Jurassic Park right before everything went south, “Hold onto your butts.”

     

    I just booked my hotel room for ReaderCon29. Who’s excited? Meeeee!

    ReaderCon29 will be the second writing conference I’ve ever attended, and my very first conference–Boskone–was fun but underutilized. I spent most of my time star-struck, tongue glued to the roof of my mouth, unable to approach authors and talk to them. So many missed opportunities. You can read all about my (mis)adventures at Boskone here.

    Ghost TalkersFor example, while I managed to get a copy of Ghost Talkers signed by Mary Robinette Kowal, I could not bring myself to join the circle of fans surrounding her at the art show and tell her how much I enjoyed her writing (not to mention her commentary and sass on the writing podcast “Writing Excuses.”)

    A Murder of MagesThen there was Marshall Ryan Maresca and E. J. Stevens, both of whom (if they noticed me) probably got utterly skeeved out by the weird blonde woman stalking them from a distance all weekend long. Sorry about that, by the way, if either of them by some slim chance ever read this post. Didn’t mean to be a creeper. I just got so fetching shy! It wasn’t just you two.  I couldn’t talk to anyone!

    Shadow SightNot this time, I am telling myself without much confidence. This time, I will have done it once before. I won’t be a complete newb. I will be able to approach and interact with other people at the conference because I will remember that it is a writing conference. Everyone in attendance will have a love of books and writing in common with me. I will smile, just like last time, but then I will make my feet move, and I will approach people, and I will say “hello” and other normal things. I will not go mute and resort to hiding behind giant plants in lobbies and watching authors from great distances.

    A Natural History of Hell

    Jeffrey Ford is going to be there, though, so I might. The man is an incredible writer. Have you read his short story collection, A Natural History of Hell? Sooooo good!

    Anyway, ReaderCon has been on my radar since last summer, when my Fantasy & Science Fiction professor, Mark Edwards, suggested I attend. He described it as the most prominent annual writing convention in Massachusetts. A “not to be missed” event.

    I missed it.

    But, I vowed to get there this summer. Registered way back in February, even. I mean, I have no excuses to miss it a second time. The cost to attend is incredibly affordable, and it takes place in Quincy, Massachusetts. That’s an hour and a half from where I live, for Thor’s sake. This morning, I went all in on the experience and ponied up the funds to secure a hotel room. Now getting to and from each day won’t be an issue.

    I am ready to rock this conference. Okay, not really. I definitely need some pointers, guidance, encouragement, etc.

    Here’s my plea:

    If you’re also going to ReaderCon, help me overcome the paralytic shyness that grabbed me by the throat at Boskone55 and say hello. Connect with me over on Twitter and Instagram, so that by the time July rolls around, I will (at least in a theoretical, social media sort of way) already know a few folks. How awesome would that be?!

    If you’re a seasoned writing conference attendee, what tips do you have for me that will help me make the most of ReaderCon29?

    As always, thanks for stopping by, and happy writing to you.

  • Great YA Fiction: The Gentleman’s Guide to Vice and Virtue

    The Gentleman's Guide to Vice and Virtue (Guide, #1)The Gentleman’s Guide to Vice and Virtue by Mackenzi Lee
    My rating: 5 of 5 stars

    I bought this brilliant piece of YA fiction on a whim, and I’m so glad I did. 4.5 stars!!

    Mackenzi Lee might now just be near the top of my favorite writers.  This excellent piece of YA fiction is filled with wonderful characters you can get behind, hauntingly beautiful language, all topped off with social themes that YA readers are hungry to explore.

    Lee told the story in first person present tense, a particularly difficult POV and tense combination to do well. I’ve read many a story written in this POV that felt far too whiny and self-absorbed.  Considering how self-absorbed Lee’s main character-Monty-is, I’m amazed that this book didn’t feel that way. Lee found the perfect balance between interior monologue and external action, and she contextualized Monty’s moments of angst perfectly.

    She did a great job of capturing the diction of the time period in which the story takes place, as well as the language used by highborn families. I can imagine some might fall prey to overwriting or writing that felt like it was trying too hard. Not so here. Lee’s descriptions are lyrical and develop the setting as much as the characters.

