More on UF as a genre

Okay, a couple of quick things first:

First, and most importantly. Last night I noticed Mrs. Giggles--whom you all know I adore--linked to my Jade Goody entry and wrote an excellent and very informative post about Pap smears and the types of cells/cell abnormalities found in them. It's well worth a read; great information there. But more importantly, Mrs. G. makes a point that I neglected to make: whether or not you are sexually active, you should be getting your pap smears annually. I don't care if you're a nun, once you reach a certain age--Mrs. G suggests 18--you need to do them. And she is 100% correct. I'm ashamed that I didn't mention this myself. Please...get the test, whether you're having sex or not. I need you to live so you can buy my books. :-) (No, seriously, buy my books or don't, but get the test. It could be the most important thing you ever do.)

Second, this will be my last bloggy-type blog post for a while. Thursday I'm just going to post some scheduling/update things and possible freak out a bit more. Next Monday the movers are coming; I will probably pop in for a very quick post, as I plan to open the blog to reader recommendations, which I'd like to start doing once every few months. After that we'll be in transit for the next few weeks.

Third, we had a lovely time in London this weekend. Got to meet up with fellow writer, the excellent Kaz from lj, and have a couple of drinks on Friday night, and share some giggles and gossip. Unfortunately, thanks to the vagaries of the transit system on Sundays, I did NOT get to see my friend Yeyo from lj, which I'm very unhappy about; she's been a good friend to me for almost seven years, and I'm heartbroken that I didn't get to say goodbye to her and her wonderful hubby in person. But we did get to the British Museum and the Natural History museum, and to just be in London one more time; I do love London. Sigh.

Okay. Remember my post about UF as a genre, and how it's changing? I had no idea when I wrote it that the post would be such a big deal; it's still getting comments and was actually quoted in an NPR interview with Mario Acevedo, which was pretty exciting.

Anyway. Like I said it's still getting comments, and I want to address a couple of those here in a new post.

First, a very nice lady posted the URL to her UF/paranormal mystery Yahoo group, which I haven't joined yet but fully intend to. At the time she posted they had over 400 members, all avid readers. So groups like that are, IMO, great places to join and be a part of, in addition to reading blogs like Urban Fantasy Land (of course!) and Bitten by Books, or livejournal groups like Urban Fantasy Fans. (And please, if you belong to or know of another fan/reader community, leave it in comments!)

Second, I had quite a few comments about the level of sex in UF, or where the line is between paranormal romance and UF. This is a really interesting question for me, because I know the Demons books come pretty close to straddling that line. In my mind they're UF, because although the Megan/Greyson relationship is a big part of the first book (and figures prominently in future books), ultimately the book is about Megan vs. the Yezer & the Accuser. She has to defeat the Accuser on her own. It's about her and her story and how she changes, and the second is the same.

The Downside books are definitely UF. There is some romance and some sex--I'm going to get to the sex part in a minute--but ultimately Chess solves the mystery and Chess has to fight the bad guys, every time. She may get a little help from her friends, and she may fall in love along the way, and she may deal with a lot of issues related to her sexual or relationship choices, but in the end it's just her doing what she has to do. And the romantic subplot stuff is a much smaller part of the books on the whole (with the possible exception of the third book, which it looks like we now might be calling SPELLBOUND GHOSTS.)

Now, one of the most recent comments the entry got was this:

I hate picking up a UF (and sometimes a SFF novel) and finding a thinly veiled romance. I am simply not into romances as a rule and really don't care to read about someone having teh hawt sexxorz.
While I appreciate that people head in the UF direction precisely because of the copious sex and romance, it is not for me. I have even taken to picking up a book in the store and skimming page by page counting the sex scenes and considering the length of the scene. 0-1 is ideal, up to 3 dependent on the length and detail. Anything above that is an automatic 'no'. I have no problems with relationships, searching, acquiring, troubles and what not. It can provide interest. I like things to be a bit more realistic than the standard romance instant lurv. I just wish books were better labeled. I have picked up novels listed as paranormal romances and found a great story with little to no sex and a more or less realistic approach to relationships. I have also picked up books labeled Scifi, fantasy or fiction with more insta-lurv and sex than a skin-a-max late night movie marathon. Hence the page by page skimming in the store. This is not to say that I haven't purchased books with, in my opinion, too much sex, I have. The story just has to be very good and I can just flip past the areas that to me, aren't important. These are very rare. I do have to laugh at myself though, wanting realistic relationships in novels which have nothing to do with reality.

I was going to reply to this in the comments but it interested me so much I thought it would be a good separate entry in itself.

First, I've gotten a few comments along the lines of "There's too much sex for me." And what troubles me about it--one of the things, anyway--is the way the commenter always seems to feel kind of sheepish about it, or like they expect to be attacked. Guys, there is no reason in the world why anyone, anywhere, should have to apologize for their reading tastes. Never. Ever. (Unless you like reading kiddie porn or something, of course.) But just because you don't want to read erotica? You have every right not to read erotica if you don't want.

I'm kind of the opposite, because I won't buy a romance if there's no sex scene and I'll skim in the store for that. :-) If there's no sex it goes back on the shelf. And I don't apologize for that. As readers of The Strumpet Series know, I believe sex scenes are important; I outlined my reasons in this entry specifically. In a nutshell, though, they are that I believe sex scenes--if well-written--show us something about the characters and their relationship that we couldn't see any other way, that they are fulcrums on which entire plotlines and character arcs can shift, and that leaving them out in essence hides things from the reader and leaves them out of important parts of the story.

But let's be honest. Not every sex scene is going to do that. They should, but they don't always. And let's be honest too, some readers just don't find them interesting or appealing. I think that's a shame, because I believe a well-written sex scene is a thing of beauty and adds a lot to a story, but I would never tell anyone they HAVE to read them if they don't like them.

But I do think this points to the other thing which troubles me, and it's one where I think those blogs and groups I linked to above can help. Because UF is a fairly new genre--which is to say, it's been around for a long time but has just gelled into "UF," everyone seems to have a different idea of what exactly it is. There are people who believe UF is exclusively first-person heroines, for example. There are people who believe that if a human is in love with a paranormal creature, it's a paranormal romance no matter how much or how little of the book is devoted to the relationship.

So it's hard to label the books correctly. It's hard to know exactly where to look and what to look for. I've seen a few people who feel PERSONAL DEMONS is a paranormal romance rather than UF.

The thing is, what used to define genre romance was the HEA--the Happily-Ever-After ending. That separated romance from anything else. But now there are books sold as romance that don't have it. There are books sold as UF that do.

And the level of sex isn't really a good indicator of genre either, as the commenter pointed out. PD has one sex scene; DEMON INSIDE has two. UNHOLY GHOSTS and the further Downside books have at least one each; two at the most. Because I do believe they're important; they're part of the story. But PD skirts the line of paranormal romance whereas UG doesn't at all, I don't think.

All of which is a rather long and convoluted way of saying this is a complex issue, and one that will probably get more so as time goes on, which is why groups and blogs and communities are important.

I dislike the mislabeling of books in general. Books should be easy for readers to find; you should get what you want without having to hunt around too terribly much. While I am absolutely an advocate of trying new and different books, it's hard to try new and different books when you don't know where those are either. This is why I want to open the blog to recommendations on Monday and why I want to keep doing so on occasion; it's why I recommend various genre blogs and groups.

But I'm really interested in your thoughts on this. How do you as a reader decide what genre is which? Where do you make the distinction? What do you look for in UF and how is that different from what you look for in para romance, if you read both?

Like I said if you know of a UF group or blog that I don't have, please leave it in comments. I'd like to keep specific titles out of this one, as we'll do that next week and hopefully that thread will keep going while I'm away.

So you tell me. What do you think?

Some news and things

Okay, I have a few bits and pieces today!

First, yes, I am pleased to announce a deal has been made for a third Megan Chase novel. From PM:

Stacia Kane's DEMON POSSESSED, the third book in her Megan Chase paranormal romance series, to Paula Guran at Juno, by Chris Lotts at Ralph M. Vicinanza (US).

I'm very excited about this third book; I think it's going to be a heck of a lot of fun to write, and we're going to answer a lot of questions and resolve some Big Things in it. I don't have an exact release date but Paula and I are hoping for early spring 2010; since you guys had to wait so long (and waited so kindly and patiently) for the second book we want to get the third one out as quickly as we can. It's going to keep me pretty damn busy for the next few months, but that's a good thing.

I also have cover art for DEMON INSIDE, the second book in the series:




I just finished copyedits for that book last night, and was pleased overall with the story and writing; as I've said, it's darker than the first, and believe me if I'd realized when writing it (I wrote it before PERSONAL DEMONS was released, remember) how popular Malleus, Maleficarum, and Spud would be I would have tried to feature them more heavily, but in DEMON INSIDE edits Paula and I both tried to see ways to give them a little more on-stage time and just couldn't; there just want's room. They're still there, of course, and two of my favorite moments in the book involve them, but you MM&S fans will have to wait for DEMON POSSESSED to get a massive fix of the Misters Brown; the book was plotted before PD came out, too, but I missed the Misters myself, when writing DEMON INSIDE, and so was really happy that the events of DP will give them plenty of room to play.


I have some sort of stomach bug or something that the Faerie brought home from her school, and so feel lousy, ugh. And I was going to do something fun today but since I have news and a cover to post I'll hold on to it until next week.

Could have sworn I had something else, though, but... I guess not. So there you go, anyway. There will be a third Demons book next year--less than a year from now, in fact, is the plan--and the second book has a cover as you can see above.

drumroll...Cover & Copy for UNHOLY GHOSTS...drumroll

OCTOBER 27, 2009...







