Stacia Kane

Heh, see how neatly that little analogy comes together? I’m just so clever.

(Part one of this little series can be found here. Part two is here.)

When last we left little FOUR on its journey to the bookshelves, I was forcing myself to look at my stupid galleys, the Sales people were tallying the number of orders they managed to coerce and blackmail out of the poor bookstore buyers, my publicist was, well, probably dealing with far more important people than me. But she’s also probably getting together a list of review magazines/sites/blogs/whatevers to send ARCs to, if the publisher is doing ARCs, which they don’t always.

In dramatic time, it’s around June, or five months prior to release date.

16. Using the copyedited ms that was sent to me as a galley, the file is sent to the printer for ARCs if they’re being done. The timing on this bit is a tad sketchy, and really depends on how close we are to release date. But generally, if I’m not mistaken, ARCs are printed from that same ms that was sent to me, either with my corrections or before my corrections are added. They aren’t printed immediately, but they’re sent to enter a queue at the printer. This is why ARCs say “UNCORRECTED PROOF” in big letters, and it’s why you may get an ARC that is essentially pristine but another with more errors; some mss don’t get as many editing passes before it goes to ARC, because of the lead-time required.

17. I send my galleys back. I have now Officially Signed Off–so to speak–on the book. Nothing should be changed now that I have not approved.

Not that the galley process is done, oh no. My changes are input, and another galley is printed. That galley is reviewed in-house, for typos or errors that may have been missed the first umpteen times everyone looked at the ms. (By now we all hate my book, and wish it would just go away so we wouldn’t have to look at the damned thing ever again.) If there are any changes made, those are inputted again.

18. Cover art is finalized. This actually happened a while ago but I forgot to put it in. But it’s all done now. Sometimes, if the bookstores don’t seem too enthusiastic about a particular cover when the Sales teams visit them, a new one is quickly put together. That happens more often than you might think, but not as often as it might seem. (Hee.) Anyway. So you might have a new cover being finalized now, so it’s not totally out of place here.

19. ARCs are printed in August, and sent out shortly after to those reviewers etc. If I’m lucky, I’ll get a few; my agent will get a buttload (that’s about twenty, for books) of them as well to send to the foreign market to try to convince them how great I am and that they should totally buy foreign rights for my books or they’ll be sorry because who could resist such a bundle of fabulosity? Nobody, that’s who.

ARCs must be sent out at least three months in advance of the deadline dates for the November issues of whatever magazines or whatever the book is being sent to. At LEAST. If we want reviews in those magazines the month of release, we have to meet their deadlines.

20. Everything is sent off to the printers now. Whoo! That galley that dozens of people have looked at, and that all those people in the Production department lovingly entered and checked and checked and entered, and those nifty covers, are put together into a special file and sent off.

21. Books are printed. It’s probably, let’s say…the middle of October. Or rather, for a November 1st on-sale date, the printing will need to be finished by the middle of October. Why? Because now we have shipping & distribution, which is a whole big thing I only know a very little bit about. But I will share that little bit of knowledge with you, dearies.

22. All of those books are printed, boxed, and shipped to the distributer and/or warehouser. I used to be better able to explain the difference, but it’s not particularly important at the moment. All you need to know is, they divide the books into the amounts of boxes that go to, say, B&N, Borders, and Amazon. There are about fifty books in a box. For smaller indie stores or other online venues they may break up some of those boxes, so Murder by the Book in Houston might get twenty copies of FOUR and ten copies each of UG, UM, and CoG, because of course everyone wants to buy lots and lots of my books, right? Why would a bookstore stock any others?

23. Anyway. The books for B&N et al go to their big divisional warehouses, according to what sells in that area. Like, if UF sells big in the Northwest, the Northwest will get 5000 copies, whereas an area like the upper Midwest may only get 2000 because that genre doesn’t sell so much there. From those regional warehouses they get distributed and shipped to the individual stores.

24. It is now probably a week or so before release date. If all goes well, and according to the way it should, those boxes should sit in the storerooms of the individual stores until release day, when they are unboxed and placed lovingly on the shelves or towers or front tables by happy, smiling booksellers, all of whom love me and want to force their customers to buy my books even if said customer is a ten-year-old boy (hey, these are sales numbers we’re talking about. I’m ruthless).