     

    For example:

    “Versailles is a delirious fantasy of a place. We cross through a card room and into the mirrored hall where the king receives his court, every surface not covered with a looking-glass gilded in gold or frescoed in jewel tones. Wax drips in hot, sticky threads from the chandeliers. The light is pyrite, with snowflakes of color refracted through the crystals splattering the walls. The party spills into the gardens, the air hot and hazy with pollen rising from the flowers in golden bursts when they’re brushed. Hedges line the walks, carved into a menagerie of shapes, roses bursting between them. The stars are stifled by the furious light from the palace, and the candelabra lining the stairs are reflected like glittering coins against the bright silk everyone is wearing.”

     

    Through the misadventures of Monty, Percy, and Felicity, Lee crafted a brilliant piece of YA fiction that explored abuse, sexuality, race, and gender. It could have become didactic, but it didn’t. It was wonderful. The main character was, on the surface, an unlikeable fellow. Narcissistic, emotionally stunted, an alcoholic, whiny, and frankly rather useless. All that said, however, Lee made me like him. She made me root for him.  I’ve encountered so many whiny, self-absorbed protagonists in YA fiction that just made me roll my eyes and move on to reading something else.  Not so with Monty.  Every cringe-worthy moment only made me love him more.

    The world Lee painted and the events of the tale, even the fantastical elements, seemed authentic and real.  No doubt, that’s due to the vast amount of research that Lee did in preparation for writing the book.  There is a delightful bonus at the end of the novel in which she discusses some of that research.

    I have but one minor gripe.  The “I must be misreading the overtly sexual/romantic signals” thing dragged on between two characters to the point of feeling unrealistic. Especially, after said two characters made out at the opera at the beginning of the book. They were all over each other, and then the MC spent most of the rest of the book telling himself that the other person couldn’t possibly have romantic feelings for him. I think Lee was trying to generate teen angst, but it didn’t ring true to me. That was a small issue, however. Not enough to spoil the book.

    I 100% recommend this novel, and I cannot wait to read its sequel: The Lady’s Guide to Petticoats and Piracy, which tracks the continuing adventures of Monty’s headstrong, medicine-minded sister, Felicity.

     

    Have you read any novels by Mackenzi Lee?  What do you like most about her writing?  Which of hers is your favorite book?

     

    View all my reviews

  • Book Review: Thunderhead by Neal Schusterman

    Thunderhead (Arc of a Scythe, #2)Thunderhead by Neal Shusterman
    My rating: 5 of 5 stars

    How did I not already write a review for this fantastic sequel to Scythe?! Well, here we go:

    I would argue that Thunderhead was an even better book than the first book in this series, and that’s a rare thing to find in the world of trilogies. Fast paced, high-stakes, multiple plot threads and character arcs, and an ending that left me reeling and wanting more!

    A hard copy of Thunderhead is selling on Amazon for $15.00 right now.  Not bad.  If you’re not into buying from Amazon, it’s available through ten other sellers.  Check out the Goodreads page for a listing.

    I digress.

    Thunderhead picks up several months after the point where Scythe ends. There are many elements of this book that Schusterman did fantastically well. I’ll start with the thing I found most impressive: his handling of a difficult POV. The chapters tend to jump from character to character, so it’s easy to think that the book is written in limited serial third person, but it isn’t. It’s actually written using an omniscient POV, with the POV emphasis placed on a different character in each chapter. He did a brilliant job with this.

    The characters really started to come into their own in this book. That’s something else Schusterman does well. Not that the characterizations were lacking in Scythe. It’s just that in this book, both Citra (now more Scythe Anastasia) and Rowan Damisch are developed in a more multifaceted manner.  Also, the new character, Grayson, was a welcome addition to the cast.  His story exposed readers to a whole other aspect of the world previously unexplored. Speaking of previously unexplored, several supporting characters from Scythe get a lot of time on the page.

    I must admit, I’m struggling to get into the main villain of this series.

    SPOILER TO FOLLOW!! 

    Stop reading here if you don’t want any of the plot elements revealed before you go and read this excellent book.