THE AFTERLIFE IS ONLY THE BEGINNING.

The world is not the way it was. The dead have risen and constantly attack the living. The powerful Church of Real Truth, in charge since the government fell, has sworn to reimburse citizens being harassed by the deceased. Consequently, there are many false claims of hauntings from those hoping to profit. Enter Chess Putnam, a fully-tattooed witch and freewheeling Debunker and ghost hunter. She’s got a real talent for nailing the human liars or banishing the wicked dead. But she’s keeping a dark secret from the Church: a little drug problem that’s landed her in hot and dangerous water.

Chess owes a murderous drug lord named Bump a lot of money. And Bump wants immediate payback. All Chess has to do is dispatch a very nasty species of undead from an old airport. But the job involves black magic, human sacrifice, a nefarious demonic creature, and crossing swords with enough wicked energy to wipe out a city of souls. Toss in lust with a rival gang leader and a dangerous attraction to Bump’s ruthless enforcer, and Chess begins to wonder if the rush is really worth it. Hell, yeah.




(squeeeeee! I LOVE this cover so much I want to marry it, look how awesome!!! It's lost alittle clarity as I had to shrink it in my cheapo Photoshop knockoff program, I think, but...squeeeee!)

So Jade Goody has died.

Of cervical cancer.

At the age of 27.


Cervical cancer is one of the slowest forms of cancer there is. If caught early, cervical cancer is nearly 100% treatable.

But Jade Goody's cervical cancer was not caught early. You know why? Because Jade Goody was unfortunate enough to live in England, where regular (not annual, I hasten to point out, but regular, by which the NHS means every three years) pap smears are not given to young women until they reach the age of 25. Twenty-fucking-five.

Many forms of cervical cancer stem from strains of HPV, HumanPappillomaVirus. HPV is a sexually transmitted disease.

That's why in the US, pap smears are recommended for all women once they become sexually active. Because sexual activity automatically increases your risk of HPV exponentially. And because even without HPV, you are still at risk (I get irritated when I see people behaving as though HPV is the *only* cause of/risk factor for cervical cancer. It's NOT) once you become sexually active.

A loose scan of my memory gives me the names of three or four of my female friends, including myself (I'll get to that in a second) who were treated at one time or another for cervical dysplasia--precancerous cells on the cervix. To a woman treatment was short and simple, and fairly non-invasive. Easy.

Pap smears save lives. Period. End of fucking story.

At least, it's the end of the story for Jade Goody, dead at twenty-seven, leaving her two small sons behind. Who wants to be the one to explain to those boys that their mother is dead now because England couldn't be bothered to spend the money for a simple test that would have saved her life? And, far worse, that rather than simply admitting they can't afford it but urging women to get them anyway, by not even recommending the test until age twenty-five they imply strongly that the pap is a waste of time, that there's no point in getting one before you hit twenty-five, even in a country with one of the highest teen birth rates in the world (Goody surely could have afforded private insurance or to get the test on her own, but she'd been told it was unecessary)? Which would certainly imply a very high rate of teen sexual activity, wouldn't it? A country which decides to save money by crushing the lives of young women and treating them as though their health is unimportant, that the pap smear is unecessary and silly? Do you want to explain that to them? I sure don't.

It's not just paps, either. Right after we moved here my husband asked his doctor about getting an annual physical. At thirty-three, with histories of cancer and heart disease on both sides of his family, he'd been getting annual check-ups for three years as recommended. The doctor laughed at him. "Oh, yes, well, that's just insurance companies in America wanting to make more money," he said. "You don't need an annual check-up until you hit fifty."

(No, this is a different doctor from the one who told him, when he went in with bronchitis and could hardly breathe, "You look healthy enough. Give it a few more days, and if you start coughing up blood come back." But the point is the same, isn't it?)

So Jade Goody is dead at twenty-seven, because she grew up in a country that told her pap smears were a waste of time. Whereas I consider her death to be a waste of time; time she could have spent raising her children and living a life.

I got my first pap smear at eighteen, because I knew I was supposed to get them once I became sexually active; it was something which had been drilled into my head by teen magazines and Health teachers and the world at large. Because I didn't have health insurance I went to Planned Parenthood and paid $35, if memory serves (they bill you on a sliding scale there. Years later I also went to PP for an HIV test, don't remember what I paid for it; I didn't think I was at risk for HIV and I wasn't, but I am a bit of a hypochondriac so wanted to be certain.) It wasn't too bad; it didn't really hurt or anything. They sent me my results; all clear.

I got another at nineteen. Another at twenty, and twenty-one. Twenty-two I skipped, but went again shortly after turning twenty-three.

That's when they dinged me.

I had moderate-to-severe dysplasia, confirmed by a biopsy done with a colposcopy (which is like a really bright light and a dye or something that shows the doctor where the "bad" cells are during the examination so he can take samples from those spots). My gynecologist--a fantastic man who went on to deliver both my children--booked me in for a LEEP biopsy, whereby a loop of wire with an electric current running through it was used to remove the cells. The only really unpleasant thing about it was the lydocaine shot; not painful, but I had an uncomfortable reaction to the lydocaine. It took about an hour.

I did not have HPV, by the way.

I went back every six months for the first year or two to get another biopsy & colposcopy. After three years I was considered "clean" and could go back to regular annual paps. Those have been clean too, ever since, although of course I've only had one since I've been (not pleasant; no chair with stirrups, you have to lie down, tilt your hips up and spread your legs, with no little paper blanket or anything, which is both uncomfortable and undignified) here because history of cervical cancer or not, the NHS considers women's health to be unimportant (another friend of mine came up against a stone wall when trying to get a mammogram at thirty-five, after every other woman in her family had been disganosed at various times with early-onset breast cancer.)

My other friends who'd also had cervical cancer, who'd had crosurgery (freezing) or LEEPs like I had or cone biopsies? All had the same outcome. One incidence; closer checkups after, eventually sliding into regular annual checks again. We were all very lucky to live somewhere that paps are taken seriously. We were all very lucky indeed.

We were also all, to a woman, under twenty-five.

The youngest was eighteen. The oldest was me, at twenty-three.

Think about that for a minute. If I had grown up here instead of there, I might very well not be alive now. I might be alive but without my two children; had the cancer spread I probably would have ended up with a hysterectomy.

Dead or infertile by the age of twenty-five. All of us. All because in order to save money the NHS pretends there's no point in doing a test, an important test which has been proven to save countless lives. Think for a minute about the women you know; have any of them had it? How old were they?

There's been a movement here since the Goody diagnosis to lower the age for pap smears to twenty, in accordance with what the other UK countries do. Which is better, but not enough.

Pap smears should be done annually once you become sexually active. End of story. On a message board a little while back some women were having a discussion about this, and one was saying (at twenty-one, I think) that she was terrified to go get the pap, that she cried at the thought of anyone who wasn't her fiance seeing her ladyparts, that she was panicky and sick and blah blah blah. And you know, I felt bad for her; I can't imagine what that kind of fear would be like. It's not one I've ever had. A doctor is a doctor. To me it's no different than having my hands examined.

But I told her something. She didn't like it and probably still thinks I'm a big old bitch for it, but I didn't apologize then and I won't apologize now, because it's true. If you're not mature enough to suck it up and get a pap smear, you are not mature enough to be sexually active.

Seriously. Responsibility is part of it (the same holds for birth control). Pap smears are part of being a grown woman and not a child. I have two daughters, and you bet your ass they're going to get their paps every year when the time comes, if I have to drag them in and hold them down on the table myself. Because they are so, so, so hugely important.

It's just too bad the NHS doesn't think so. And that now another young woman is dead because of it. I never watched Jade Goody on TV or really knew very much about her; reality TV isn't my thing, in general. But I am absolutely furious that she is dead, when she didn't have to die. I am furious that her government killed her by pretending she wasn't at risk for a disease which strikes thousands of young women every year. I am furious that they behave as though my experience and the experience of so many others is unimportant or an aberration; I cry to think of all I might have missed had I been born and raised here instead of America.

A young woman is dead today, of an entirely preventable and treatable illness. And I feel sick about it. And I hope the NHS does too, because they should be fucking ashamed of themselves.

PLEASE, if you are reading this and you are female, or if you're reading this and you know some females :-), PLEASE encourage them to get their pap smears. Please. It is so important.

NOTE: Last night I noticed Mrs. Giggles--whom you all know I adore--linked to this entry and wrote an excellent and very informative post about Pap smears and the types of cells/cell abnormalities found in them. It's well worth a read. But more importantly, Mrs. G. makes a point that I neglected to make: whether or not you are sexually active, you should be getting your pap smears annually. I don't care if you're a nun, once you reach a certain age--Mrs. G suggests 18--you need to do them. And she is 100% correct. I'm ashamed that I didn't mention this myself. Please...get the test, whether you're having sex or not.


(I'll be in a better mood tomorrow, I promise, and I'll post the OMFGAWESOME cover and back copy for UNHOLY GHOSTS, and you do not want to miss those!!!)

Some thoughts and updates and stuff

So. It occurred to me earlier that my blogging is going to be a bit sketchy for a while.

Our move is almost upon us. We leave the UK in about three weeks. I am totally freaking out.

Here's the thing. I *hate* change. I am the only person I know who once seriously considered giving up a promotion at work because it meant rather than being downstairs, my desk was upstairs. It took me a couple of weeks to get over that. No, really. Two weeks of feeling sick at work, and wrong, and missing my old cubicle buddies (who, let me emphasise, I still had plenty of contact with).