What often happens is the poor, overworked booksellers, who just want to fill the shelves, or who have plans next Tuesday (books are released on Tuesdays, just like DVDs, unless they’re superspecial Event releases like Harry Potter books or something) and so want to get the hell out of that store that day, or whatever, will open boxes early and put the books on the shelves. It happens. And I still say that unless and until someone learns they lost out on hitting the NYT because fifty copies sold the week prior, it’s something writers should just suck up. Yes, it’s better when they wait. We all love it when they wait. It reminds us that there is order in the universe, and that sometimes that order is Good and Just, and makes us feel that sweet “all is right with the world,” sort of feeling as we tuck into our little beds at night.

But there is also Chaos in the world, and books getting shelved on Saturday because Melinda’s manager told her to stop standing around like that and just fucking do something are part of that Chaos. Yin and Yang, people, Yin and Yang.

25. Books are on the shelves! Oh, happy day! Now is the best part. All of you wonderful reader people can lie up outside the bookstore at eight a.m., wearing your Downside t-shirts and stuff (hey, this is my damn fantasy here so shut up), singing songs and drinking beer or whatever until the bookstore opens, the cops show up, an impromptu musical number breaks out, or all of the above, and you buy your copies of FOUR, which you then rush home to shower with love in a purely non-sexual sort of way (or maybe not; what you do in the privacy of your own home is your business, chickies). Meanwhile I sit at home, cowering, terrified that not only will there be no dance routines, there will be no sales at all, and at the end of the week my agent will call me to say not a single copy sold and there’s a cadre of angry bookstore managers about to rush the Del Rey offices and burn them down for wasting their valuable shelf space with my drivel.

And that is it. How a mss becomes a book. Isn’t that a sweet story?

I’m sure I messed up some timelines a bit and/or left some steps out. I’m not an actual employee at a publishing house, and some houses do things a bit differently. But this is based on my experience. my observations, and that of people I know, including a few very helpful answers/bits of info from Jessie at Random House. Thanks, Jessie.

Any questions?

I am extremely excited to let everyone know that we have a t-shirt design! Anilu Magloire, who is also doing some totally kick-ass wallpapers to download here, which will be up with my next set of updates very soon, has done a really cool Chuck’s logo, which will be the first shirt. I’m so excited! I should be able to sell the shirts for $12 or so and make enough money off the initial batch to buy more, assuming all or most of them sell (obviously if they don’t I wouldn’t bother buying more anyway).

I plan to buy 50 to start with, 10 each of Sm, Med, Large, XL and XXL. I figure that kind of covers all the bases at first, right? And of course, again if those sell and we do a second run, we can start doing different styles as well. The “My other boyfriend is Terrible” shirt is still definitely planned, and another awesome reader is working on some different designs too; I don’t want to give anything away but they are also seriously kick-ass. So if all goes well we’ll end up with four or five different designs to choose from, and I think at first they’ll all be white printing on black shirts. And of course, again, if they’re successful we’ll start looking at doing other things as well, like mousepads or tote bags or whatever. But that’s all in the future. For now I’m just thrilled at the Chuck’s logo, it’s so cool!

I’m also excited about this new website Pocket has set up. It’s called Pocket After Dark, and it’s a huge site devoted to all sorts of UF and paranormal books and discussions, which is really cool. Of course, since Pocket put out the second and third Demons books, I’m a Pocket author, so I’m all registered and set up there, and am really looking forward to exploring the site a bit more; there’s so much stuff there it’s impossible to read/see it all in one go. It just started a couple of weeks ago, I think, and already has over two thousand members. They plan to do giveaways and live chats and all sorts of cool stuff, too. So if you’re interested in discussing UF with other UF readers, give it a try! (You do NOT have to just discuss Pocket books, btw; they want it to be a general UF place, where authors and readers can just hang out and have fun and chat, which I think is seriously awesome.) So I hope to see you all there!

