So…here's the thing they tell you: Publishing moves slow. It takes FOREVER.
And this is usually true. Certainly there is a large amount of waiting involved for every writer on earth (and probably on any other planets with publishing industries). But since Strange Chemistry is a brand new imprint and launching later this year, things are moving at lightning speed comparable to the norm. From interest to offer to announcement happened pretty fast, but that's not unusual. (I know these things because I hang around with a lot of writers, so indulge first-time me here.) My contract showed up yesterday and is now winging its way across the ocean, and editor Amanda emailed me ISBNs for the US, UK and e-book editions of Blackwood first thing yesterday morning, and even now their digits are making their way into the machinery that feeds Nielsen and Amazon and such. The book already exists on Goodreads. Coverless, of course, but exists.
Today or tomorrow, I'll get my edits. And also today I'm thinking about blurbs. (That is just as nauseous-making as expected, and there's no time to wait! Or waste! September is coming! Ack! Nothing like a time crunch to induce bravery. Still nauseous-making. Send bourbon.) AND I have a few lines from a Bowerbirds song I really would love to use as an epigraph, and so I need to contact the band and their label and see if there's any possible way that permission can happen, and quickly. (Luckily, I also have a non-copyrighted snippet from a Sir Walter Raleigh letter on epigraph standby.)
On Saturday morning, we leave for a week's writing retreat with a bunch of wise and lovely writers, and the timing couldn't be better. A whole week to concentrate on edits and figuring out the next book. In the sunshine. Bliss. Perhaps they will also talk me down when I lapse into hysterics. The universe was smiling when the timing worked out this way.
Small aside: I have a cold, which I re-gave myself by not switching out my toothbrush head after I was sick a week and a half ago, so perhaps am a bit loopy. Am attempting to think cold into submission; maybe not the best strategy since last time I self-germ warfared. Anyway. All this by way of saying, it hit me yesterday:
September will be here before you know it.
Sure, in the meantime there will be edits to do, and other people will be reading the book (some of them reallly soon–hold me), and other Exciting! Things! and, soon enough, probably within the month, I'll be back at work on another book due later this year, even while Exciting! Things! happen. But I'll blink and it'll be September.
So…I was trying to think of something to post about, and I thought I'd tackle one of the complaints that bugs me greatly (and that I see again and again) about certain types of characters in YA. The contention in question is that given characters aren't "how teens really are," usually said to mean that teens don't think or talk in a complex or sophisticated way, and almost universally applied to bright, precocious characters or a certain type of stylized dialogue. Maggie Stiefvater did a great post about this some time back, on the myth of the "teen voice."
This complaint tends to surface more frequently whenever John Green has a new book out, which is why the topic came to mind. Let me say right off the bat: I haven't read The Fault in Our Stars yet*. I'm definitely going to; I love all John's books with great and huge buckets of love. In fact, one of the reasons I loved Looking for Alaska so much was because I had an immediate sense of recognition when I read it. THESE were the smart Southern** teenagers I grew up around.
But I digress. The problem, of course, being that teens aren't a monolithic group. They–just like adults–are individuals. If a character doesn't work and isn't believable, that's one thing. But I will buy just about any type of speech or action from a character as long as it feels developed, specific, and honest to that character or story. And for every person who has trouble buying into hyper-verbal or branier-than-the-norm characters, I think there's also a counterbalancing number of us who adored, say, Buffy, Gilmore Girls or Veronica Mars because of those qualities (among others).
My suggested rule of thumb is that if you'd never say, "That's just not how adults are" about an adult character (and, really, you wouldn't, would you?), then don't vary the same theme about teen characters in YA.
*This is primarily because I lost a good friend to cancer when we were both 16. I'm so glad that TFiOS exists, because being a bookish girl as I was, back then I really wanted to find a book that might help me understand that loss. And I couldn't. Because most were too saccharine, and not at all funny, and I hated saccharine inspirational (not least because so did my friend) and my people are funny people. So I know this book needed to be written, and believe John was the perfect writer for the job, and I can't wait. I just need a weekend when I can be Completely and Utterly Wrecked, and retroactively grateful.
**My "Southern" cliché rant will be saved for another day.
So, you are all kind of amazing. All your congratulations and good wishes and interest in the book–here, on twitter, on facebook, etc.–have been so, so appreciated. I couldn't manage to respond to everyone individually, but please know how much it means. As most of you know, I've been working toward this first novel sale for years (which is not at all unusual–interviewing writers for PW is always a great reminder that we only ever see the tippy tops of people's careers and the iceberg of all the work and setbacks and the rest of it is beneath the water, concealed from everyone but those people in our daily lives). And I always have a tendency to expect the worst and be pleasantly surprised if things don't go down in a flaming ball of fiery doom.