At another job, they redecorated and I cried about it. No, really. (Privately, of course; I didn't snivel where people could see me. But it just felt so wrong. It wasn't the same! It wasn't familiar! Waaaah!)

So as you can probably imagine...I am having a difficult time. I haven't slept more than four or five hours at a stretch in over a week (and yes, part of this is the aftermath of finishing the book). My stomach is in knots. Tears constantly tingle the back of my eyes; everything is changing. Our girls will have their last days at their respective schools in a few weeks; we're dropping off letters to the administrators confirming it and all that. We're going places and thinking "We're probably only going to be here X more times."

Have I mentioned that I'm totally freaking out and that I HATE change?

It's not that I'm not excited. I absolutely am. I can't wait. It's not that I don't think we're doing the right thing, because I absolutely do. And while there will be some things I'll miss...yeah, not that many, really. (Except fish & chips. Oh GODS how I will miss that, because I love it so much. Okay, that's making me want to cry.)

The worst part about all this freaking out? It's making me a bit...odd. I had the same issue before our wedding; about a week and a half beforehand I, who am (is that right? it doesn't seem right, but "is" doesn't either. This is a perfect illustration of my point, btw) usually pretty good at picking up on others' moods/attitudes, become totally incapable of doing so. I literally cannot tell if someone is joking or being bitchy or what. This makes me irritable. I don't like the way it feels.

Anyway. All this wordiness can be summed up with; I am not a happy camper at the moment and am thus trying to tread lightly. Please be gentle with me?

It can also be summed up with the following:

*I will be away next Thursday

*I will try to keep my regular Mon/Thurs schedule but can't guarantee it; as we get closer to the time I will be freaking out even more, which is boring to read about, in addition to having all kinds of stuff to do (including actual work; I still have an April 1 deadline)

*I will probably NOT be around, here or elsewhere, from April 7th-April 17th or so. I will try, but we'll be traveling for most of it. (This is actually one of the things I'm totally excited about; we'll be in NYC briefly and I get to have lunch with Agent Man, and lunch with editors, and meet the absolutely amazing people at Del Rey and Pocket, and I'm really, really so excited about it I might scream like a little girl).

*I'll try to check in at least once when we stop off at my Mom's place for a breather.

*I will be at the Romantic Times convention in Orlando; I arrive April 21st. I will be at the big EC party Wednesday night, I will be at the Saturday signing. The League of Reluctant Adults is doing a Club RT event Thursday morning with some great prizes; I'll be there. I'm doing a panel on creating an online presence on Friday at 12:30 (I think). I'll probably be in the bar the rest of the time.

*After RT I'll be visiting family and friends; so again, more sporadic posting. I hope to be all settled and ready to be Back by the second week in May.

You guys are going to totally abandon me, aren't you? I'll be gone so long you'll just forget about me. Sigh.

Anyway. I *will* have my BlackBerry the whole time, so I will still be reachable by email, but seriously. If it's not really important, you probably won't get much of a response if any (it's hard to type on that tiny keyboard. Easier than texting on a regular phone, yes, but still). Please don't take it personally if I don't reply; I have no idea how much time I'm going to have. That doesn't mean you shouldn't feel free to email me. Please do if you like. It just means I might not be able to reply.

So there you go.

Have I mentioned that I am totally freaking out? Seriously. Panic.

Thoughts on finishing a book

I was going to blog today--well, tomorrow, actually, because it's 12:25 am right at this moment--about pantsing, and how sometimes really cool stuff just appears, and I've had two incidences of that in the last two days and it was awesome. And I might go ahead and blog about that at the League in the morning; I probably will.

But right now...right now I feel awful.

I just finished the book.

It should be a good thing. And it is, really. Finishing a book is a Good Thing. We *should* finish books. Especially contracted books.

But this one--new title DEVOURER OF GHOSTS--is the third Downside book. The last contracted Downside book. And I have no idea if I'll get to write more.

I certainly hope I will. I hope the series is popular enough, sells well enough to justify another contract. But there are no guarantees, as we all know; especially not in this business.

So right at this moment, instead of celebrating, instead of gleefully sitting back and having a cocktail, I am bereft. Totally and completely.

Sure, I'm not done done. I have edits. I have a subplot to strengthen and a Baddie to make badder. I have copyedits for DOWNSIDE GHOSTS. Heck, I have edits and line edits and copyedits for this book. It's not like I never get to visit this world again, or play with these characters I love so much--and I do, I really, really love them. I'm looking forward to actually reading this book first page to last, as I haven't done that yet.

But I don't know how much more playing I'll get to do. I don't know if I'll get to create new stories for them, to expand what's there. I have some scenes already waiting in my head, some plot twists and moments and scares; I have no idea if I'll ever get to write them. I have full plots for the next two books, in fact, including an entire weeklong ceremonial celebration complete with blood sacrifices and roaring fires and haunted streets...and I might never get to write any of it.

Intellectually I know I'll get over it. That after a few days I'll have found something else to work on--I'm actually 17k into a new project and I am looking forward to making some heavy progress on that--and, hey, if things don't work out I can spin those ideas into a new world and it just might work, right?

Intellectually I know I feel this way when most of my books end. It's worse for the non-series books, when you really *are* done with those characters when you write THE END. I've never cried after finishing a book until now, but I usually feel like it. Writing a book takes an enormous amount out of a person, or at least, out of me. By the time it's done I'm usually sort of a drooling goon, unable to think or talk about anything else, unable to see anything else, I'm so focused on bringing a good ending home; my eyes burn, my hands ache, my right arm is sore from moving the cursor, my knees stiff from being folded in one position for so long. I haven't gotten a solid night's sleep in a week; I wake up three or four times, jerked from dreams in which the characters act out scenes in my head. It's always like that for me as the book starts wrapping up, but this one has been worse.

So I know all this. I know I'll get over it and be okay, that I'll go to sleep now and wake up feeling much better and ready to start editing. But it doesn't help, not right now. Not when I'm facing saying goodbye. This is the series that got me an agent and my first NY deal; the one that paid for us to go back home in a few weeks. And I just love it so much and I feel so lonely and uncertain.

The part that was up to me, the real heavy lifting, is done. I know pretty much what needs to be done in edits. Aside from the subplot and strengthening it's just fine-tuning: fiddling with sentence structure, eliminating redundancies, etc. I've done what I can do, what I needed to do, and I'll continue to do so, but soon it won't matter at all. It won't matter what I think or how I feel. Because the book will be out there, in the hands of readers (um, or not, which of course is the real fear), and what they think of it will make all the difference. That's scary. Very scary. This is a very dark series, about drugs and poverty and ghettos; in this climate, are people really going to want to read about my punk-rock ghetto no-hopers? I sure hope so, but there's no way to tell, is there.

So there you go. My unvarnished thoughts on finishing a book, specifically this book, which is the last book under contract. I hope I get to write more. I want to write more, desperately.

But I might not get to. And it's hard to think about and it makes me sad. And that's where I am at this moment; just sad. And hopeful, and nervous, and scared, and wishing I could start it all over so I don't have to say goodbye.

Sorry, everyone. I'll have cheered up by Thursday, I promise.

New Secret Sunday Snippet from UNHOLY GHOSTS

...is up over at the Livejournal, so go check it out!

I'll be deleting it first thing tomorrow morning, probably around 2 am EDT, so...get it while it lasts. :-)

Tomorrow I'll be crowing about the joys of pantsing and the new title for the third Downside book.

What does silence mean?

While spending a few minutes checking my lj friendslist yesterday, I came across Jim Hines's post about some big race discussion that's apparently been happening right under my nose and I wasn't paying attention.

I've seen this mentioned in passing elsewhere but given that I was on two deadlines and am trying to make heavy progress on a new project, AND have agreed to participate in a Mentoring program at the Romance Divas forum (yes, I am a mentor now; scary, huh?), my internet time has been even more limited than it usually is. Well, hell, I don't have to tell you guys that; I've been blogging regularly for, what, three years now?, and missed two scheduled posts last month because I simply didn't have time.

So I don't know what all this is about. I've spent some time following links but am still rather confused about the whole thing. And frankly I'm not sure I want to know; I avoid internet drama whenever possible, so generally when I see posts that seem to be referring to such things, at best I skim them.

There are subjects we don't approach here on the blog. We don't generally discuss politics, as you know; and if you're new to the blog, you might want to check this short post about keeping the blog light and fun, or, especially, this post about why politics are not a part of my blog and never will be. (Interestingly enough, I discovered a link to that post a while ago from a gentleman who referred to me as "that person" and said I was wrong because those of us who are educated and know the facts have a responsibility to educate others. Which amused me highly, it really did; I especially liked his bland and arrogant assumption that people who disagree with him or anyone else do so because they're stupid and uneducated, and not because they simply have different values or ideals or, you know, their own minds. And thus need to be lectured by someone who views himself as so much more clever and informed and valuable than they are; another one who must be a real hoot at parties. Which illustrated to me the point I made in that post perfectly. Anyway.)