I took my Mac into the Apple store today to get it fixed; I’d been having this really weird cursor problem where for no reason the computer would decide to highlight blocks of text, or move them, or the clickbar (I don’t know what it’s called) would get stuck, or just a whole bunch of stuff like that, which was incredibly frustrating and annoying. (Several times it deleted whole paragraphs of text, for example.) Anyway, turns out the battery was bulging for some reason, and that was putting pressure on the bar, and that’s why. So now it’s all fixed, but it’s weird to hit the clickbar now, because it actually clicks, whereas before it didn’t really move.

Today was also my Faerie’s first day of kindergarten. I cried after we left her classroom. I know, it’s such a cliche thing to do, but I couldn’t help it. She’s my youngest, my baby, and now she’s getting so big and it’s not fair! And to underscore the point, she lost her second tooth about an hour after she got home (did I tell you she lost her first on my birthday? She did. How’s that for a “You are totally getting older, Stacia,” message?)

So. Tomorrow I’m going to post the first of two “Why it takes so damn long to publish a book right” posts. Wednesday I will probably put up my Dragoncon schedule, since it just occurred to me that I haven’t done that yet. Thursday I’ll do the second Publishing post, and then we’ll see where we are, because I still have those editing posts planned.

So there you go. Shirts, websites, kindergarten, and teeth. It’s been a heck of a day!

It’s 1:50 pm (yes, I know that isn’t morning. So what?). I’ve been ready to go back to bed since ten.

Lousy sleep–it’s too damn hot to sleep–and lousy dreams. Then, as I’m wandering the internet this morning I find an article about the upcoming Toy Story 3 movie, which reminded me of Toy Story 2, which I hate and can’t watch.

“But, Stace,” you say, “how can you possibly hate such a sweet little kid’s movie?”

I’ll tell you why. Because it’s awful and sad and tragic. Sure, it’s fun for the first hour or so. Look at the toys, aren’t they funny, Barbie is an idiot slut, la la la. Then we meet Joan Cusack’s character, and then we hear her tale, and they sing that song about how life was beautiful when that fickle girl loved her, and we see that fickle girl abandon her by the side of the road and go off with some boy, because all women will eventually abandon everything for a man, and by that time I’m sobbing and on the beginning of a depressive shame spiral that will only end in a lot of vodka.

I can’t possibly be the only one who feels like this, can I? Who sees that and starts remembering all of my toys, the stuffed animals and horse statues and Weeble-Wobbles and stuff, now lying broken and abandoned in a ditch somewhere, alone and scared, at the mercy of the elements, sobbing and spending their entire eternal toy lives wondering what they did that was so wrong, and why I forsook them so coldly? And wishing desperately I would just appear and hold them one more time?

Seriously. I have enough shit on my conscience. I don’t need that, too.

After reading that article I literally cried for ten minutes. Why don’t you just play a recording of Helen Reddy’s “Candle on the Water,” to complete the childhood misery deluge? (See, I have this theory about “Candle on the Water.” I believe that while we as children thought it was a sweet song, and maybe kids today still do, you cannot play that song to any adult over the age of, oh, thirty, and expect them not to dissolve into tears. Seriously. We should look into this as a weapon. Whoever owns the Helen Reddy records owns the world.)

Did I mention the hideous, oppressive heat, and how it makes me half-convinced that the earth is just about to burst into flames? And saps every bit of energy out of me, and makes me slow-witted and sad? I hate the damn sun. I hate the damn heat. It makes me ill (literally; I’ve always been really sensitive to heat).

And then, something was crawling–well, I say crawling, but what it was in fact doing was racing–up my arm, and across my lapdesk. I–acting purely on my killer animal instincts–killed the thing with a spiral notebook. And guess what? It was a spider. It’s bad luck to kill a spider. Like I need more of that these days, right?

Sigh. So this day is not shaping up to be a great day, but let’s hope it improves. And it actually has a bit, because I popped over to Twitter to drown my sorrows and found a new review of UNHOLY GHOSTS, which, coupled with the one I got in my email this morning, makes me feel much cheerier.