     

    Goddard is brought back as the main villain, despite having been decapitated at the end of the last book. This felt like a cheap trick to me. Like something you might expect of a cheesy daytime soap opera. I have to wonder if that was Schusterman’s plan from the outset.  Or, did he think of it later and architect an explanation to let it work.  It feels like the latter, because he failed to drop any hints at the end of Scythe that maybe Goddard and some of his crew weren’t quite as deceased as everyone thought. Had he dropped that hint, I would have willingly gone along with this storyline. As it stands, it felt too forced.

    The Thunderhead becomes an active character in this book (hence the title). All I have to say about this benevolent overseer is this: ripe for a psychotic break. We shall see.

    I can’t remember the last time an ending to a book left me so breathless and excited. I highly recommend Thunderhead, and I can’t wait for the next book in the series. There is a major plot development that has yet to be explored. What shall Rowan and Scythe Faraday find when they visit the Land of Nod?

    View all my reviews over on Goodreads.

  • Boskone 2018 – A Phenomenal SFF Writers Convention

    Boskone 2018 – A Phenomenal SFF Writers Convention

    It’s the day after the 55th Annual Boskone Convention wrapped up, and I just realized I haven’t written a post for some time.  To commit my thoughts and observations in the “permanent” annals of the internet, I thought I’d talk about my experience at my very first writing convention.   I met and heard from some amazingly talented authors, editors, and agents in the fantasy and science fiction genre.

     

    What Is Boskone?

    No one I knew had ever heard of Boskone and, truth be told, neither had I until my Fantasy and Science Fiction professor at Lesley University told me about ReaderCon, which happens every summer in Quincy, Massachusetts.  In researching that, I stumbled upon Boskone.  Right there on the homepage, I saw enough to get me to register: Mary Robinette Kowal and Tamora Pierce.

    Mary–the charismatic co-host of my favorite podcast, Writing Excuses, and Tamora–one of the best YA fantasy writers ever!  Done.  I’m there. 

    Then, I kept finding bonuses as I perused the long list of program participants.  I kept getting more and more excited, but I really had no idea what to expect.  I’ve never been to a writing convention before.  Heck, I’ve never been to any kind of convention before.  

    In early January, they posted the schedule for the weekend, and I started picking out which panels I most wanted to go to.  Odin knows, I had trouble choosing.  More often than not, several fascinating panels were happening at the same time.  I kept having to remind myself that this wasn’t the one and only convention I’d ever get to attend in my life.  No, this was just the first (of many, I hope).

     

    Where was Boskone?

    You can click the link for their website, but I’ll tell you that, at least for this year, it took place at the Westin Boston Waterfront hotel, right next door to the Boston Convention Center.  Boskone was in the hotel, though, not over in the convention center.  The New England Boat Show was happening over there.

    The Westin was beautiful… what I saw of it.  I didn’t stay there.  Living just 30 miles north, I couldn’t justify spending $200+/night for a room when I could walk and train it to and from for $15.00 a day.  But, based on some of the hotel patrons I observed while sitting in the lobby wishing I was better at striking up conversations with people, I’m willing to guess their rooms were equally beautiful.

    Boskone events occupied all the conference and banquet rooms in the hotel’s east (north?) wing on all three floors, which were reasonably sized and clean.  I was impressed with the quality of the mic systems the hotel provided for the event.  The shrink wrapped carpets in the Galleria (in and around where snacks were put out each evening) amused me.

     

    The Social Scene

    To all you people who go to conferences more often than I do, or who are perhaps published authors who attend conventions as participants: how do you talk to each other?!  I’m not referring to asking questions during panel discussions.  That’s easy because that’s a venue with limits and expectations and rules for conduct, etc.  I’m talking about striking up casual social conversations that might allow me to actually meet other established or aspiring authors.

    I spent most of my time between panel discussions watching groups of people mingle and chat and laugh with each other.  I saw so many authors in the halls with whom I desperately wanted to strike up a conversation, but all I could do was smile and manage to whimper out a feeble “hello.”  How do you all do it?!  I’m in awe and completely jealous of folks with, you know, social skills.

    Is there some secret handshake I don’t know about?  Do the folks who attend conventions all know each other from elsewhere?  Same for the authors; do they all know each other already?