In fact, that political post is pretty helpful as background reading here, I think. Because again, the purpose of this blog is to be fun. To have fun. To entertain. Yes, I do posts about writing and publishing, and those are meant to educate--but hopefully in an entertaining fashion. I don't see it as my job to tackle big issues or be some sort of guru (even if I actually thought myself capable of being such). I don't see this as a place to expound my political or religious or moral or whatever views--we do dip into morality on occasion, yes--because I want the blog to be an inclusive place where everyone feels welcome. Everyone. Because you are. I think and have long thought that my readers are awesome; smart, friendly, fun people, and that we're always happy to see someone new pop in and comment. There are too many places where that doesn't happen; where new commentors are ignored, where commenters who disagree with the blog's admin are ripped into and made fun of, are called names, are followed back to their own blogs and picked on there. Where questions are answered with vitriol and respectful comments with insults. This is not one of those places and it never will be. I hate those places. No matter who runs them I have never liked them, and avoid them.

All this is my way of saying that I genuinely had no idea all this drama was happening everywhere.

And I say that because in following some of the links left in Jim's posts I noticed several people bemoaning the lack of comments or support by fantasy writers.

I hardly think I'm important enough to count. I am essentially unknown; I'm not a "big voice" in any genre--I'm hardly a voice at all. So I really don't think anyone is watching me or my blog and being disturbed by my silence, but I'm going to break it anyway simply so there will be no doubt.

And really, my link-following has only skimmed the surface. I don't know how the discussion started or who did what to whom and why; I have an idea based on the bit of reading I did but how it all snowballed and blew up everywhere I don't know. And I'm not posting this in order to take sides or join the fray.

And I will say this as well. I love this blog and I love my blog readers. They are wonderful, warm, intelligent people. I'm not going to tolerate people coming here and starting shit with them. I doubt that will happen. But I'm saying it anyway.

So here is my basic statement. It's based on what I've read and it's based on seeing readers wondering why more fantasy authors haven't spoken up (and to be fair, I am certain that the vast majority of my pals have no idea this is going on either). I don't want there to be doubts and questions about why I haven't said anything. It's because I didn't know. And now that I do I am going to say something, but again, this isn't a topic I wish to have endless discussions about. I'm not joining anything. I'm just saying my piece, because even the small ampount of reading I did showed me that some truly horrible things have been said and done and I don't want there to be any doubt that I disapprove of such things.

Judging people or stereotyping them based on the color of their skin is wrong. Implying, even if you mean it kindly, that all people of a particular color or ethnicity think or feel the same about any given issue is wrong; there is as much diversity in minorities as there is anywhere else. Because we're all people.

Treating people like shit is wrong. Treating them as though they are less than human, as if they exist for your personal gratification, as though their feelings don't matter and you can just do whatever you want to them, is wrong. Ignoring the possible consequences of your actions on another person's life and/or livelihood is just wrong.

Threatening people is wrong.

Taking petty revenge on people is wrong.

Refusing to listen to other people is wrong. Discounting them and/or their veiwpoints because you don't agree or don't like what they have to say is wrong.

Judging people or calling them names simply because they don't agree with you is wrong.

We're all human. And being human means we're kind of scummy. We all have thoughts of which we are not proud. Whether it's socialization or simply the fact that at heart we all still have a greedy little "Mine! MINE!" baby who is jealous and hateful, we ALL sometimes have thoughts of which we are not proud. The human mind is a bizarre and wonderful and terrifying thing.

When I was three years old I grabbed a metal spoon from a kitchen drawer and bashed my brother over the head with it. For no reason, at least not that I can recall (I actually don't remember the incident at all). He was just sitting in a chair watching TV.

What was going on in my mind? I don't know. What I do know is, I had a thought--to bash Ray over the head with the spoon--and I acted on it. Today, I might still have the same thought; one of those crazy things that just pops into your head, like wondering what would happen if you walked up to a stranger in public and said, "You know what? I fucking hate you," and walked away, or if you pushed someone for no reason, or any number of crazy things that pop into my mind and I am pretty sure pop into everyone's minds at one time or another. But today I would not act on it. I might be secretly amused or horrified, but I wouldn't act on it. Because I'm not three anymore.

I believe racism, sexism, discrimation or whatever in any form, among reasonable people, are the same thing. We ALL have unpleasant, embarrassing, or downright hideous thoughts from time to time. Hopefully not many; hopefully not too bad. But you can't control the crazy, unlike-you thoughts that pop into your head, any more than I can control the fact that once every few years I dream I kill someone and am trying to hide the body, and the sick, horrible sense of shame and despair that dream engenders, and the intense relief on waking and realizing I have not in fact killed anyone (this generally leaves me feeling great for days: I didn't kill anyone!)

What you CAN and SHOULD control is the expression of those thoughts. And what you can and should control is how you react to having something you said commented on. You offended someone? Just apologize. Why do we all need to be right all the time? What difference does it make, really? Even if that's not what you meant. Even if you think the people interpreting your words are batshit crazy for thinking that. Just apologize. Try to figure out how or why you offended them. And let it go. Period.

It's easy. It doesn't matter. You can still think you're right, even, if you insist. But just apologize. It's not being a doormat. It's not admitting you're a racist or sexist or you discriminate against unattractive people or mice or Weeble-Wobbles. It's just apologizing, and everyone gets to move on. And I think if we all consider it we'll realize that most of the big problems in our lives could be avoided if we'd just quit having to be fucking right all the time and allow other people to think and feel their own thoughts, in their own wacky brains, where they are at any given moment probably contemplating running naked through the office or fucking the elderly receptionist or peeing in the hallway, because those are the kind of loony uncontrollable musings their brains create. (What? I can't believe I'm the only person in the world who's ever wondered what people would do if I peed in the hallway. You know, acting as though nothing was wrong and everyone does it; just lean against the wall, lift my skirt and push my panties to my knees, and have a go right there on the floor. I'd never actually do it, of course. But I can't be responsible for the bizarre fantasies in my head--as long as they remain in my head--and neither can anyone else.)

It's not pleasant to be called on those thoughts. It's not pleasant to be called a sexist or a racist or a sizeist or anti-gay or whatever else, when you firmly do not believe you are and do not want to be. But it's also not pleasant to be the one on the receiving end of a comment or action that hurts or offends you, or makes you feel less than human. So in that situation you have two hurt and confused people, and the best thing to do is for the one who did the hurting, no matter how inadvertent it was--and we've all hurt people inadvertently, every one of us--to apologize. "I'm sorry. I really didn't mean to hurt you." It's very easy. Note that there's no "I'm not a purple-jean hater!!" outrage attached to that. It's simply "I'm sorry."

And it goes both ways. The one receiving the apology could also apologize thusly: "I'm sure you didn't mean it that way, and I didn't mean to hurt or insult you, just to point out that your comment could be construed in a way you didn't intend." See? Again, it doesn't matter who's right or wrong, or what anyone meant. What matters is both people have been accorded the dignity every human being should be accorded, and both parties have a chance to move on with dignity, and reach a new and deeper understanding.

This is what being an adult is, to be frank.


And that's basically it. Like I said I'm not aware of the whole discussion. And to bring myself up-to-date would take hours and hours of time which I frankly do not have. In fact, not only is it time I don't have, but I get the distinct feeling that those hours would be spent growing more and more upset and disillusioned and frustrated and sad, and would leave me unable to focus on work or anything else, and I still have two books to finish and a website to build and an apprentice to mentor. ("Apprentice" is the term the program in which we're participating uses.)

And really, does it matter if I know the whole story or not? I've said my bit. I'm tired of anger and entitlement and the idea that other people don't matter. I'm sick of seeing it everywhere. I don't want to see it anymore.

Every person sitting in front of a keyboard and typing out all those words with which you disagree? They are people. Human beings. Maybe we could all remember that? Just try to keep it in mind, is all. There's no excuse for treating them like they're something less than that. Less than you. Less than anything. I avoid blogs and forums where people are treated that way. I avoid blogs and forums where being vicious to other people is encouraged. Those are not places I want to spend my time.

I write about pain. I write about isolation and disillusionment and the utter and complete lack of belief that life is worth living. I write about blood and magic and filth and evil and death. I write about abuse and hatred. I write about loneliness and misery and secrets and the uncertainty of life and people who have nothing but honor, people who can't connect with other people, people who bleed rivers of pain if you cut their skin.

Quite frankly, my worldview is already twisted enough; there's plenty of misery floating around in my head already. I don't need to go find more. That's why I try to keep the blog a positive place and that's why I avoid getting into arguments etc. online, and avoid visiting websites and blogs where people are regularly turned into cannon fodder.

And I guess that's it.

The Books are Out There!

Sigh. Sigh, sigh, sigh.

So, lately I've been seeing a lot of posts and comments and discussions online relating to the idea that ALL urban fantasy has become samey and dull. That it's all circling the were-vamp drain, full of designer labels, with the same worlds and characters and plot devices.

And it puts me in a little bit of an awkward position, in a way. Because I totally, totally, TOTALLY disagree, but saying so makes me feel a little...weird. Like I'm putting readers down--which I never, ever want to do, ever, because readers are awesome--or jumping up and down in front of them screaming, "But, ME!! And ME! Look at ME!!" Which I also do not really want to do.

But, um, look at me. :-)

No, no. I'm going to talk about my books a little bit, yes. But really I want to talk about other writers' books. And I want to talk about how my opinion and image of urban fantasy is exactly the opposite: I believe the genre is about to make a huge, expansive leap, that the days of urban fantasy automatically equalling hot chicks in leather weilding guns and fucking vampires or weres are done with.

And here's where it might sound like I'm scolding or yelling at readers, but that is not the case at ALL. Not one bit, never. But guys...the stuff is out there. The books are OUT THERE. They are. They're coming. They're in stores now. They're in pre-release. They're being signed by agents and they're being bought by editors and they are in the works, and this genre is about to explode and I honestly believe that's the case.