From All Things Urban Fantasy, 4 out of 5 bats:

Any series that is described as “a cross between Ghostbusters and Escape From New York” is going to get my attention, big time. Of course that also means said series is going to have a lot to live up to. And in one of the wonderfully rare cases, UNHOLY GHOSTS does exactly that. It’s cool and twisted, just the way I like my urban fantasy.

From Book Chick City:

I’m so excited about this book – I LOVED it! I haven’t read an Urban Fantasy this good in quite a while…The writing is perfectly paced, I didn’t get bored once and everything slots together at the right time. The plot is just brilliant and had me engrossed until the very last page – I didn’t want to put this book down!

So let’s hope my slightly cheerier feeling lasts.

How about you? Looking forward to a good weekend, or a dull one? Does the heat make you feel oppressed and trapped beneath the weight of all the world’s misery too? Do you like Toy Story 2, and does “Candle on the Water” make you cry?

Okay, okay. I know it’s a figure of speech. I know people use it all the time. And I know they use it for different reasons, and that I could very well be the only weirdo who sees it this way (hey, wouldn’t be the first time).

But it drives me nuts when I see people posting or blogging or whatevering about “landing an agent.”

I’m not sure why the phrase gets under my skin so much. It just feels…braggardly (a word I coined on Twitter last night. Feel free to use it. Someone else probably invented it first but I’m taking credit, at least until they step forward).

Seriously? I picture a writer posing for one of those Prize-Marlin pictures, with the hapless agent suspended by a large hook, a dribble of blood down his or her chin and wide, staring, frightened eyes. It’s just not a good image, guys. It kind of creeps me out.

And here’s the thing. Landing a fish implies a sort of physical battle; a test of wills between the fish and the fisherman. It implies mastery over a wild thing; that a contest of strength and endurance was entered into and victory was achieved. Getting an agent, or interesting an agent, or signing with an agent? Not remotely like that.

Now, I do see the analogy. I do. Querying agents can feel like a test of endurance, certainly. And it does require some strength. It’s tough to send out those letters and not know what will come back. It’s tough to get rejections from people you really thought you’d like to work with, people who you really thought would “get” you and your work. It can be exhausting. It can be soul-crushing. And while I am, as you know, a member of the “suck it up” school, I do understand and remember how hard it is, and how it feels when you think this book you love so much, this book you really think is special, isn’t going to go anywhere or do anything. Yes. It hurts. (I just don’t think we need to talk about it.)

But querying agents isn’t You Vs. Agent. It isn’t, any more than finding a mate is You Vs. Them. (Which is another phrase I hate, for basically the same reasons: “catching” a husband. Hardly anybody says it anymore, because it sounds so silly and antiquated. Something to think about, huh? Anyway. “Catching” a husband makes it sound as though I set up a snare in the woods and waited in the bushes with a club and a wedding ring for some hapless guy to wander along and step into my trap. It just sounds…ech.) When you date, you’re looking for the Right Fit.

And so are the other people.

You don’t hear agents talking about “landing” a new client, do you? (I certainly never have.) No. They sign new clients. There’s no implication that they have somehow Mastered The Wild in finding a new writer to represent.

It just presents an image I dislike. I didn’t “land” my agent. I didn’t haul him onto the deck of my pontoon boat and gut him while he gasped and writhed. I don’t look at what happened that way. I don’t see the getting of agents as me setting some kind of pheromonal Venus Flytrap and hoping an agent would blunder into it. I don’t see myself as being some kind of victor, the Teddy Roosevelt of Big-Agent Hunting, with heads mounted on my wall.

(Someone on Twitter last night mentioned this in relation to record contracts, like how bands are said to “land” a record deal. But it doesn’t bother me so much in that instance. Why? Because record contracts, being printed paper agreements and service deals, are not human either.)

I adore euphemism. I love the images words can create. It’s fun, and exciting. And yes, “landed an agent” can be a very vivid one. But it’s also one that implies some sort of trickery, a painful struggle in which an unwilling victim is finally brought down through force of will and heavy fishing line. And it just grates on me when I hear it used in reference to agents or other human beings. It sounds a little pretentious, a little braggy (or braggardly, if you like).

