msagara | Recent Entries

Before I continue, I want to offer a PSA. The next few posts will likely be about having an ASD (Autistic Spectrum Disorder) child in a system in which a new principal was hired to completely squelch all problems with bullying. She was enormously successful, and in part I'm aware that my son's school experience was radically different from the experiences of many, many ASD children entirely because of the way she ran her school, dealt with the parents of her children, and supported her teachers.

But I can understand that as this isn't what I normally post, people might have zero interest in it, and for those new to this LJ because of the previous posts on reviewing and entitlement, I do apologize in advance.
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There are reasons my son had social difficulty. Understand that everything I'm saying at the moment we learned by trial and error and a lot of observation, because that's what we had at the time. At a certain stage of development, children really do think their parents know everything. This ends sometime between the ages of two and three for most neurotypical children, and at three and a half most children understand that this is not, in fact, the case.

My son did not develop this awareness until he was seven, going on eight.
( because I want to make clear that my son's ASD was not mild )

There are many other little things, as well, but I think that's enough to give you an idea of how difficult it would be for normative children--even the nice ones--to accept or understand him. And yet, in the end, they did.

seanan_mcguire has a posted a powerful, personal, and heartbreaking entry here.

But I'm not linking it just to boost its signal. I'm linking it before I talk a bit about my own experience, not as someone who was bullied (I was as a child, as one of four visible asian children in our school), but as the mother of a child who so easily could have been. Because

seanan_mcguire is right: change is entirely possible; it is absolutely necessary. It is not entirely in the hands of the parents; the parents are a third of the triangulation necessary.

And now, given it's one of my posts, there will be context.

My oldest son was…an interesting child. Until he was four years old, he never acknowledged a greeting--from anyone. I could walk into the house, returning from work at the store, and say "Hello," and he would continue playing with whatever had his interest. This did not, however, mean he couldn't hear me or that he wasn't listening; he didn't connect listening with the need to acknowledge.

This is going to sound familiar to some of the parents who are reading this. To those who don't have children or have no interest in continuing to read about mine, now is a good time to bail, because it will be, of necessity, quite lengthy.
( This entire entry was posted with the permission of my son )

I have, as usual, gone way too long on this, and will continue it in the next entry.

Having covered probably the most common reader complaint I've heard over the years in the bookstore, I'm now going to move directly to one of the next most common.

I hate LKH for turning Anita Blake into such an oversexed solipsist. Doesn't she realize that she's losing all her fans?

This one, oddly enough, I have more problems with, for a variety of reasons. And this one follows more clearly

amber_fool's question, which spawned the previous two posts indirectly.

The first problem would be: LKH regularly hits NYT #1 with her later books. She is clearly not losing all her fans. The argument made here isn't based on what I can see as objective fact, unlike the previous argument downstream; in the previous post the base fact is: Book 5 or book 3 do not exist, which is immutable.
( Read more )

Before I start, I want to point out that I've touched on reader-entitlement before. Everything I've said there is still true, but everything I said there was very relevant to the way I feel as a writer of a multi-volume story.

This post is more general: it's about things I've heard--frequently--in the bookstore from customers. Not from every customer, but often enough that it warrants some thought. I don't argue (much) with customers who evince these opinions or have these reactions, because that's not my job (I will, however, argue with them about why I should love or hate a book, because as a reader, I have my own opinions about this; I consider that part of my job as well. Ahem). My job is to find them books they'll enjoy reading. I'm not in the bookstore as an author; I'm in the bookstore as a bookseller.
( I have two distinct reactions to every complaint )
Edited because -ing and -ed are not the same

amber_fool said, in the previous comment thread: I'm not an author, so maybe it's just that I've not experienced this, but I don't get why EVERYONE is expected to like an author's work? It's just not going to be some people's cup of tea. I'd think reviews that say "I liked book x, but not this one, and I didn't like it for reasons a, b, and c" would be useful to other readers, and could be useful to the writer if they were trying to attract fans of book x, but it's not even a reflection on the book itself. But I've seen reviews like that where the author responded and it turned into a flame war, basically.

I think if you approach all of reading as a reader, everyone isn't expected to like an author's work. Putting on my reader hat, as I frequently do at the store, I'm aware that there's even more at play: there are books I don't like that I do think will work for some of my customers, and I will without hesitation recommend those if any books that I do like don't seem appropriate.