But you have to look for them, and you have to know where to look.

It's not your fault, darling reader. It isn't. You buy books based on a recommendation, or you see a cool-looking cover or read a review or whatever. And that's the way it's supposed to work. You don't have time to play book detective and spend hours running around the internet looking for unfamiliar authors. And nobody expects you to, least of all me.

But here's where I think the problem lies. You, as a reader, know what sorts of things you like, and I think in a way the system itself is geared to make sure you stay in your little reader box, if you know what I mean. Say you buy Caitlin Kittredge's excellent Second Skin, which was just released and you totally should be buying immediately because we all know Caitlin is the awesomest. Anyway, you make this very sensible purchase. Say you make it from Amazon. Now, what does Amazon do? Amazon shows you more books about weres, because Amazon assumes you like books about weres.

This would be the case with any book you buy. But given that, yes, there are a lot of were & vamp books out there, and given that they sell well if they're good (like Caitlin's are)...it can seem as though that's ALL that's out there. Because it's all you're being shown.

I think the crossover between urban fantasy and paranormal romance is an issue as well. There are people out there who dislike UF because it doesn't have that HEA (Happily Ever After, for the uninitiated) ending which is so necessary to genre romance. And you know, if genre romance is what you're after then I totally understand that. You want a HEA ending. If that's what you want it's what you should get; it's what you as a reader deserve. Why should you have to read something that isn't what you want or are looking for? You shouldn't.

But I can't help thinking...maybe if you tried a non-HEA UF or two...you might find you don't mind the missing HEA so much. You might be happy to wait for it, to get involved in a long and complex emotional relationship (not that genre romances don't have complex emotional relationships, that's not what I'm saying) that spans several books. Why not give it a try? Because if you're looking for paranormal books outside the vamp/were area, UF has them in spades, and you might be surprised by the emotional depth of the stories.

And that goes for the fantasy fans who are unhappy that UF has too much emphasis on romance, that they are somehow a "girl's genre" because the heroines have sex and look for love. Well, you know what? UFs have romance in them because whether you personally feel that way or not, the vast majority of people want romance in their lives. They want to find someone to share their lives with. They want to find love. Hell, they want to get laid. I'm always stunned when I see or hear people comment that they don't like romance in books; to me it's like saying you don't want romance in life either (and by romance I simply mean love and passion, not flowers and soft music, neither of which I particularly like). These are basic human needs, people; why should UF heroines be any different? Most books, in any genre, have some sort of romantic subplot. What's wrong with that?

And, why is it that books written by women are judged by the amount of romance or sex in them, but books by men aren't? Harry Dresden's looking for love; I don't see anyone putting those books down. In fact, it sometimes seems as though UF written by men doesn't even figure into the equation when people talk about samey UFs. The Dresden books are nothing like Mark Henry's fantastic zombies; Mark del Franco's Connor Grey books aren't like Anton Strout's Simon Canderous books; Charles de Lint isn't John Levitt. And none of those books are like my PERSONAL DEMONS, or Jackie Kessler's HELL'S BELLES, or Richelle Mead's SUCCUBUS BLUES. They're just not. At all.

It just frustrates me a little, I admit, to see the genre I love so much reduced to "They're all alike; they're all just rich vampires who own nightclubs and sleep on designer sheets," or whatever. When there are so many stories and world and characters out there, and so many more coming. When I personally feel like we're on the cusp of something so much bigger. In June Caitlin's STREET MAGIC comes out; a fantastic, fantastic urban fantasy about mages and magic and a hidden London, with one of the sexiest UF heroes I've ever read--no, make that THE sexiest. In November (yes, we get to me now) my UNHOLY GHOSTS will be released, and I'm sure you can all recite with me what the book is about: punk rock, greasers, ghosts, black magic, blood rituals, witchcraft, drug dealers, ghettos...and not a were or vamp in either of them. My cast is all-human, baby, with a few ghosts thrown in for spooky good measure. So is Caitlin's. Nicole Peeler has a Selkie book coming out in the next year or so.

And I know there are more. Tons more that I'm just not thinking of at the moment.

Remember my "Heroes" series? The simple fact is, books about dull people doing nothing out of the ordinary don't sell. They just don't. Do you want to read a book wherein your neighbor sits around watching TV all day? Do you want to read a novel about a complicated tax question? No, probably not.

And I firmly believe there is not another genre out there where the characters are as unique and exciting, the world as intricate, and the stakes as high as urban fantasy. And I firmly believe that in the next year or so we're going to see the fruits of all those books that came before; they way they fired our imaginations and made us think of possibilities. Sure, there will always be a place for vampires and weres, because there are readers to buy them. I love vampires.

But weres and vampires are not the only characters in UF. Not at all. You just have to look for others. Visit the League of Reluctant Adults. Check out the Fangs Fur & Fey community on livejournal. Visit the fantasy section at the bookstore if you usually just buy romances, and vice versa. Branch out. Ask people. Ask booksellers. Tell them what you want, like, for example, that they should order twenty or thirty copies each of STREET MAGIC and UNHOLY GHOSTS for all of their stores, because you're going to get all your friends to rush in and buy them the day they're released.

They *are* out there. You just have to look for them.

The Movie Time Capsule. Or something.

Hey, so I can't think up a good title today, so what?

Actually, titling is an issue I'm having these days. I'm 2/3 done with the third Downside book and it is still saved in Word as "Chess3" because the title I originally planned, CITY OF GHOSTS, was apparently a major film a few years ago and I'm leery of using something with that many Google hits. So that needs a title, bad.

I'm also just about 1/2 of the way through a new project which Agent Man and I both love, which has no title. It's currently saved as BLOOD AND FAE, which is not really very good. Especially since both blood and Fae figure in the plot, it's not really about either of those things.

So anyway. The hubs and I were discussing titles in the car the other day, which led to movies, which led to movies that piss us off for one reason or another, which led us to A League of Their Own.

I hate that movie. I really, really hate that movie.

Or rather, I hate the ending of that movie. It pisses me off like almost nothing else.

What message are we supposed to take from that horrible ending, where in order to make her bitchy, miserable sister happy--to give her happiness she doesn't deserve, as she is loathesome--the Gena Davis character throws the championship? Is my heart supposed to be warmed by that? Am I supposed to think that's sweet?

Or am I supposed to think that if the Gena Davis character were my teammate, I would have ripped her eyeballs out of her head with a teaspoon?

Or, am I supposed to think that when it comes down to it, women just aren't very good at competing, poor little dears, and they will always make emotional decisions rather than rational ones, and cannot ever get past their personal feelings and live up to their responsibilities?

Seriously. The fact that this ball of patronizing sexism was passed off as a movie for women to enjoy astounds me. It reads like something from a 70's anti-women's-lib screed: You can't trust women because they can't separate their emotions; you can't put them in charge of multinational corporations because they won't do what's best for the company, only for themselves; they're incapable of making sound decisions based on facts and not feelings.

And it was such a cute movie until then. I really enjoyed it. But what the hell good is it to have a movie where women are railing against sexism and determined to prove they can compete just as well as the men can--that all the silly little skirts and make-up tips are a big joke because women are tough and strong and can play a hell of a ballgame just like men--and then have the entire ending turn on the fact that at least one of them cannot in fact do that? So instead of having a film about how women really *can* do things, you have a movie about how women *say* they can do things but really are irresponsible and silly and will let their teammates down to make their sisters happy?

It just frustrates me and irritates me. Gena Davis's character had a responsibility and she threw it away--threw away the hopes and dreams of people who supported and cared about her--in order to please someone who clearly did not particularly care about her because she was too busy caring only about herself.

I think this is doubly on my mind of late because I'm dealing, in the third Downside book, with a lot more emotional crap than I have in the first two, as my MC struggles with the consequences of hurting other people emotionally, and realizes that she herself does have those inconvenient things called feelings and that she can't pretend she doesn't. So there's a lot of facing-up-to-things and a lot of thoughts and worries about feelings that, while they existed in the first book and a bit more in the second--Chess was never an automaton or someone so Tough And Hard she ate nails or anything like that--weren't really focused on then.

And it's difficult to find a balance, between trying to write an awesome, creepy, scary, exciting urban fantasy (trying to write, I said; I'm not claiming my books are any of these things although I certainly hope they are), and trying to write a book where people are having emotional issues and those emotional issues feel organic and real; which is to say, the characters think about them even at inconvenient times, and are confused about them, and hate having them, and want certain things emotionally and feel embarrassed and silly for wanting those things, and generally don't know how to deal with them. Especially as they're emotional issues with which the characters have never dealt before, and that makes them vulnerable.

How do you decide which decisions are practical and which are emotional? How do you handle making an emotional decision when you know you should be making a practical one but can't help yourself?

For me the difference is in how the character themselves feel about the decision they've made. My biggest issue with that stupid League of their Own ending was that we as the audience were seemingly pushed into feeling that Davis made the right choice; her disgraceful, disrespectful, cruel little trick on the rest of her team was played off as the moral and caring choice. I found that offensive, personally; I wouldn't have had such an issue with the film had her character been castigated for what she'd done--the way she deserved to be.

So I work hard, generally, to show that there are consequences to incorrect decisions and that emotions breed complexity. You can't just tell someone you're sorry and have that make everything okay. You can't ask for forgiveness and expect to be given it immediately. You don't get to make all of the decisions in emotional situations involving other people.

It's a fine line to walk, I think. And I hope I'm walking it well, that my characters' emotional issues aren't overpowering the rest of the story but aren't suddenly disappearing and reappearing, leaving the reader to wonder what the heck is going on. I guess we'll find out.