It’s just a pet peeve. Take it as you will.

Okay, lots of stuff to cover and get through and all of that.

First, the other day I cam across this cool blog/site called Best Fantasy Books.com. Another site had a link to this post about ARCs and reviews that I thought was really interesting.

Most of my thoughts on the subject are covered in my comment, which is the fifth comment down:

I think the disconnect comes from something I’ve seen a lot, which is the idea that reviews are written for the gratification of authors, or solely in order to provide them with pretty shiny quotes they can put on their websites and blogs. But they’re not. Reviews are for readers, plain and simple.

And more than that, reviews don’t sell books if the books aren’t readily avilable either. I might see an enthusiastic review somewhere. I might then jot down the title of the book and look for it on Amazon or next time I go to the bookstore. But when I do those things, I’m looking for something to read THEN. If the bookstore doesn’t have it I’ll grab something else. If Amazon or B&N.com or Borders or whatever is going to have to order it for me and I’ll have to wait three weeks or six weeks for it, I might very well not buy it then either, especially if I have the money in hand and don’t know if I will when the book ships and I’m charged for it. Or heck, I don’t know I’ll get the book at all.

A really, really stellar review for a book that speaks to a very specific interest of mine might inspire me to go the extra mile. But in general, if the book isn’t readily available, I’ll buy something else. Reviews are for readers, to help them choose books at the store. While it’s always fun to get a shiny quote, and it’s always nice to see small-press books get some attention and reviews, the fact remains that if the book isn’t available there’s little point.

See, here’s the thing. I’m pretty sure that the good reviews Personal Demons got contributed directly to the nice level of sales the book had; certainly it sold more than I’d expected it would. But that’s also because those reviews were backed up by the book being available in stores. The book had a professional (if small) publisher, with professional distribution that got it on the shelves. So when people read one of those nice reviews, they could go to the store and buy the book. In that sense the reviews were extremely helpful.

But they were also legitimate reviews. Well-written reviews, which stated what the reviewer liked or did not like. Those ego-stroke reviews you see vanity press authors giving each other in a big, sloppy, “This book is the most wonderful thing ever, it totally swept me away and I couldn’t put it down” circle-jerk? Useless. You think readers don’t see through those things? Of course they do. Readers by definition are not stupid; they read.

But I do seem to see more and more the attitude the Best Fantasy Books gentleman describes: entitlement. I sent you a free book, so you owe me a review. More than that, you owe me a good review. If you read any of the review blogs or websites you’ll see this more and more; reviewers being harrassed by authors, called names, yelled at, argued with, all because they either did not review or did not like the book in question.

This is an unprofessional attitude, frankly. Nobody owes you shit.

Which brings me to Agentfail.

Here’s what bugs me about things like Agentfail. It’s a great idea. It could be a really useful and informative discussion. Instead, it ends up becoming much like the last discussion the lovely BookEnds ladies (I really like them, and their blog; I had occasion to deal with Ms. Faust back when I was querying Personal Demons and was left with nothing but positive impressions); a gang of unagented writers complaining–raging–about the query process, with such viciousness it makes the stomach churn.

And in doing so they obscure the legitimate points that have been or might be made. The “No response=no” policy, for example. I don’t have a problem with it. I never have. I certainly don’t understand why it inspires such fury in people, or why they feel entitled to a response from people they don’t know. If I send JK Rowling a fan letter, I don’t expect that she’s going to respond to me. Just like if I send the guy who lives two streets over a letter asking if he’d like to meet for a drink, I don’t expect him to respond to me. Because neither of them owe me shit. Why would you not only expect that a total stranger go out of his or her way to speak to you, but then get angry because they don’t use your name and include a few lines about how special you are?

Yes, I know the agent/querier situation is different. It’s a potential business relationship. Okay, then. Here’s an example. When we were planning our wedding I bought a box of chocolates. The company who made the chocolates was a small company that apparently does custom work as well. I emailed them and asked if they would be interested in making chocolates for my wedding. They never replied.

Oh, well.