    Friday evening, there was an art show and refreshments opening event that I went to.  My beloved went with me for moral support and to see the art.  At one point, we were standing up on an elevated level that looked down on the rest of the floor, packed with people.  And everywhere I looked, people were sitting together at tables or standing in clusters with authors mixed in.  All happy, all chatting.  I felt very much like an outsider, but I just couldn’t must the courage to march up to a bunch of people I didn’t know and start talking.  

    I randomly struck up a conversation with K. Stoddard Hayes while looking at beautiful art, but she was alone and we were admiring the same painting simultaneously.  She was so nice, by the way!  My claim to fame is now that I lent K. Stoddard Hayes a pen so she could bid on a painting at Boskone.  Great as that was, I can’t hope for that kind of happy random encounter over and over again!

     

    Event Highlights for Me

    Mary Robinette KowalOkay, I’ll start with the two people who initially drew me to the convention: Mary Robinette Kowal and Tamora Pierce.  I did get Mary Robinette Kowal to sign my copy of Ghost Talkers (fantastic book), and struggled to form coherent words and sentences while talking to her at the autograph table.  Hope I didn’t come off as too much of a bumbling weirdo.

    I also got to listen to Mary’s Guest of Honor interview (she was interviewed by an Astronaut, by the way.  I’m not kidding!).  She is articulate and well-spoken (shocker since she’s an audiobook narrator as well as author and professional puppeteer) and charismatic and genuine.  She even broke out one of her puppets during the interview!  Her parting thoughts at the end will stay with me for a long time.  “Don’t be ashamed of your voice.”

    Tamora PierceI was not able to get my copy of Tempest and Slaughter signed by Tamora Pierce, sadly.  The line was ridiculously long and I naïvely thought that if I just slipped out of the “Ensemble Casts and Continuing Characters” discussion panel at 4:40, I’d have 20 minutes to get down to her autographing session and get my book signed.  Pshaw right! 

    Ah, well, as I kept reminding myself and will continue to remind myself, this was just the first writing convention I’ve been to, not the only one I’ll ever go to.  At least I got to hear her talk about her thoughts regarding sex in YA fiction.  Her thoughts (and I’m paraphrasing): what’s the big deal?  It happens.  She was smart and funny!

    The art, people.  Thor Almighty the art!  Absolutely fantastic.  Jaw-droppingly good stuff.  I didn’t take pictures, because I feel a bit dodgy about posting photos of someone else’s art online without getting explicit permission, and most of the artists weren’t around during the multiple times I ambled through the galleries.  You’ll just have to take my word for it.  The art was amazing.

     

    The panels were incredible, too, and I wish I could have gone to them all, but alas, I haven’t yet managed to steal the Time Turner.  Anyway, here are some of the great takeaways that I jotted into my notebook during various panels:

    “The teen libedo longs to escape and run free. That’s just a biological reality.” – Darleen Marshall during the It’s Not Always About Sex panel.

    During the Sex and Romance in YA Fiction panel, Barry Goldblatt said there’s a strange hierarchy of what kind of sex on the page is okay and what isn’t.  Rape?  Fine.  Masturbation? Deal breaker.  I find that utterly bizarre!  What does that say about our culture in America that we’re okay letting teens read about sex that’s violent and painful and damaging but not a sexual act that is safe and pleasurable and private?

    “If you want your secondary characters to be memorable, you have to give readers something to remember!” – Kenneth Schneyer during the Ensemble Casts and Continuing Characters panel.

    “All the members of an ensemble think they’re the protagonist and they all get time on the stage to show their story.” – E.C. Ambrose during the Ensemble Casts and Continuing Characters panel.

    During the Governmental Structures in SFF panel, Nik Korpon pointed out that SFF authors tend to gravitate toward totalitarian/dictatorial/monarchist systems of government because they’re easy to write, and I understood what he meant, but then Susan Jane Bigelow pointed out that in reality, those structures are inherently fragile and difficult to maintain and so the systems created by those in power to hold onto their power are actually incredibly complex.  All the panelists agreed and agreed that authors rarely address much beyond the big, bad overlord villain and his closest henchmen.