All this positivity is disconcerting. I'm not used to it.
Anyway, io9 did that great piece (how much do I love those guys? they are so great for SFF and YA and the world in general, so pinch moment number two–pinch moment number one was when the initital announcement from SC hit). And today the deal made it into Publishers Marketplace–and was mentioned in the daily Publishers Lunch newsletter, surreal pinch moment number three. I have read that newsletter every day FOR AGES and to see my book mentioned…my little #nerdromancethriller-that-could. Here's the text of the PM listing:
Gwenda Bond's BLACKWOOD, a young adult novel about a modern-day Lost Colony; when 114 people disappear from Roanoke Island, an unlikely pair of 17-year-olds may be the only hope of bringing them back, to Amanda Rutter at Angry Robot, in a two-book deal, for publication in Fall 2012, by Jennifer Laughran at Andrea Brown Literary Agency (World English). Translation: Taryn Fagerness Agency
It's listed as an international deal because Angry Robot is based in the UK, but for those who've asked, like Angry Robot, Strange Chemistry will be a global imprint, and the book will be available in the US, the UK and I believe Australia as both a physical object and as an e-book (and Angry Robot also sells DRM-free e-books at their web store). And for booksellers (I LOVE YOU), Strange Chemistry/Angry Robot's US distribution is through Random House.
I really can't wait for you guys to get to read this book. Which I started, oh, back in 2005, I believe. I had the initial idea then, started it as a screenplay, realized I really should be writing YA and so re-started it as a novel…and set it aside for a lot of years because I didn't know the solution to the mystery. And I felt like if I was going to write a fantasy about Roanoke Island and the Lost Colony, I had to solve it, one way or another. Cut to last semester of grad school, a desperate need for a workshop piece, and I pulled out the opening I had. The group (led by the divine Cynthia Leitich Smith) were very, very helpful, but still, even though I knew the overall shape of the story, I didn't know what was causing the disappearances, so I shelved it again… And then, finally, the third time I started to work on it was the charm. Lightning, research, reading: Alchemy. Though, of course, I'm not going to reveal exactly *how* alchemy figures in.
The title Blackwood is actually from the masterminds of Angry Robot, by the way. My original title was too similar to the imprint name. And I like this so much better. It fits the story in every way and…
I really, really can't wait for you guys to get to read this book. So soon! In September. And I can't wait to get my edit letter from the fabulous Amanda and get to work on it again. And then on book two (which will be unrelated to this one; Blackwood is a standalone).
Also, just an aside: Jennifer Laughran is a goddess among agents. There are agents who wouldn't have hung in there with me, lo, these several years, and continued to be wonderful and excited about my work. Jenn did. So…
PINCH ME. But, don't worry, my head won't stay in the clouds, not when I have this:
Pirate Hemingway Don't Care About Books
(Note: No actual eye-patches were used in this photo. Am playing w/ Typepad's new photo editor Aviary.)
Strange Chemistry are thrilled to announce a two book deal with Gwenda Bond, concluded between Amanda Rutter and Jennifer Laughran, of the Andrea Brown Literary Agency, Inc. The first book, Blackwood, will be one of the imprint’s September 2012 launch titles, with the second following in 2013.
Charles Tan, aka the hardest working man in science fiction, recently hosted an email roundtable on YA speculative fiction with Malinda Lo, Tehani Wessely, Cheryl Morgan, Tarie Sabido, and yours truly. It was great fun to do, although apparently I was trying to see how many times I could use the word conversation. (Answer: LOTS.) I blame holiday madness.
In terms of reading — I really do recommend all the books in the sidebar over there, and, as you'll see, my effort to winnow to a Top 10 resulted in a Top 17, that could just as easily have been a Top 20. But I forced myself to stop. Behind the cut tag (in reverse alphabetical order by author).
Yes, I know I've been MIA. I intended to do a post about books I recommend for gifts this year (just made our list today, figuring out which books to get for who) and about other things, but just haven't had a chance. I also have a million links for a hangovers post, which I'll try to post at some point in the nearish future. For the inevitable gift card frenzy to come, the 2011 reading list is down and to the right.