I didn’t feel the need to burn them at the stake. I didn’t feel the need to start spreading their name all over the internet because how dare they IGNORE me when I sent them an unsolicited email for a job which did not interest them.

Here’s the thing, guys, and I know it might be hard to believe but it’s true. When your project is sellable, agents will respond. It really is that simple, and I knew that two or three years ago, long before I started seriously querying. If you’re not getting replies, it’s because nobody’s interested, and while that’s tough to deal with it is the simple truth.

That isn’t to say I approve of “no reply=no” as a policy, or rather, I don’t have a problem with it but do think agents who have that policy should set up an auto-responder for their email so the querier knows the thing was received. It’s not hard and it saves everyone a lot of trouble.

But again, that reasonable request–have an auto-responder–gets lost under piles and piles of “You’re not giving me feedback/you’re not using my name/you’re not calling me up to say hello/how dare you ask me to write your name on the query and then send me a form reply,” comments, couched in combative and abusive language.

I realize I look at this from a different perspective now. Quite frankly, I want my agent reading the stuff I send him and working on deals for me, rather than spending extra time giving feedback to people he doesn’t represent. Every minute he spends on that is a minute during which he could be doing something for me. Sorry, but it’s true. I (and all his other clients) pay him 15% to work for me, to read my submissions and work on them, to vet my contracts, to use his connections on my behalf.

You, on the other hand, do not pay him a dime to query him. Which means, to put it bluntly, I’m paying his salary during the time in which he’s reading and responding to your queries.

Don’t get me wrong. I don’t mind this. I don’t even think of it this way; I’m just using this as an example of how my view of it is different now, and why agents handle queries the way they do (because it’s first and foremost in their mind, as well, or at least it should be; clients should be the priority). I don’t begrudge the time it takes for him to handle his queries–or do things for his other clients–and I don’t know a single writer who does. But again, I never thought I was entitled to anything from an agent. I never thought I deserved feedback (although again, I agree that a personalized response on requested materials–at least on fulls requested after partials–would be nice).

My point isn’t that writers don’t have the right to complain or be upset or hate the way things work or be irritated or have opinions. My point is that when the opportunity comes up to discuss issues in which agents could handle things differently or better, the anger doesn’t do anyone any good. The sheer hatred permeating that thread, leaking from my laptop screen in a choking mist…does nothing to make the points expressed look better or more valid. It just makes it easier to dismiss all of the comments and complaints as the frustrated rantings of a mob of wannabes.

And it’s depressing.

Okay. Moving on. Yes, we leave here next week; the movers are coming on Monday. My Monday post will be a short one; I’m going to open the blog to book recommendations from all of you, and I’m hoping that you’ll all have a great discussion while I’m away, so please, link to the post, tell your pals, whatever you want to do. (Or don’t, in which case I’ll just feel unpopular and unloved because nobody’s commenting on my thread.)

I’m not sure what my internet access will be. I will try. Later today or tomorrow I’m going to try and download Twitberry (or Tweetberry, whichever it is; I have it written down somewhere) so I can Tweet from my phone. So if that works, you’ll still be able to follow me on Twitter.

I am able to update my Facebook page from the phone already, so if I don’t manage to stop in here, and you’re not on Twitter or whatever, you can check in there if you like.

(BTW, yes, I am fully aware that your lives will move on exactly as before while I’m away from the internet, and that it’s not like my absence–or at the very least, very sporadic presence–for the next month or so is going to cause a huge gaping hole in the internet from which no one will recover until I return. But A) it makes me feel better to list this stuff, as I then feel as if I have some control over the move and all the Big Scary Changes; and B) some of those who follow me or keep up with me in various places online are real-life friends or family members who might reasonably be expected to want to keep tabs on me and make sure I’m safe and sound.)

Turned in the final draft–or rather, my final draft–of the third Downside book yesterday. Final word count: 105,761. New title (yes, another one): GHOST BOUND.

We’re currently looking for a new title for the second book; we want to change the title structure up a bit with the second book rather than doing it suddenly with the third. Still want the word GHOST in there if possible. I know you guys don’t know much about the story or characters, and I’m not going to tell you because that would be a big old spoiler, but make some suggestions anyway, huh? Maybe it will spark something, who knows.