How do you handle your characters' emotional decisions? What is your favorite book or film in which those decisions were made?

Guest blogger--R.F. Long

Note: regular blogging will resume Monday. Thanks everyone!

R.F. Long is a regular commenter on my livejournal, and an all-around great gal. So when she mentioned she had a new release coming up--The Scroll Thief, from Samahin Publishing--I invited her to pop on over and write me a guest post. Which she has done, admirably. Why not pay her back by buying her book? Check this out:

Love is the wiliest thief of all.

A Tale of Ithian

Malachy and his sister rely on his talents as a thief to survive the dangerous streets of Klathport, former capital of the once-great kingdom of Ithian. Stealing a few papers should have been a simple job. Instead, it nearly costs their lives and throws them into an improbable alliance with a shape-shifting official, a desert tribeswoman, and a healer of enchanting beauty.

Cerys is far more than a simple healer—and the roots of her mission go deeper into the past than anyone can know. She needs Malachy’s skills to recover a stolen scroll, one that can be used to rewrite history and, in the wrong hands, release the dark powers of the Demon Realm.

Her mission was supposed to atone for a dreadful, long-ago act. Instead, it unleashes a chain of events which sees them pursued through city and desert by the fearsome Dune Witch and a killer known only as His Lordship. Romance, tragedy, and adventure blend in a tale of a magical land on the brink of war, and five unlikely allies who, by putting their lives—and their hearts—on the line, have the opportunity to finally set things right.

But at a terrible cost.

Awesome, right? So go on! After you read the post, of course. Or, no, you can go buy it and come back later, that's okay too.


Fantasy World Building

I love it when a novel seizes your attention, when you just can’t put it down until you find out what happens next. Many factors contribute to this magic spell – plot, characters, conflict – but nothing will undermine it as quickly as world building which causes the reader to pause, to question and to scratch their head and go “huh?”
World building in “real world” novels is in many ways easier – it’s a matter of research and depiction, of filtering the appropriate information through the story without info-dumping it all on page one. There’s a shorthand to it that a large number of your audience will understand immediately.

But in fantasy novels its easy too, isn’t it? You just make it all up as you go along and hope for the best. You just have to know where to start.

Well, not really. I find that the world building that works for me relies strongly on consistent use of interlocking elements and determined questioning of the elements that make up the world. Just like plotting, an author has to sound like a four-year old, when it comes to every part of their fantasy world – Why? Why? Why?
When you’re creating a brand new fantasy world, or even offering a new slant on a very old one, it pays to consider the history and geography that have created the civilisations, the social, political and economic backgrounds which have brought about the current circumstances, the religious and magical developments which alter everyday life.

Do the different races live in harmony or are they divided? Are there social castes or a rich/poor divide? What sort of ruling class control each country? How would a hereditary royal court in a feudal society react to the rise of a militant theocracy in the neighbouring country? What if previously dormant magic was activated in a public manner, in a country in which magic is outlawed? What if someone could break a curse that has plagued them for centuries, by turning back time and destroying the culture which has developed since?

Many fantasies dwell in a pseudo medieval European world populated with fantastic creatures and magical beings, so beautifully defined and parodied in Diana Wynne-Jones “Guide to Fantasy-land”, which has led many modern writers to seek alternatives. This has led to a stunning diversification in the fantasy environments we encounter today – Lian Hearn’s Otori saga, for example, is set in a fantasy version of medieval Japan.

My novel, “The Scroll Thief”, draws on my honeymoon in Andalusia, the area of southern Spain which in the middle ages was the Moorish realm of Al-Andalus, known for magnificent architecture, sciences, medicine and poetry. We visited magnificent palaces and gardens, and when I came to describe the Realm of Ithian and its shabbier descendent of Klathport, I had the perfect starting point. The echoes of a war between such a place, ruled by the family of a Goddess incarnate and a more visceral, secular land to the north. And with that basic set up, the questions began – Why? Why? Why?

Of course in knowing when to start with world-building, a writer also has to know when to stop. No one likes an info-dump and too much world-building laid out by an over-eager writer, determined to introduce their reader to the fabulous new world they have woven. As much as you might research, develop, and no matter how rich the tapestry you might weave, not everything can make it into the story. Ultimately, many elements might never be used, not in this story, but they are there, backing up the rest, supporting the world built to house the characters and their conflicts, to allow the plot to play out. In the end, it’s time to let the world building stand on its own, and let the story take over.

A few things

Okay. First--and this is very exciting--Unholy Ghosts is available for pre-order on Amazon!!

Check it out!

Yes, as with Personal Demons, I will be doing fun contest-y things related to pre-ordering, listmaking, chat-topic-starting, etc. etc. And yes, if you do those things now you can enter them in the contest later. And yes, I will likely be doing the conest in the late summer/early fall--or whenever it is that I get ARCs--which means at least one if not more of you will be getting your hot little hands on a copy well in advance of the official release date.

Hee! Seriously, I am so excited.

I am also incredibly busy. I am halfway through the third Downside book at the moment and have set quite a lofty word goal for myself for this week; it's Princess's half-term week, which means I get to stay up a bit later to work.

So lofty is my goal, in fact....that I will not be here on Thursday. I just can't. I have set myself quite a task--30k words this week--and really need to get my butt in gear if I want to have this book finished by the end of the first week in March. Now, granted, my goal is actually 20k words on the Downside book and 10k on another project which Mr. Agent and I are very excited about and which I need to get out there quickly because, you know, we're moving in seven weeks (ACK!!) so after about the middle of March my working time is going to be severely curtailed.

So, sorry. I won't be blogging on Thursday. I may pop in with a quick little post if I have time but I probably won't.

And, sorry, this one is a bit short as well. I'd planned for it to be longer but I ended up getting caught up in something else for a little while and now it's almost nine PM and I have a LOT of work to do.

Sigh.

A novel in three acts: Act Three

So, here we have the final act. It's the easiest to write, but the hardest to write about; at least, I think so.

Again, before we go further, remember: this is my way, and the way of a few writers I know. It is NOT the way of every writer I know; it is not the only way; it is not an iron-clad rule or something which requires complicated flow charts (although the post Patrice Michelle linked to in comments for the last post, which was a post she wrote about, essentially, keeping a flow chart, is a great post and a great method for people who can work that way) or strict word-count deadlines (I'm using a 90k book as an example, and ending the acts at 30k, 60k, and roughly 90k, but you may vary by as much as 10k words or whatever and that's fine). No secret gun-toting Writing Police are going to show up at your home in the dead of night and arrest you for not doing this or not doing it properly or whatever.

These are just guidelines. It's the way I keep the story from getting away from me and the way I keep my pacing on-target. It's not something to obsess about. It's not something to force yourself to do. As Patrice said, if you're writing your first novel or your second or you're still feeling your way through this writing thing (which we all are to some extent, really, no matter how many books we've written), don't get all tangled up in this. You can always go back later and see how you've done and fiddle with it then.

Okay?

So. We've now written our first act, in which we laid out all of our clues and introduced our main characters, and we ended that act with a bang. We've written our second act, where we deepened our mysteries and conflicts, and added depth to our subplots. We also ended the second act with a bang; hopefully a hell of a big one, which turned everything around, but again, this depends on the book.

Our third act is about solving our problems. Whodunnit? What happens with our detective Jennifer's grandma in the home and her ex-lover? Does she end up with him again, or is she suddenly realizing she's got a thing for one of the cops or the drug dealer or whatever? What deadly jeopardy is Jennifer in--or about the be in--when the second act ends, and will she survive act 3? Will anyone? In comments to the last entry Patrice and I discussed how the information a character receives shouldn't come easily. It's not true for everything but for most of it; well, that's where your story actually comes from, right? The difficulties and complications of getting necessary information and/or aid? It wouldn't be a very interesting book if in Chapter Four Jennifer found an eyewitness who told her exactly what happened, and then they just went and caught the Bad Guy, right? (Unless you're going for courtroom drama, of course.)

Anyway. Patrice suggested that sometimes information is paid for in lives, or in giving up things which are important to the characters. And that's very true. So the question of whether everyone survives to act 3, and whether everyone will survive act 3, is a pretty big one. What is your MC going to lose in the climax? What will she gain? Is what she gains going to be worth it?

I digress. The point is, Act 3 is where everything comes together. All those subplots we started, and all those clues we planted, all those threads we expanded on? It's time to wrap them up.

And it's fun. The tricky thing about the third act, though, is making it fun and interesting for the reader as well. Oh, sure, they're going to be interested in your climax and the solution to the mystery or resolution of whatever the conflict is. (Personally, I adore those big Agatha Christie-esque "drawing room" scenes; I don't need a lot of action, I just want to read those slowly and savor them.)

But they're not very fashionable anymore, so usually what we end up with is a big action-filled climax, and I love those too. But you have to have raised the stakes high enough. And you have to keep enough tension going, enough conflict going, that it doesn't feel like you're ticking things off a list.

I generally up the pacing in the third act, which I think helps; shorter scenes. More active ones. A little less internal monologue. The reader feels the tension building, even if they're not conscious of it; they know something is coming, because the shorter scenes move the book along faster, and of course they're aware of how far into the book they've gotten, but it's pacing and increasing conflict which really works magic when we near the book's climax.

To me the third act is like knocking down dominos, for lack of a less-cliched image. I've set all these things up; I have loose threads waving in the breeze. Now I start grabbing them and tying them together.