I could promise I'll try and do some catch up posts, but in all truth I'm probably going to do the sane thing and enjoy the coming time with our family, try and get some more novel written, and otherwise make my best attempt at R&R for the next week and a halfish.
Editor extraordinaire Andrew Karre has very smart things to say about why #yamatters at Hunger Mountain. A snippet: "It’s easy to spot disruption in tech and media. These things happen very fast and concern a lot of people (and their money) on a day-to-day basis. It’s harder to see these disruptions in smaller and slower-moving categories and subcategories. But I believe they’re there, and, as you’ve probably guessed, I believe modern novels for young readers—particularly YA novels—are a disruption in children’s books and maybe in books in general." Right on. (via Big Think)
Shannon Maughan has an excellent piece at PW about the history and importance of the Caldecott and Newbery awards, with extensive comments from Anita Silvey and Leonard Marcus. (I found the discussion about whether the best children's books really are "timeless" v. interesting.)
At Publisher Perspectives, author Beth Kephart talks with Pamela Paul about her approach as the new editor of the NYT's coverage of children's books. Snippet: “It’s a busy world,” says Paul, a journalist and author who was named to the post in late January of this year. “There’s so much competing for our time. My hope with the children’s pages is to make them relevant and essential for all the readers of the Times — to provide expanded coverage of everything from board books and middle grade stories to young adult fiction and nonfiction. There are so many ways to tell a story. I’m trying to make room for them all.”
I know I don't have to explain the enormous influence of Terri Windling to most people who visit this blog, but seeing everyone's posts about how important she's been to them–whether they know her personally or not–in relation to the Magick 4 Terri auction bonanza has been so incredible, I can't resist joining in.
It's hard to quantify, exactly, the ways in which a luminary like Terri impacts the artistic community she's engaged in. Some of her contributions have been as a fabulous editor, bringing to light the work of many, many writers at both the longer and shorter length, in a way that truly helped shape–and reshape–the field. Some have been as an author herself, including of the marvelous novel The Wood Wife, which I highly recommend. Still more, as an artist of gorgeous mythic art, and as one of the major forces behind the Endicott Studio and the Journal of Mythic Arts. Perhaps most of all as someone involved and invested in the speculative fiction and broader literary community through all of the above, and with the brilliant light of her personality and point of view.
I don't know Terri well, but she's always present in my life in a number of ways, small and large, that she doesn't even know:
– At the first Wiscon I went to, at Ellen and Delia's clothing swap, I came away with a dress that had formerly belonged to Terri. I feel like that dress is borrowed magic, and I still have it.
– The lion's share of the art in our living room is by Terri; a giant study for a larger piece we scored at a Tiptree Auction, personalized by her, and two smaller pieces framed together. In my office, there's a print celebrating the Endicott Studio and its support for at-risk children. These pieces bring me joy every time I look at them.
– Her marvelous blog, filled with wit and inspiration and pointers to fascinating things, and, of course, pictures of Tilly. Terri makes an art of life as a creative process, and shares it with the rest of us.
– Perhaps most of all, the row of Year's Best Fantasy and Horror volumes on our shelves. To say that Terri's editing hand on selecting the best fantasy pieces of the year was important to my getting to know the field would be an understatement. Her taste, along with Ellen Datlow's as the other editorial half of the series*, had a very real impact on not just what was considered "the best," but what was considered to be part of the fantastical conversation at all. There are many, many writers I might not have discovered until far later–if at all–without this resource to look to, and it played a huge part in helping widen our field's borders, and broaden the conversation. (This is not even to get into all the other anthologies Ellen and Terri have edited over the years and their wonders. They have also been trailblazers in including YA as part of the larger SFF field. And I'm still so honored that my one published short story appeared in Terri and Midori Snyder's Journal of Mythic Arts YA issue.)
All of this by way of saying, our community truly wouldn't be the same without her. I wouldn't be the same reader or the same writer. Apparently, she and her family have been going through a tough time, and need some financial support. So go check out the amazing auction her friends have organized and bid and/or offer something, or just donate. (I'm trying to figure out what I could offer–a bourbon and books selection, tailored to the winning bidder, maybe? I dunno.)
Terri's already given plenty to us all. It's a pleasure to have an opportunity to try and repay even a little of that.
*And Kelly and Gavin's later, when they took over for Terri.