Goodness this is a long post! And I could have sworn I had something else to talk about too, but I don’t remember it.

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 UNHOLY GHOSTS, 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. While I don’t deny those books do exist, they’re not the only books that do. 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. In May 2010 (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. And don’t forget Richard Kadrey’s SANDMAN SLIM, or Kari Stewart’s A DEVIL IN THE DETAILS.

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, or pick up an urban fantasy if you usually read only trad fantasy or science fiction, 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.

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

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.

I suspect womanhood has something to do with it, yes I do. And that something is, everyone saying these things 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.

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?

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.

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?

Yes, it’s a recipe! I know, I haven’t posted one of these in quite a while; I’m actually considering putting a page on my new website for them all, or would that be lame? What do you think?

Anyway. Most of the recipes I’ve posted have been my own inventions. This one isn’t. It’s taken from Nigella Lawson’s “How to Eat”, which is one of my absolute favorite cookbooks in the world ever. Certainly out of all the cookbooks I own, this one is my favorite that was written after about 1980.

Okay, I started to put this little rant in parentheses but decided it was too long to be parenthetical. I buy most of my cookbooks from used bookstores, or especially from antique/antiquarian bookstores, for one simple reason. Good recipes.

The thing is, most modern cookbooks aren’t written for people who enjoy cooking or who cook on a regular basis. They’re just not. They’re written–so it seems to me–for people who enjoy reading and eating more than cooking; for those who enjoy “food porn”; for those who cook once a week, an elaborate Saturday or Sunday lunch or brunch.

I like those books, I do. I own a few and love to look through them. But they are not practical at all. I am a stay-home Mom, as you guys know. I cook dinner for four people at least five nights a week (usually six, but we do have the occasional Leftovers Night, or fish & chips craving, or whatever, so I’m saying five even though it’s usually six or seven). When you cook dinner for four people, six nights a week, you do not have the time to spend on these ten-step recipes every night. Nor do you have the money for some of the ingredients in those books. Nor, especially, is there a snowball’s chance in Hell that your four- and seven-year-old daughters are going to even consider eating anything served on a bed of crispy-fried frissee lettuce, with capers, and bearnaise sauce, and whatever else. Seriously. I love those cookbooks. But I cannot actually cook from them; I do not have the money or the equipment or time, and I need to cook food that my children will actually eat.

Older cookbooks were written for housewives who had to cook for their families and their picky children. The recipes in them are less expensive. They use more common ingredients; no hunting around for passionfruit or beef marrow. No dirtying dozens of pots and pans. And that’s what I need.

I also feel that modern cookbooks are waaaay too full of salads and desserts. You know, I know how to make a salad, and I rarely make or eat dessert. I don’t need those recipes, I need main courses. Actual food. Not thirty different salads that are really all the same; it’s a freaking salad, you know?

And that’s one reason I love Nigella’s book. I love her, frankly. I love how the book reads more like a novel than a cookbook. (Funnily enough the few negative Amazon reviews are from people who don’t like this; they just want recipes and pictures.) It’s like a little wander through someone’s culinary life, and it’s a lot of fun. And while I admit some of the recipes don’t appeal to me, some of them do, and are delicious (although I do wish she would stop putting chiles in everything as I cannot take spicy food with my delicate stomach.)

Anyway. This is for gooey chocolate puddings. And they are fantastic. I made them New Year’s Eve. This is the kind of recipe I love because it looks really complex and sophisticated when you serve it; it’s like a little chocolate cake still all melty in the center. And I could never figure out how that works, and now I know.

Preheat oven to 400F; turn it on at least half an hour before you want to cook the puddings so it will be nice and evenly hot.

4 1/2 oz high quality chocolate, chopped. (4 1/2 oz is 125g; see what measurement the chocolate bar uses. I’d make sure the chocolate is at least 70% cocoa solids. Also, I used “Mayan dark” chocolate, with spices, do you know the kind I mean? It has a little cinnamon and stuff. It was really good, but plain choc would be fine.)

