Once upon a time! . . . later.

February, 1860. Workers break ground for the world’s first underground railway system, that will soon cut through the heart of London — and threaten the secrets that lie beneath.

For centuries, fae have dwelt in a shadowy mirror of the city above. Now, at last, their sanctuary is crumbling. The Queen of the Onyx Court has gone into seclusion, fighting to maintain their defenses, and in her absence, her subjects run unchecked. The filthy, gas-lit streets of Victorian London are their playground and battleground both, in a conflict between ancient magic and modern industry that will force them to an inescapable choice: flee, adapt, or be destroyed.

When I said Midnight Never Come was a stand-alone novel, I meant it. And I still do.

But I figured out how to write a sequel . . . 270 years later.

The blurb above is pure, unadulterated hand-waving. I know roughly the ideas I want to toss into the stew of this novel, but not the specifics of what I’m doing with them, because right now you are witnessing the very embryonic stages of a book. I thought this idea up all of eight days ago, proposed it to my editor all of seven days ago, and got it approved this afternoon. I have not yet begun researching it. But I can’t bring myself to hold off on announcing it until I’ve worked out the finer details. (Like, you know, a title1.)

So what am I really saying? That I’ll be writing another historical London faerie fantasy. (That I am indeed a sucker for punishment.) That the book will be set in the later Victorian period, and will concern any or all of the following: the London Underground, Queen Victoria, spiritualism, imperialism, Charles Dickens, Spring-Heeled Jack, class conflict, the Industrial Revolution, and Christina Rossetti’s poem “The Goblin Market” — plus assorted other things I don’t even know about yet.

Stay tuned to this space for the further adventures of Good God I Really Have Gone Crazy.

—–
1 – Courtesy of certain friends, the tongue-in-cheek working title is Karl Marx and the Faerie Proletariat.

an odd reaction in fandom

By now, everybody’s heard that Dumbledore is gay. That is not, I promise, what this post is about — just the inciting cause of the post.

To entertain myself, I took a brief look at Fandom Wank, wondering what kinds of reactions they were rounding up. (Answer: pretty much the ones you’d expect.) The only link I really followed was one to westeros.org, where they were discussing the issue of “interview canon.” And there I found an attitude that really raised my eyebrows.

I’m paraphrasing here, because several posts I saw raised this point, each one phrasing it differently. But the reaction was something to the effect of, “Authors shouldn’t create canon in their interviews; it should all be in the books.”

Um.

Step back for a moment and look at that. Authors shouldn’t create canon . . . .

Imagine you are a non-fanfic-writing-individual. An author you like gives an interview. They reveal — in response to someone’s question — a detail about the story you didn’t know before, be it that so-and-so is gay, so-and-so grew up in a home with seventeen cats, so-and-so really likes mint chocolate chip ice cream. What is your reaction? Me, I’d think, “oh, that’s interesting,” and enjoy the sense that there’s a real world the author is writing about, that exists beyond the simple words on the pages of the books.

Now imagine that author answering such questions with “Eh, I don’t know.” Makes the world look like those old Hollywood facades, doesn’t it? A pretty front with nothing behind it. What you see is what you get. Kind of boring, really.

Authors shouldn’t create canon in their interviews.

That statement contains a giant roaring assumption that just boggles me: that fanfiction is some how an end goal for what an author does. That authors should be taking the desires of fanficcers into account when writing their books, when talking about their books, when answering the questions of fans. Why? Because apparently it makes things more complicated for the fanficcers, having to track what got said when and whether or not it should count as canon.

If the comments had been phrased in the vein of, “man, now we have to debate whether or not to count that as canon,” I wouldn’t mind. It’s a problem for the people writing fanfic; let them decide how to handle it. But the accusatory tone I saw in some of the comments . . . how inconsiderate of J.K. Rowling, to create canon in her interviews. Apparently she makes a habit of this. The nerve! To know more about her characters than she wrote into the books! To share that information with people when they ask!

Fandom wankery, indeed.

Okay, I’ve got it.

Okay, I have my thoughts in order now. For those of you just tuning in, this is about an anonymous comment left on my journal, which I feel to be very wrong-headed, but against which I was having a difficult time assembling my arguments. I can’t promise conciseness, exactly, but I’m aiming for coherence, which is what I was lacking before. And thank you to everyone who commented, often making points along these same lines, which helped me go “yeah, that’s what I was after.”