    “Agents want to see what’s there ‘in the rough’ for a manuscript.  They want to see what you produced, not what you and a professional editor produced.” – Richard Shealy during the What Good is an Agent panel.

    “My agent works for an agency that gets 40,000 queries each year.  So, don’t get discouraged if you don’t land an agent in the first 10, 20, 100 queries.”  – Hillary Monahan during the What Good is an Agent panel.

    During the Forgotten Topics in YA panel, the panelists all listed off topics that they didn’t see being addressed in YA fiction but needed to be: non-romantic formative relationships, interracial couples, and voices of the impoverishes/severely disenfranchised.

    “The Ultimate theme of all YA stories is Person versus Self (coming of age stories).” – Carlos Hernandez during the Forgotten Topics in YA panel.

    “Each book needs to be a story in its own right, with its own compelling arc, but each book also needs to fit into the multi-book arc of the series.” – Marshall Ryan Maresca during the Ending a Series panel.

    Those were just a few of the many gems that caught my attention.

     

    I’m not sad it’s over. I’m happy it happened.

    Sure, but I’m still a little sad it’s over because while I heard from and (in very rare circumstances) spoke to and connected via twitter with a bunch of interesting and talented people at Boskone this past weekend, there were many more with whom I didn’t.  

    I’ve already go my sights set on ReaderCon in July of this summer.

    Here are all the folks who struck me as particularly cool people, which is not to say that all the other participating authors/agents/editors/etc aren’t also cool people; I just didn’t get a chance to experience them this time around. 

     

    Final Thoughts

    I am so happy that I decided to push myself outside my comfort zone and attend a writing convention.  I’m even more happy that my first experience with a writing convention was Boskone.

    If you get a chance, you should get to Boskone56 next year.  You won’t be disappointed.  It’s the longest running fantasy and science fiction convention in New England and worth traveling to experience.  Maybe I’ll see you there!

     

    Did you attend Boskone55?  If so, what was a highlight moment for you?

     

  • Great Gift Ideas for Writers

    Great Gift Ideas for Writers

    As if I haven’t already read about 50 blog posts on this very topic, here I am throwing up a blog post about great gift ideas for writers.  Why? Because it is after Christmas, and now the pressure is off and the sales begin.

    If people I know are anything like me, they flew out the door on the 24th for a frenzied, unpleasant, angst-ridden gift-buying binge and hated every moment of it. (Oddly, I got all my shopping done this year with a full week to spare. Who am I?!) The last thing most people I know are going to want to do is to head back out and “hit the sales.” I know that thinking about doing that sort of thing makes me start to sweat and not in a good way. However, it’s the season to be thinking about gifts and buying stuff, so while it’s fresh in my forebrain, why not use this blog post to generate a list that I can direct people back to later on in the year at other appropriate gift-giving moments?

    Do remember that “great” is a relative term here. This is MY list of gifts that, as a writer, I would love to get any time of the year on any occasion for any reason! The list is not arranged in order of preference either. I’m creating it as things come to me.

    Quick disclaimer: I am not sponsored by or getting paid by anyone for recommending or for using any of the products I put on this list. These are entirely my own thoughts and ideas.

    1) Fountain Pens (for old-school writers)

    Fountain Pens for Writers
    The Pilots are the four on the left of this picture.

    You had to have seen that coming. I continue my obsession with fountain pens. Most writers like quality writing implements, but not nearly enough of us own a fountain pen. I own many, and I write with them all the time. I’m also not rich or really anywhere even close to that descriptor, so I can’t recommend an expensive pen, although I’m hoping to treat myself to a gorgeous retractable fountain pen as a grad school graduation gift this summer.

    Anyway, I recommend the Pilot Metropolitan fountain pen as a gift for the writer in your life.  These pens have metal casings and a nice weight in the hand. The caps post well. They come in a variety of attractive covers. The disposable ink cartridges are inexpensive and easy to find, and if you’re cheap like me or are equally nerdy about inks like me, the disposable cartridges can be rinsed out and then refilled with other inks using either a plastic pipette or a glass eye dropper.

    2) Notebooks (for all writers)

    Notebooks for Writers
    I find a certain pure joy in the sight of a crisp, blank notebook.