In act 2 we had Jennifer place her grandmother in a nursing home, which happened to be run by the mother of one of the victims. Now is the moment when one of the nurses at the home can make a casual comment which rings a bell in Jennifer's head; perhaps Jennifer realizes the nurse had a heretofore unguessed motive to kill the first victim. And the second. (I feel guilty making a nurse the Bad Guy, btw; my mother is an emergency room nurse. Sorry, Mom. For the record nurses are AWESOME.) And of course, she had access to the drug which killed them both.

Now Jennifer has to figure out how to get out of the room and call the police. Perhaps the nurse twigs on to Jennifer's newfound knowledge? And insists that she take Jennifer's grandma to get a spongebath or something? And the director of the home, who of course has no idea, backs her up. Now Jennifer's grandma is a hostage, and Jennifer knows the nurse will kill her. Maybe the nurse thought Jennifer had figured it out before, and slipped something into Jennifer's drink.

This is all well and good; we have a climax. But we have other subplots which need to be tied up, and we need to do it before we get into our climax; not all of them, necessarily, and of course if we're writing a series we need to leave some open-ended questions, but some of them.

How you do this is up to you (hey, I warned you the third act was hard to write about.) For a 90k book, I generally start the real run-up to my climax at around 70k; in the above example, this would be when Jennifer arrives at the home. That way we're around 75k or so when she gets drugged and solves the mystery; it gives us some room to play. Your runup may be longer; my climaxes tend to be longer, involving as they do complex rituals and secrets and abandoned asylums full of zombies.

But if you've set up your first two acts properly, really, the third will essentially write itself. Honestly. You'll have some scenes and resolutions in mind; you'll have arranged events in such a way that logic will move you smoothly from one scene to another. And that is extremely important. The last thing you or anyone wants or needs is one of those blink-and-you-miss-it climaxes, or one where everything just falls into place and it ends up being more of an anticlimax than a climax. We've all read books like that, where we fly through 320 pages of excitement and then the hero shoots and kills the bad guy and that's it.

You don't want to do that. You want to make sure you planted enough seeds, and grew them, in the first two acts, that there's plenty of stuff to work with at the end. You want to try and tie at least one subplot directly into your climax; in PERSONAL DEMONS I had the msytery of Megan's past; it was a minor point throughout the book but without it the climax never could have happened, and it figured prominently therein. In our Jennifer example, without Grandma and her poor health we wouldn't have solved the murders. Perhaps Jennifer's ex is involved here somehow too? Maybe he calls her and she says something, an old private joke, which warns him she's in trouble so he can call the cops? However you do it, the key (IMO) to an interesting and fulfilling climax is to bring as many story threads as you can into it, and end them all with the biggest bang you can muster.

Here's the thing about structures like these. Whether you're using a three-act structure or a four-act structure or a twenty-two-act structure (NO, I've never heard of that and know nothing about it, ha) is that at some point, you have to stop setting your book up.

It has to stop. Your book cannot be 300 pages of setup, a climax, and an ending. Well, okay, if you want to look at it a certain way, that's what all books are, but you know what I mean and don't pretend you don't.

The longer your subplots are part of your story, the more interesting and surprising and satisfying their resolution will be for the reader. The more danger you put your MC in, the more exciting the climax will be for the reader.

A book where subplots and plots do not carry through all the way feels episodic; it's not a story, it's a selection of vignettes. This why I stop adding new subplots to the book after the first third (again, I may make an exception if a new character is introduced, but chances are that's actually more of a setup for the next book). Because at some point you have to work with what is already there. You have to deepen and expand what is already there. You have to sink into your story and work at it from the inside, rather than throwing more stuff at it from the outside.

And that's the other big thing (aside from pacing) this structure does for me. It forces me to work with what is already there. I can't write a deux ex machina, because I have to work with what is already there. I can't veer out of the story and suddenly decide to change the focus, because I have to work with what is already there.

It keeps my books focused. It keeps my mind focused. It keeps my pacing even and makes sure my middles aren't long saggy stretches of not-much-happening. It gives me discipline, and discpline is tremendously important for a writer.

So there you go. :-) Like I said, I think the third act is very difficult to write about, because what it essentially boils down to is 'finish the book'. Pick up the seeds and hints and clues you dropped and make sure they have a solid place to land. Make sure you keep the tension high. Make sure you use everything you can in the climax. Remember that if you've written your book logically, so your climax and resolution will also come out logically.

And then you have a book.

Questions? Thoughts?

Oh...sigh

And sigh again.

I wasn't going to talk about this, I really wasn't. Because I don't want to piss off or upset people. I certainly don't want to make readers, the lovely people who spend money on books, angry with me.

But I just...It's like the opinion is a pot of coffee, percolating in my chest, and it's going to explode. (Incidentally, I feel kind of weird thinking that nobody uses percolators anymore. My parents were never coffee drinkers, but my Grandpa was. And when he would come visit the smell of coffee and especially the sound of the percolator, that particular burble-sploosh noise, would wake me up in the mornings. I used to really like it; I was fascinated by the percolator and could never figure out quite how it worked, you know? All those childhood machines that seemed like magic to me, and none of them are in use anymore. The percolator, the 8-track tape, the flashlight that ran because of how fast you squeezed the trigger thingie...anyway. No time for this; this is going to be a little long anyway.)

So everybody knows about this Stephen King/Stephenie Meyer thing. Basically, Mr. King said in an interview that Ms. Meyer "can't write worth a darn."

And for reasons I cannot fathom, it's being treated like he said Hitler was a really good guy or something, or that in his spare time he enjoys molesting children.

Leaving aside the truth or lack thereof of his statement itself, and leaving aside the fact that although he claimed Meyer can't write worth a darn he did say he understood the appeal of the books...

So what?

There seem to be two schools of thought among the "Fry him! FRY HIM!" crowd. The first is that he's jealous of Meyer's success, which is, IMO, patently ridiculous. Stephen King is arguably the most successful writer the world has ever seen (and no, you cannot bring up the people who wrote the Bible or the Talmud of the Koran or whatever). No, I'm serious. Think about it for a minute. How long has the man been writing bestsellers? How many of his books or stories have been made into major films? Adapted for television? Turned into series? How many of those film adaptations have garnered Oscar nominations in any category?

Now think of one other author, living or dead, which that kind of success. ONGOING success. I suppose it's possible to argue that JK Rowling hits it, but King's written something like thirty books. JKR has not. Tolkein had massive, unprecedented success, but again, not as many books.

So the idea that Stephen King is jealous of Stephenie Meyer is silliness. I'm sorry but it is, and there's another reason why it is, and it ties into my whole feeling about this so I'll get to it in a minute.

First I want to address the other silliness surrounding this, which is the idea that writers shouldn't criticize other writers. Which is bullshit.

I'm not even going to discuss the fact that without writers criticizing other writers we would't have Fenimore Cooper's Literary Offenses. We wouldn't have Virginia Woolf's comment about Ulysses: "The work of a greasy undergraduate scratching his pimples." We wouldn't have ANY of Dorothy Parker's fantastic reviews; we wouldn't have any of Florence King's; we wouldn't have a huge, varied, and wonderful library of critique and wit and style. Since fucking when is it not okay for writers to comment on and criticize the work of other writers? In what world has that *ever* been the case?

I would say that it stopped being okay when women got in on it, since it seems to largely be women playing the "Stephen King's just plain mean!" card, but that isn't right at all. Especially not after I just quoted or mentioned three women in the last paragraph, not one of whom behaved as though a critique of her work was tantamount to touching little kids in their Swimsuit Areas.

But I suspect womanhood has something to do with it, yes I do. And that something is, everyone playing the "professional courtesy" card (professional courtesy, what a bunch of crap. We're writers, not fucking insurance salesmen) seems to be female, and more importantly, seems to be upset not that one writer is commenting on another writer's work, but that the commenting writer has a protruding pee-pee and the one being commented on does not.

I know.

But seriously. King said some not-very-nice things about a few male writers in that article too, but nobody seems to be jumping up and down all over the internets to say how Mr. King is just jealous of Mr. Patterson. In fact, no one seems at all bothered by the fact that not only did King call Petterson "a terrible writer," he didn't even qualify that statement anywhere by saying he sees the appeal of Patterson's work, or that Patterson has very cleverly tapped into something in his audience's collective subconscious.

So...why? Why does it seem okay for King to criticize Patterson, but not Meyer? Why isn't anyone throwing "jealous" around? Why isn't anyone acting as though writers are supposed to keep their mouths shut when we see each other butchering the language, as though we're all the very best of good, clean pals and every Saturday night we sing Kumbaya in the park and roast hot dogs?

Yeah. I think a big part of it is that Meyer is a woman. And I think there is a very ugly assumption beneath this, which is that a woman cannot take criticism. And sadly, I think there is a segment of the female writing "society," for lack of a better term, which truly cannot take criticism, who flounce around saying things like "If you've never written a book you can't criticize" or "It's hard work to write a book and the author deserves something for that and it's mean to say her book isn't very good" or whatever other whiny little excuses these namby-pambies toss around to justify their own total and complete lack of professionalism.

We've seen these people online. We see them all the freaking time, in fact. They're the ones who stalk Amazon reviewers or decide to name transexual AIDS-riddled prostitutes after people who give them mediocre reviews (and let's keep in mind, btw, what sort of person thinks "transexual" is a worthy insult) or send nasty emails to reviewers or start blogs where they put up nasty cartoons or send hate mail or have hissy fits in comments or whatever the fuck it is, and thus make all female writers look as though we too have never progressed beyond the 9th grade.