I first discovered Lewis Shiner's work years and years ago now, when a mutual friend gave me a copy of his short fiction collection Love in Vain. I immediately added him to my Favorite Writers list, and tracked down his novels. One of the things I love about Lew's work is that while everything he writes is immediately recognizable as his, I never know what to expect from the next novel or story. His latest novel, Dark Tangos, just out from Subterranean, is no exception. This tightly-strung thriller set in Buenos Aires sends recently-relocated techie Rob Cavanaugh on a journey filled with brutal political realities and undeniable romance, and it's highly recommended (and not just by me; Booklist gave it a starred review). I recently interviewed Lew about it, and today I'm thrilled to host his fascinating post about the dance in question.
*** Most people in the US have an idea of what tango looks like. That idea comes from Hollywood, and it looks a lot like this famous scene from Scent of a Woman:
I've just published a novel, Dark Tangos, that has tango at its heart, but it's nothing like what Pacino is doing in the video. My novel deals with tango the way it's danced in the nightclubs of Buenos Aires–arguably the most romantic dance in the world. Given Gwenda's ongoing interest in romance in literature, she was kind enough to give me space here to talk about dancing tango.
First, a few definitions. What you see in Scent of a Woman, True Lies, and Rudolph Valentino movies is variously known as American Tango (ignoring the fact that Argentina is part of America too), International Tango, or Ballroom Tango. Valentino basically invented it for the movies in the 1920s, and ballroom dancers codified a set of patterns for the sake of competitions–the head snaps, the cheek-to-cheek extended-arm promenades, the spins that yank the follower in and out like a yo-yo.
Argentine tango itself is divided into two schools: show tango and salon style. Show tango is generally performed in open embrace, to make room for lots of fancy footwork, including kicks and leg wraps. This is what is most commonly taught as Argentine tango in the US, again because there are defined moves to build a curriculum around ("This month: Ganchos!") and because the dance is so dramatic. Here's a great example, from Sally Potter's The Tango Lesson:
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The skill level here is indisputable, but I have to ask, where is the romance? This looks more like a stylized kickboxing match than a makeout session. (You can also see Robert Duval pursuing this style in Assassination Tango.)
Finally, there is salon tango, more specifically, milonguero style tango. Milongueros are the old guys who hang out at the milongas, the tango dances in Buenos Aires, generally dressed in cheap suits with an open collared shirt. These guys have been dancing tango since they were kids; maybe they did the showy stuff when they were young, but now they have pared tango down to its essentials. They always dance in close embrace–one long, gentle, sensual hug.
My favorite teachers in the US are Ney Melo and Jennifer Bratt, who completely understand the milonguero style, based on many months in Buenos Aires, learning it from the masters. Here's a video where they're performing for a small group of students to "Poema," one of the most beautiful of all tangos:
None of this is choreographed. Ney is leading all the steps, spontaneously, in the moment, and Jennifer is responding to his leads and embellishing in the spaces he leaves her–though, obviously, they both know the song really well. Notice the pauses, the changes in energy as the music changes, the way they never break their embrace, as if they can't bear to be away from each other for even a second.
Ney never leads with his arms–everything comes solely from his chest. And all the steps must fit to the stringent rules of the dance. To say that this is harder than it looks is an understatement of epic proportions. My protagonist explains early in the novel:
"Tango, at some level, is simple. There are only three steps: forward, backward, and the so-called open step to the side. The lead comes from the torso. The arms, relaxed, merely extend the torso and add clarity. The hands are still.
"The steps come only at specific intervals in relation to the music. On the beat, or tiempo. Double time, or doble tiempo, and half time, or medio tiempo. Then there is contratiempo, the skipping heartbeat of the habanera rhythm, the African ancestor who will not be denied, da-dum dum dum.
"Yet for every rule, tango finds a loophole. The leader can pivot the follower, or himself, before taking any of those three steps. Leader and follower do not have to step at the same time, or in the same direction, or take the same number of steps. The complexities multiply exponentially until hope of mastering even the bare essentials of the dance recedes into an improbable future."
Part of my protagonist's journey involves his experiencing the terrible violence that is part of Argentine history, especially the Dirty War of the 1970s (see post at Chasing Ray later this week). But part of it involves his growth as a dancer from someone who is just walking through a series of learned moves to someone who is actually interpreting the music. Given that tango music is so often about betrayal, loss, and doomed love, the two journeys are inextricably entwined.
In fact, writing Dark Tangos took me to a new level of understanding of tango–seeing it in light of Argentine history let me finally see both inevitable sadness in the music, and the triumph implicit in the very act of dancing to it.