    This is another obvious choice for a writer friend. I caved and bought myself two new (super cheap) notebooks for myself at Five-Below this year, because I have a teensy obsession with notebooks (see previous post here). I also found a few with pre-generated writing prompts. I got several identical copies of these and am going to be giving them to members of my long-distance writing group. The idea is that we can partake in a story-swap. I’m envisioning it a little like a book club, where once a month we all take the first prompt in our notebooks and write a piece of flash fiction off of it, then send it to each other. It’ll keep us all writing, keep our creativity-muscles in good shape, and keep us connected. Win-win-win, and whatnot.

    3) Faux Old-Fashioned Typewriter Keyboard (for whimsical writers)

    Keyboard for Writers
    Come on! A wireless, digital keyboard for a tablet that pays homage to its own humble beginnings?! Fabulous.

    Part of me knows this is sort of a stupid gift, but that doesn’t change the fact that I grin like an idiot every time I look at this adorable if impractical device. My dad owned an ancient, high-backed Underwood typewriter when I was a kid. He showed me how to use it and then left me to play school, and secretary (sad, I know), and then to start typing stories on that old machine. Therefore, this high-tech-low-tech gift pushed my nostalgia button hard. In practice, it would probably end up annoying the heck out of me due to how small the keyboard is, and it doesn’t look all that easy to transport without snagging the keys and popping them off on stuff. But, seriously, just look at it! Isn’t it cute?  

    4) Gift Card to a Hip, Local, Coffee Shop (for… hip writers?)

    Odin, hear my prayer, please no more gift cards to Dunkin Donuts or Starbucks or Panera Bread. Okay, Panera Bread, maybe, but not the other two. Ask your writer friend where they like to go to write and, assuming their answer is a coffee shop of some kind, hit up that spot and get them a gift card for MORE THAN ten dollars. Come on people; make it worth it, please.

    4) Books (for humans)

    Duh! This is the absolute no-brainer. And, by the way, books are just about the best gift idea for anyone, anywhere, at any time, for any occasion. Giving someone a great book kills so many birds with a single stone. Reading will improve the receiver’s brain, give them an awesome extended experience, and give them something great to talk about to other people. Books as gifts support the creative person or persons who wrote the book, designed the cover, etc. Also, buying books sends a message to the marketplace that books are a product worth creating, and maybe that will have a trickle-down effect for all of us. Maybe? That last bit could be a naive thought on my part.

    Now, please, don’t just take a shot in the dark.  And don’t buy them a book that YOU would like to read and so you figure they would, too.  Take the time to find out what books they want.  If they have a Goodreads account, check out their “Want to Read” list.  If that isn’t a possibility, how about you just flat out ask them?  You might be thinking, “But then they’ll know what I’m getting them for a present,” allow me to speak on their behalf for a moment: They don’t care.  They will love the gift even if it’s not a total surprise because it’s something they WANT.  

    5) A Contigo® Travel Mug (for environmentally conscious writers)

    This ties back to the gift card to your writer friend’s favorite haunt. Give your writer a way to nourish their caffeine habit in an environmentally friendly way.

    Specifically, I adore Contingo® travel mugs.

    Coffee Mug for Writers
    This is the model I have, but in green.

    Testimonial – This past year I made myself a cup of tea to sip out of my Contigo® mug on my drive to work at 7:00 am. It was scalding hot, so I set it in a console cup holder to cool and completely (I mean completely) forgot about it. That afternoon, at 4:45 pm, I rediscovered it when I got into my car to go home. The tea in the travel mug had cooled just enough so that I could sip it without burning myself. Now that is an impressive mug!

    I learned a lesson that day, too. I now make my tea, then add four ice cubes as I’m heading out the door so that I can enjoy my hot beverage on my actual drive.

    6) A Coffee Bean Grinder (for coffee drinking writers)

    If writer friend likes coffee, this is a great gift idea. Freshly ground beans make for significantly better tasting coffee than preground beans do. Also, it opens up the possibility of them trying out (or being gifted) unique gourmet bean blends. I own both a hand grinder and an electric grinder. Confession, I use the electric one more than I use the manual one, but only because it’s quicker and more convenient. The manual grinder does a better job of grinding the beans evenly.