This attitude seriously makes me ill. You know what, gang? I seriously doubt Stephenie Meyer gives a fuck what Stephen King says. And good, because she shouldn't. I love Stephen King. I think he's fantastic. And I would love to think he'd read my work and enjoyed it; that would be a huge thrill. But you know what? if he loved it, that's just one man's opinion. And if he hated it? That's still just one man's opinion.

And jealous? Why is this argument so rarely brought up when two men are involved? Why do we hardly ever see someone claiming, for example, that Steve Jobs is just jealous of Bill Gates? or that, I don't know, Javier Bardem is just jealous of Benicio del Toro? Not that I'm aware of these men making comments about each other, but really, can you imagine it? So why then, does this crap come up when women are involved? Stephen King is a grown man, people, and I don't know about you but I've never seen anything before that would lead me to believe he's the kind of man for whom jealousy of other writers is a problem. Have you?

Stephenie Meyer is a published author; she's written four enormous bestsellers. Let's give her a little credit, shall we? Let's assume she's mature enough to shrug this off and go on writing, and not behave as though she's crying in the bathrooms by the gym and she won't come out until Stephen writes her a note that says he's sorry and gee, golly, the dance is tonight and she was our ride and we're gonna get Stephen and pants him in the cafeteria?

We're all entitled to our opinions. (In fact, one could argue that Meyer is one of the few people Stephen King can actually criticize *without* looking like a bully; who else is big enough?) And in the grand scheme of things, this is such a non-issue it's not even funny.

I was going to tell you about a book I bought the other day, which I haven't finished, but which is so well-written my jaw keeps literally dropping open--but that will have to wait until next Monday, because this is so long already. Sigh.

A novel in three acts: Act Two

First, thanks to everyone who responded to this last week! Your questions and feedback were very much appreciated.

Patrice Michelle brought up an excellent point at Fangs Fur & Fey, though, and it was one I failed to stress adequately in my little disclaimery thing. Guys, this is NOT the only way to write books, and it is NOT something you should get hung up about. Seriously. It isn't. Even I, who loves doing this with my books, do not look at it as gospel.

From Patrice's comment:

For new writers, the goal is to just write the story and then once it's written, go back and look at advice like this to see if it can help you tighten and streamline your story to give it the most impact to readers.

And this is exactly true. Just as there is no magic bullet to finish your book, there is no one exact right way to write. If stuff like this bogs you down, don't do it. If it feels too tight, don't do it. You can, as she said, ignore this while writing and go back later once it's done and see how it works for you. But please don't ever think that because you handle things differently, you're not "doing it right." Whatever works for you? That's what's right. Period.

For me this is just a way of keeping track and making sure I'm pacing correctly. When I hit 30k words, have I put in all my basic clues? Have I laid the groundwork? Have I given myself plenty to work with and expand later? Are all the characters introduced who need to be, is the basic set-up of the world and story clear?

And there's a little more to that as well; simply being 1/3 done is a little achievement. Writing a novel is hard work. When you first start out it can seem daunting. But once you get through the first 30k, you know you can do it. You only have to do another 30k and you'll be in the end zone. And that's a good feeling.

So. Last week I mentioned pacing. Anyone who's spent any time reading about writing is familiar with the phrase "sagging middle." The sagging middle hits all of us at one point or another; it is, basically, the long stretch of book from, well, 30-60k words or so, where...not much happens. The story falters. The characters start spending too much time thinking or talking and not enough time doing.

This is also, to put it bluntly, where characters start acting stupid. This is where, in our eagerness to have *something* happen, we send our characters alone into dark alleys, or have them pick fights with each other, or any number of things. Bad things.

It is my firm belief that the main cause of the sagging middle is pacing, and that the main cause of pacing problems is failure to allow for structure. There are other reasons, of course; too much telling is a big one, too. But I'm assuming you all know the basic rules of writing (such as they are) and so are not writing a book that's nothing but a big long infodump.

We have pacing problems because we have inserted too much information into our first Act, and we have pacing problems because we have not given ourselves enough clues to work with.

It sounds like an oxymoron, I know. But let's go back to last week's example, Jennifer the detective with the elderly grandma and the just-ended relationship.

Our story started when a body was found. Let's say there was no obvious cause of death. Now, using the three-act structure, we can make a decision; do we want to find out the cause of death before the act ends, thus giving ourselves the second act to explore it? Or do we want to wait, maybe pile up at least one more body?

It's up to you and the story you're telling. But if you're not thinking in terms of using Act One for clues and Act Two for expansion, if you're not using that first act to thoroughly ground your characters and their world and introduce some issues for them to deal with, you may find yourself with no choice but to give us a cause of death, simply because something has to happen next. If you've gotten too deeply into your subplots in the first act you may not have room to add complications to them in the second act, either.

Here's the thing. If in the first 30k you have introduced plenty of characters and situations, the second act will essentially write itself, and I'll tell you why.

Because of logic.

Your entire second act is simply adding more complications and doing what would logically come next.

For example. At the end of Act One Jennifer finds another body. In the beginning of Act Two she learns cause of death. So what would Jennifer logically do next? She would start studying/researching that cause of death. Let's say it was an overdose; a particularly pure, new form of heroin. Okay. We learned a little about our first victim in the first act (because we were planting clues). So we know the victim was not an IV drug user; that's a dead end.

To gran a few examples from mid-air, Jennifer might now logically start talking to drug dealers or users. That could be a nice suspenseful scene, her interview with a tough local drug dealer. That could have enormous complications that might effect the main plot; it could draw some new people into the case, perhaps, or cause jennifer problems with the police.

And we have her grandma. The poor lady might have a stroke at the end of Act One and thus be in the hospital. The plot if to some degree resolved; Jennifer knows that her grandma can no longer safely stay with her. But that introduces new complications; Jennifer has to research homes and residences. Perhaps she decides to kill two birds with one stone, and go to the residence where the first murder victim's mother works? That might provide us with a nice way to tie those subplots together later, right?

So already we have some action for the second act; we're meeting drug dealers and having wary conversations with them--perhaps a flirtation, depending on what kind of book this is?--and we're getting involved more closely with a victim's family and trying to find a place for grandma and expanding conflict with the cops. When we add that to researching the second victim and trying to find connections between them--perhaps they went to the same college, and Jennifer can go there and discover they had a class together? we've got a good 15-20k or so worth of action.

Any time you get stuck in writing that second act, every time you feel the story flagging, you have only to stop and think back or look back at your first act. What seeds did you plant there that now need to grow a little? Maybe in the midst of all the turmoil with meeting scary drug dealers and putting her beloved grandma in a home, Jennifer's ex shows up and wants to get back together, there's a complication. Maybe the college connection falls through but it's there that Jennifer gets another idea for a possible motive, one she needs to explore. Your Bad Guy should show up again, for whatever reason; let Jennifer interact with him/her, however briefly. Let her feel close to or uncomfortable with the BG.

Your second act is all about expansion and information. Otherwise known as "the plot thickens." The second act is where a new clue or two turns up; the second act is where you might illustrate a connection between one of your subplots and the main plot.

And remember, nothing should be easy; we need conflict on every page! You don't want Jennifer to just meet someone who tells her who the Bad Guy is in exchange for money; you want them to tease her with the info, make her perform tasks, put her in danger. Information should be a reward or compensation, never (or very rarely) a given.

There are two other things I like to do/check with Second Acts. One, just as the first ended with a bang, so should the second. An even bigger bang (sometimes literally, heh heh; see below). I used Silence of the Lambs last week, so I'll mention it again here; Dr. Lecter's escape comes right around the end of the second act.

The other is, by the end of the second act, I like to leave the reader with no idea how things are going to work out, or who the bad guy is. I like to know, at the end of the second act, that all of my main threads are still loose but are closing in on each other; I like to be in a position where there's only one more big clue, or one more fact to be uncovered, before everything falls into place and we're ready for the climax. I like to think of someone reading to that point and thinking there are so many open holes there, there's no way they can all be resolved by the end.

Now, I write UFs with thriller-y, mystery plots; you may write romance, in which case the end of the second act is right about where you'll put your big sex scene and have it make everything even worse. (The end of the second act is a place I tend to put sex scenes as well and always have, and I'm not alone. I think most romances or UFs with romantic elements do the same; it's usually a bit past the halfway point, so anywhere from 50-60k words, but again, that's not set in stone and of course if you're writing a more heavily erotic story you may well have had sex all throughout.)

But the end-of-act-2 bang should put everything in jeopardy. It should leave the reader doubting they'll get a happy or even a decent ending. It should raise the stakes exponentially.

So, to sum up (and I realize this segment was a bit longer and wordier, sorry, but I think I covered everything I needed to):

*The second act should be about expansion and information.
*The second act is the logical next step of the first; I always think "What would they do next?"
*The second act is where you watch your first-act seeds grow. Don't forget them!
*The second act is where everything gets deeper and more complex. You can solve a msytery or two and that's fine, but you should bring some new ones in to replace it, or have the resolution of one question only bring up more questions.
*The second act is a good place for sex scenes ;-)
*Nothing should be easy; good information or realizations are worth paying for. Keep the conflict high, don't let that middle sag!
*The second act must end with a very big complication; just as the 1st-act-end raised the stakes or made the problem more personal or trapped the hero/ine into solving the mystery, so the second should make it clear there is no out, this is very dangerous, and they have no choice but to follow through. Thus setting us up for Act Three and the climax.

So, any questions? Anything that doesn't make sense, or needs expansion?