But yes, I'm aware (clearly) that there are books I simply don't care for. Sometimes it's a quiet "not for me", and sometimes it's a raging "omg I hate this book!", but in either case, that reaction is about me. I try to put that reaction aside in the store, because I'm not trying to find or recommend books for me in the store; I'm trying to recommend books for a broad range of customers.

( On subjective reactions as a reader )

It's accepted wisdom that authors are not to respond to reviews. There's a good reason for this wisdom.

My first interaction with fiction was as a reader; I was an avid, almost devout, bibliophile. Books and stories took me to a totally different place. It was, however, an internal space, a way of reaching into myself and embiggening my sense of the world.
( Neurotic Writer is Neurotic )

Oh, and before I forget, I'm going to WFC in Columbus, Ohio this year. Yes, this is a bit last-minute. Is anyone else going?

This will, hopefully, be the last piece about self-promotion, and it's weighted toward the blogging spectrum.

A number of people on my LJ friends' list, and a couple here as well (waving at

sartorias) have opined that they are too dull to somehow have the audience that others attract.

I don't think that's the problem, though. A long discussion about what readers are looking for from author blogs (with someone who has zero interest in ever being a published writer, or a writer at all) made me think for several hours of nothing else.
( A minor digression which is relevant )

When I say things tongue-in-cheek, I usually forget where my tongue is and almost bite it off. I wrote:

Balancing the social with the promotional is hard. If LJ were my only on-line presence, it would be very close to impossible because putting up notices every few days in the month before a book's on sale date doesn't work for me as a reader - so I've no expectation that it will work for anyone else who's here as part of the LJ community. (Seanan McGuire doesn't count. If you ask me why, I'll explain later).

mtlawson, in his infinite mercy, asked me why

seanan_mcguire didn't count. Yes, when I say infinite, I mean infinitely small.
( Reasons below the cut )

Sigh. @=/=lj user tag.

Tobias Buckell once posted a piece about the changing nature of his own blog. I believe he started his blog before he sold his first novel, and many of his readers, valuing his openness, were also writers who were on the same journey.
( On-line communities and the pressure to utilize them )
And that's it for part 2. Part 3 -- in which I answer why

seanan_mcguire (and authors like her) is an exception to follow tomorrow.

Edited because it's and its are not the same. Sigh. One day I will post something that doesn't require edits after I've pressed the button

I apologize because this is long. I'm not finished yet, and it's long.

Social media is everywhere, and for stay-at-home writers with small children, it's often the only reliable way of, well, socializing; all other social events take a lot of organization and lead-time. If your small child needs attention Right Now, you can pause email in the middle with no harm done; you can post short status updates or tweets, and you can read and contribute to your social streams when you can manage to steal a few minutes here or there.
( context is everything )

I have spent the last two days trying, off and on, to record myself reading, because I had this totally stupid idea that I would make an .mp3 of it and put it on my web-site.

What I have discovered--or rediscovered as the case may be--is that I cannot stand the sound of my recorded voice. I've tried reading first chapters and the beginnings of short stories, and all I can say is I have profound gratitude for the people who like my writing--or me--enough to sit through an hour of me reading out loud.

And now, writing looks like it will be so much less of a disaster, and holding that thought, I'm going to write.

Because I'm working on a review column, I've been thinking about description. In particular, I've been thinking about why, in one book, four pages of description can hold my attention, and in another, one paragraph causes my eyes to glaze over as I skip it looking for dialogue.

Since I can't competently review a book while doing this, it's an issue.

The word for word writing between books with description that holds me and books that cause me to bounce is fine. It's not that the actual word choices are bad; I'm not cringing (and I should hope not) at sentence level construction. But.
( ruminating on description and its use )

ETA: If you don't have this reading tick, is there anything that does throw you out of description in a book?

ETA2: This actually isn't a post about writing, but rather a musing post about how I read or interact with text. As such, it's not meant to be a judgement on how other people read, and not really a directive on how to write, unless you think I'm in the middle of your intended audience.

Writing short stories is absolutely the fastest way to gain skill. Amateurs will say "but I only write novels!" Pros know better.
--Advice from a published writer, offered on Twitter

I am obviously an Amateur.
( Because having written over a dozen published novels clearly hasn't put me in a position where I, as the tweet says, know better )

Edited because "being" and "begin" are not the same words, even if they contain the same letters.

jimhines has a post here about self-publishing, 'Part Whatever', and I've quoted the first of his five points because I wanted to expand on it here.