    Regardless, whenever I find myself in the rare and luxurious position of being alone in my home with a few hours of isolation available in which I can read or write, one of the first things I do is brew up a rich, quality cup of high-end coffee.

    7) Noise Canceling Headphones (for writers with children)

    Bose makes a $300 pair; I saw them in the Apple store and just about choked at the price. But you know what? I tried them on and, by Freya, those suckers were incredible!

    Wireless Headphones for Writers and Creatives
    Just look at her, being all productive and creative with her noise-canceling headphones on!

    As a writer who struggles to close out the world when I’m writing, this gift would be fantastic! There is literally a hole in the wall above my writing desk through which the dulcet tones of my playing/bickering/crying/screaming children echo to me as I attempt to immerse myself in another world. Noise canceling headphones would be a much-appreciated gift. But beware, not all “noise canceling” headphones do a good job of actually canceling out noise. If you’re going to commit to this gift idea, pay for ones that work!

    8) Magazine Subscriptions (for writers of short fiction)

    In what genre does your friend write? You should know this, but if you don’t, find out. Also, ask your aspirational writing friend, “In which magazines do you dream of getting published?” The pinnacle, prestige publications. Buy them a subscription to any and all of them.

    The first step toward them achieving their dream is to read from those magazines often. However, yearly subscriptions can be pricey. I have a bucket list of amazing magazines in which I dream of one-day publishing, and I’d be delighted if someone bought me not just an issue but a whole year’s subscription of any of them. That would be incredible.

    9) A Wicked Good Bag (for on-the-go writers)

    Bags for Writers
    Aren’t they sleek and lovely?

    I have owned both backpacks and messenger bags. I personally prefer messenger bags. Not sure why. Just do.

    My current bag came from Barnes and Noble. A pretty good bag considering the price, and I’ve loved owning it for three years now. It’s just… starting to look its age, I guess. The heavily stained, frayed-at-the-edges canvas exterior has lost some of its attractiveness. It’s still quite functional, though. I would be so hesitant to spend money on a new one. I mean, who cares if it’s starting to look like something I found half-buried beside an abandoned set of train tracks, right?

    Bags for Writers
    This bag just begs for adventure!

    Anyway, a woman who coaches in the same Science League that I coach in was sporting just about the best bag I have ever seen in my entire life. It’s by a company called Peak Design

    Pause: Leather satchels that look like they’re meant to be perched across the back of some gorgeous adventuring archaeologist are my ultimate fantasy bags. My fantasy bags would not hold up to real life practicalities, however. The Peak Designs bag would, though, and you have to admit that they are also gorgeous in a completely different way than the Indiana Jones bags.

    10) A Writer’s Retreat or Convention (for all writers)

    Writers Retreat
    “The Writers’ Retreat” by Grant Snider, an illustrator and cartoonist who draws the online strip “Incidental Comics.”

    The gift of a retreat would be a huge gift, a truly grand gesture. It would be (in my opinion) the penultimate gift you could ever possibly give to a writer. It’s like buying someone a cruise. Heck, I know of several writers retreats that ARE cruises. So… just sayin’.

    What’s great is that there are retreats suited for all types of writers.  What’s sad is that while most of us will yearn and pine and dream of attending a writers retreat, most of us will never follow through and go.  There are logistical issues to attending a retreat. Circumstances must be taken into account. Childcare? Time off from work? Travel considerations?  Before offering up this diamond ring of a gift to the writer in your life, make sure it’s something they both really want to do and could logistically do.  If you’re not sure about how to “shop” for the perfect retreat, check out this excellent post: Making the Most of Your Writing Retreat by Janalyn Voigt over at LiveWriteBreathe. 

    If my beloved surprised me with a week-long writer’s retreat, I would probably get as excited as the day I… well, never you mind.  Let’s just say I’d get very, very excited.  

     

    So there you go.  A few ideas of fantastic gifts you could get that special writer in your life and have it be very genuinely appreciated.

    Your Turn:

    Think long and hard. What would you love to get as a gift in the context of you being a writer? Share in the comments. Ideas are more than welcome.

    Happy writing to you!