To recap:

It seems to me that a lot of books these days throw in a mixed cast for the hell of it, to be PC, to try to please everybody. Some stories are just Man Stories; some are just Women Stories. Could you imagine a random female having been thrown into, say, DELIVERANCE? The whole idea is silly. I say you should write a story as it is–if it’s male adventure, then that’s what it is; throwing in a woman won’t make it different or better.

We can leave aside the triple use of the eyebrow-raising notion that writers “throw” such things into their stories “for the hell of it.” I want to talk about the gender politics here.

First up: “Man Stories” vs. “Woman Stories.” This presupposes a notion of stories being ineluctably “male” or “female” in their point of view, intended audience, whatever. Presumably “Man Stories” involve blowing stuff up, while “Woman Stories” are touchy-feely. But I’m likely to suggest watching Die Hard, while my husband will vote for When Harry Met Sally, so clearly that’s not universal. Does this make me a bad woman, and him a bad man? Gendering stories like that just reinforces the ideology that as men or women we “should” behave in certain ways, have certain tastes, etc. And that has pernicious knock-on effects in the long term.

Next: the suggestion that “a random female” doesn’t belong in Deliverance, or whatever male-focused story you want to substitute in there. (Hint: “a random” anything doesn’t belong in any story.) I’m not terribly familiar with Deliverance, so let’s take the example from comments in my other post, that of Wellington’s army on the Peninsula in the 19th century. Granted: soldiers of the time were all-but-universally male, and the fact that the occasional cross-dressing woman did end up in the army doesn’t mean you should shoehorn one into the story out of some misguided notion of gender parity. But is that the only approach? Armies were surrounded by laundresses, prostitutes, local women, officers’ mistresses, wives following their soldier husbands, and a variety of other individuals of the female persuasion. Not every story will involve such people, true; a focused short story about one soldier comforting another as he dies on the battlefield might have just two characters, both male. (But does the dying one have a fiancee or wife? Are there women picking over the corpses around them?) Arguing from extreme cases is pointless, though. More important is the general picture: that while the soldiers of the time were male, writing about a 19th century army while ignoring all that supporting cast perpetuates a fallacious notion, namely, that Manly Man Soldiers don’t need or have wimmen in their lives. They did and do. Or, to state it more broadly: it perpetuates the fallacious notion of women’s irrelevance to history (or the present day).

From there: if your story is set in a secondary world, you own what you created. And I don’t mean the copyright. I mean that you have made choices; you are responsible for them. Does this mean you should create only utopian societies where everything from gender onward is peachy keen? Of course not. That would be boring. But if you set it up so women are insignificant to your story, then can you explain why? Are your reasons good? I could tell you why there are so few men in Doppelganger, and while my reasons have a certain amount of validity, I’m not thrilled with them. I’d probably handle it differently now. But the point is, I own those choices; I’m the one who made that world and told that story.

All of this, of course, applies just as well to race, etc.

And in conclusion: little or nothing of what I’m saying here applies to the book this all started with, because I don’t think these fallacies are what was at work in that writer’s mind. My anonymous commenter simply happened to post in reply to that entry. There may be a connection in his mind (I’m assuming it’s a him), but not in mine.

commentary invited

Normally I wouldn’t single out a commenter on this journal for public (and communal) rebuttal. But in this case, the comment was posted anonymously. Now, maybe the person in question just doesn’t have an LJ account, and didn’t realize that it’s generally appreciated for such people to sign their comments. On the other hand, maybe not.

The comment was posted in response to my issues with The Lies of Locke Lamora. Here it is, in its entirety.

It seems to me that a lot of books these days throw in a mixed cast for the hell of it, to be PC, to try to please everybody. Some stories are just Man Stories; some are just Women Stories. Could you imagine a random female having been thrown into, say, DELIVERANCE? The whole idea is silly. I say you should write a story as it is–if it’s male adventure, then that’s what it is; throwing in a woman won’t make it different or better.

So: either an honest person who didn’t realize they should sign their comment, or someone hiding behind anonymity because of the substance of said comment. Either way, I don’t much care who it was, because I’m not looking to attack the person behind the words; I’m looking to attack the words themselves. Because I think this statement is very wrong-headed.