1. Dear self-published authors: As a writer, I am not your target audience. I can’t count the number of times authors, mostly (but not always) self-published or PoD, have tried to hard-sell their books to me. Just don’t.
( I agree, and because it's me, do it in more words )

Because this is traveling across my f-list:

I've been using the crosspost to FB feature for a while now. What it posts: a link in my status updates to my main entry, whenever I make one. I'm not sure there's a huge crossover between the two, and as an author, all my posts are public. It's a way of pointing people to things I've written that they might not otherwise see.

I will probably also post a similar link to Twitter, because as a reader I find the links useful when other LJ users post them --

yuki_onna or

jimhines for instance. I also check blog posts in the same way. I probably wouldn't find them as helpful if people were posting twenty-six times a day, but most people don't.

I understand why other people do lock posts. I respect that decision completely.

I will therefore not link comments I make in the threads of any other LJ to either my FB or Twitter. Also? A comment without any context seems sort of pointless, to me. I don't particularly mind if anyone who is reading or posting here posts links to their comments in either their FB or Twitter, because again, I don't lock posts. LJ and my website are the public faces of an author at work (or play or ranting); they're not meant to be private.

ann_leckie has a post here that I really agree with.

I wanted to say a couple of things about the topic in general, because I find some of the dislike of the literary novel almost pointless. There's nothing in her post I disagree with; None of the following points are addressed by her in her main post.
( Michelle just got in from Kingston, and is hot and ranty. Beneath the cut. )

Edited because rant is not spelled with a terminating g.

I was reading links on Twitter, and one of them lead to an article about 3D at the box office.

Let me come out and say it: I hate 3D.
( Explanation under the cut )

I know this is very short notice, but. If any of you happen to live in or around the Toronto area, I'll be doing a signing on Saturday August 21st at 2:00 p.m. in the Chapters at Square One, in Mississauga.

I would love to see anyone who can make it out there!

1. Every author wants everyone to read and love their books.

2. This will never happen.

3. The world's nicest people sometimes write books I don't care for

4. While I am not, sadly, the world's nicest person, I also write books that people simply don't care for.

5. If you don't care for my books--or even actively dislike them--I don't want you to duck out of sight anytime our paths cross. Unless you actively dislike me, in which case, go ahead.

6. I don't expect everyone to like my books. I've spent many, many years working in a bookstore where one of my chief joys is to match people with books they will actually like. This has caused me to develop certain reflexive habits. For instance:

Young boy at Confluence: A lot of my friends say your books are really good. Which one should I start with?

Me, standing at Larry & Sally's very fabulous display in the dealer's room: Well, what other authors and books have you read? What other books have you enjoyed?

Him: I really liked Old Man's War, by John Scalzi. Oh, and Ghost Brigades, and the Last Colony (which I once again mistyped as the Lost Colony, gah). (He then mentions a few more books--all SF).

Me: Well, those are all science fiction, and all of my books are fantasy novels. I'm not sure that you'll actually like them. But there are a number of authors I do think you'll like if you liked the Scalzi.

7. I don't expect everyone to read my books. Any of them. I am happy when people read them. I am grateful. But I am not conversely angered, irritated or depressed when they don't.

Not only do I not require you to come up to me and preface our first conversation with "I'm really sorry I haven't gotten around to reading your books yet…" or "I'm really sorry I haven't picked up your books yet…", but sometimes it's a little awkward to start said first conversation with reassurances that you haven't offended me. I know I can be a bit of an ogre--but not so much of one that I feel you've no business speaking to me at all if you haven't read my books--or if you've read them and hated them, or worse, were bored to tears. I haven't in all likelihood listened to your music, seen your art or inspected the electrical work you did on the construction site in your real life job -- and I don't want to have to feel horribly guilty for that, either.

Thomas and I drove out to Confluence 2010, in Pittsburg (which is to say: Thomas drives, as I can't) on Friday morning. I'd intended to keep up with at least Twitter while I was gone, but as it happened, I forgot to take my phone charger.

I used to be much, much more organized. I think all the brain cells that once went into organization had been absorbed by the Cast novels; I can apparently write the equivalent of two books a year - but not without dropping a bunch of the non-writing balls I'm trying to juggle.
( Michelle's version of a con report, umm, sorry in advance )
ETA: proper LJ tags and, of course, catch the typos I didn't catch on the first two reads