Here’s why I’m posting it: I know how I feel about the statement, but I’m having trouble articulating why. The thoughts are there; I just can’t catch them and make them settle down as words. (Not efficiently. I could maunder inefficiently on about the essentializing notion of Man Stories and Women Stories and the popular straw-man of “just to be PC.” But nobody wants to read four pages of me trying to get to the point.) So I turn to you, my mighty LJ readers, to help me out on this one. I know there are any number of you who could go to town on the fallacies of that comment, and I invite you to do so.

That way, the next time this comes up, I’ll be able to articulate my arguments against it more concisely than I can right now.

oof.

If the last two days of work have not precisely slain the Paper Monster, at least they have dealt it not one but several Mighty Blows.

See, the Paper Monster can’t actually be killed. I turn my back, and the next thing I know it’s sprouted more bills and class papers and critiqued drafts and scribbled-on bits and oh wow I never even opened that envelope. But it can be beaten into submission, at least temporarily.

My mistake was letting it grow so big this round. But it grew, and then I was moving, and then I was in England, and then I was noveling, and then I was getting married. The results were predictable, and entirely my fault.

On the other hand, I have a floor again. And maybe this time I can even keep up with my filing system.

Hah. Optimism.

bits of book news

I’ll use my MNC icon, because two of the three have to do with that book.

First of all, the website for Chapters (Canadian book chain) now lists Midnight Never Come for sale, with a release date of June 9th. Amazon, though, has yet to post it.

Second, I got a proof copy of the front cover today, and it is indeed very pretty. They appear to have decided to do the title in gloss rather than foil, while the gloss on the floral pattern may or may not go away. The color is a lot richer than it seemed on the screen.

And thirdly, I finally have some concrete news about the intended reissue of Doppelganger and Warrior and Witch. The intent is to put them both out in August of next year, with a new cover for Doppelganger (to make it match W&W better), slightly different cover detailing for both, and — perhaps the biggest change — new titles! (I’m not positive yet what those will be; I’m waiting to see if my suggestion goes over or not.) The idea is to make them look more obviously related, since there’s frankly nothing on the cover of W&W as it stands that tells you it’s connected . . . until you read the back cover and get a giant spoiler.

Okay, back to work.

open letter

Dear Brain,

Why?

No, seriously. I know I asked you for ideas. But did you have to come up with this? I don’t know if you remember, but we just did the research thing a few bleeding months ago. Is that really what we need to be doing again? I mean, come on.

Yes, it’s a shiny idea. But still.

Okay, okay. Yes. This might be a good thing. Let me sleep on it, okay? STOP PESTERING ME. I have a game tonight, and need to stop thinking about the Shiny! If it really is shiny, it’ll still be shiny tomorrow. You know how this works by now.

So yeah. Knock it off already.

With slightly murderous affection,
–Your Writer

fans

Not the sort who send you e-mail or ask for autographs; the sort you hold in your hand, for cooling yourself.

Does anyone have a recommendation for how to hang folding fans on a wall in a manner that won’t damage them? The one time I’ve done it, I’ve put in two small nails just inside the outermost sticks, below the fabric, but that warped the fabric where the weight was resting on the nails. I’m looking for a better solution. (All I can think of is nails on either side of the pivot pin, but they’d have to stick out awfully far, and I’d still probably need small nails at the top corners to keep it open and flat against the wall.)

the previous post, condensed

If you list off the years in which the events of Elizabeth really happened, it looks something like this (with parentheses for the fuzzy dates):

1555
1554
1555
1558
1559
(1568)
1559
1579
(early 1560s)
(early 1580s)
1582
1570
1581
1560
1571
1586
1569
1572

. . . not quite what you’d call chronological, ne?

so how accurate is it?

With Elizabeth: The Golden Age opening today, I have decided that now is a good time to post about Shekhar Kapur’s first installment, the 1998 film Elizabeth. Researching Midnight Never Come gave me an interesting perspective on it; I can now recognize what is and is not historically accurate in it. (Short form is: much of what happens is true, but not in that order and at that time.)

So for the curious, I offer up this glossing of the film’s historical accuracy, with footnotes and educational precepts for the wise.

(I shouldn’t have to say it, but I will: here be spoilers aplenty. Don’t read on if you don’t want to see them.)

First, a note on the visuals. Kapur’s commentary track on the DVD is very interesting, and chock-full of information on such things. He recognizes that the Elizabethans did not in fact live in bare stone rooms (they preferred wood well-padded with tapestries and rush matting), and also that fashion did not follow precisely that trajectory. Those elements are as they are for thematic reasons.

Now, going more or less sequentially through the film:

Cut for stupidly long length; don’t say I didn’t warn you about that, either

I am (not so) mighty; hear me roar

Back to the gym today, for the first time in . . . a while. Man, I’ve been really bad about it, this last month or two.

Interesting article, snurched from Neil Gaiman, regarding the genesis of the notion that fat is bad for you. As he says, the most interesting thing about it is the insight into how people think and behave — the whole “informational cascade” thing. The actual discussion of nutrition is less compelling to me, except inasmuch as it helps me not flip out about what I’m eating. On the whole, my views on the matter remain unchanged: I figure I should eat more whole grains and more vegetables, and think twice about dessert.

And, of course, exercise. Hence going back today. I haven’t slipped as much as I feared, which is good. But I can tell I’ve gotten softer around the middle — all that candy and rich food will, indeed, get to you.

But I’d still rather focus on working out than what I’m eating.

Interview me!

So, here’s the deal. My publisher wants to include an interview with me at the back of Midnight Never Come, and I’ve been give the go-ahead to let the interviewer in question be you, Gentle Readers.

They’re looking for me to answer 7-10 questions about writing in general and Midnight Never Come in specific. I figure I’ll solicit questions from everyone, pick out the most popular and/or the most interesting, and send those in; the ones I don’t answer for the book, I may well post on my website as a bonus.

So post your questions in comments! Try to keep it writing- and/or this-book-related (no questions about my secret life as a Cambodian mortuary-worker-turned-spy), and try to post it by next Wednesday (the 17th) at the latest. (I need to send my responses to Orbit by the 19th.)

Here we go . . . .

Updated to clarify: Feel free to ask more than one question, and to repeat other people’s questions (since that’s how I’ll judge the popularity of a given topic).

hello, brain, my old friend

We’re up to 442 words on “How Heroes Fall” (its other possible title). Which doesn’t sound like a lot, but since this will consist of a bunch of vignettes around a theme, it’s a decent amount; it’s two vignettes out of some unknown total — maybe eight or ten.

This is, without a doubt, the most artsy-fartsy piece of crap I’ve ever written. My one hope is to make it good enough to remove “crap” from that equation. (Ain’t nothing gonna redeem it from artsy-fartsy-hood.)

I had all three of my e-mail accounts down to thirty e-mails or less when I went to bed last night; they’ve bounced up a bit since then, but not much. The fact that ninety unanswered e-mails counts as brag-worthy progress tells you what state they were in before.

I’m in a weird state right now. Not enough motivation to get anything done, but enough brain to want to get something done. Can’t figure out what to do with myself. Answer e-mails? Grade? Those would be useful. Write? Read? Watch something? Those would be entertaining. Clean up the house? I really ought to. But I can’t settle down to anything, it seems.

Meh. Stupid temperature dropping like a rock. We skipped right over the first two stages of fall, it looks like, and went straight to grey and dismal.

more help needed

Nearly a month ago, I posted soliciting suggestions for readings I could use in a course proposal I’m putting together. With the wedding and mini-moon in my wake, the time has come for me to revisit this, and put the finishing touches on it.

anima_mecanique and intertext came the closest to guessing the course topic: historical fantasy. Specifically, I’m choosing out seven novels set in various historical periods around the world, all of them more in the vein of “real history with magic slipped in” rather than “alternate history.” (Which is why His Majesty’s Dragon is not on the list.) The six I’ve chosen for sure so far are:

  • Euryale, Kara Dalkey (Republican Rome)
  • Sky Knife, Marella Sands (Classic Maya)
  • The Fox Woman, Kij Johnson (Heian Japan)
  • Ink and Steel, Elizabeth Bear (Elizabethan England)
  • On Stranger Tides, Tim Powers (Caribbean piracy)
  • Territory, Emma Bull (Old West)

I need one more to start the course off with, something set in human prehistory. Clan of the Cave Bear was the first thing that came to mind, but I’ve never read it myself, and I’m not sure it has what I need. So: can anybody recommend a novel of “prehistoric fiction” that includes fantastical elements as literally true? I know Reindeer Moon by Elizabeth Marshall does, but I was underwhelmed by that book; I’d like to begin with something really good.

Also, I need nonfiction readings. (I’ll put those requests behind a cut so they don’t take up too much space.)

(more…)