8 Tbsp (1 stick) unsalted butter (I only had salted and it was fine, so I wouldn’t worry about that too much)

3 large eggs

3/4 cup sugar

1/4 cup all-purpose flour

In a saucepan (or double-boiler, if you’re fancy) melt the butter and chocolate together slowly, stirring fairly often.

In a bowl, whisk together the eggs, sugar, and flour until just blended. It will be this weird sort of translucent yellowy goo. Slowly whisk in the chocolate mixture; set aside.

Butter four 1-cup ramekins (I used my special heart-shaped Le Creuset Xmas gift remekins! Oh joy! I felt *very* grown-up and special) and flour them. Pour the misture into the ramekins–mine were filled just over halfway–and set them on a baking sheet, in the middle of the oven, for 10-12 minutes, until the tops are firm and cracking slightly and the edges are set. I’d actually give them maybe a minute more; oven temps vary a little so keep an eye on them.

Serve immediately, with cream. I’m not usually a fan of simply pouring cream over things–I used single cream, which is like half-and-half I think, but you could use whipping cream too. It doesn’t need to be whipped (though you can, I didn’t), just pour some of it over after you’ve taken the first couple of bites.

The thing is, these are *very* gooey and *very* hot inside, and *very* chocolatey. So the cream is cool, and actually does provide a little relief from the strong chocolate flavor, so it adds a nice contrast. So I would definitely have the cream. I liked it much better with than without, and so did the hubs. Loooovely.

A few more things:

Friday night I was hanging out on Twitter, wishing AW was up (I’ve heard it’s back now but haven’t had time to go check yet), and I got into a fun little chat with Colleen Lindsay, who is probably one of the most–if not the most–successful new agents to, um, start agenting, in the past few years. She’s with Fine Print, an excellent agency, and is the living embodiment of my “A new agent at an established agency is a good bet” dictum. Anyway. I thought Colleen was a nice, friendly sort, until she practically throttled me and pushed my face in a muddy puddle until I agreed to allow her to set up a Facebook page for me. I gave in.

So now I have a Facebook page. Which some of you already know because I Friended you. If I didn’t friend you, it’s because I did not know you were there, so please don’t hesitate to friend me if you want.

I’m actually really enjoying Facebook so far. Much more adult than MySpace, which you all know I loathe. We’ll see if it becomes a major timesuck; so far I’ve been doing okay.

A terrifying thing happened Saturday night. No, really. Hubs went to his Mum’s on Friday to discuss some things with her. He came back Saturday; I picked him up at the train station at 7 pm. It was dark. It was pouring down rain. It was horrendously windy.

Unlike pretty much every other town in England, our train station is miles away. You have to take a separate highway to get to and from it. It’s a four-lane highway, two lanes on each side, with a metal dividing rail between, and it is a very hilly, very wind-y road with lots of twists and turns. No lights, of course. That would make it safer and we can’t have that.

So. We are headed Westbound, in the left-hand lane (which is the outside lane here, remember.) Toodly-doo, along we go, chatting, when we turn a corner, go about half a mile, and a car passes us going Eastbound.

Eastbound. In the Westbound lane. On a dark and windy night, on a twisty narrow road.

(Another fun feature of this road, as with so many roads in the Southwest, is there are no exits for miles. You get on, and you are not getting off for a while.)

So of course we take a second or two to wonder if we actually saw what we think we did. Another second or so to freak out because we could have all just been in a head-on collision at 70 mph. And we dial 999 to report it. We would have liked to have turned around and followed along with them (on the correct side of the road) blaring our horn or something to try and warn people, but again, it is impossible to exit or turn around anywhere on these roads. And that probably would not have been particularly safe either.

One really cool thing they do here is, if you call to report a crime or incident or whatever, they are legally required to update you on it. Which is a tremendous violation of privacy, but is still really cool. We arrived home, still freaking out, and waited.

Fifteen minutes later the phone rang. It was the police. There had been a massive car accident.

Luckily, she said no one was killed or even injured very seriously. And she said thanks to us they already had police etc. on the road, on the way, when the call came in. So we were at least able to help.

The driver was apparently very elderly.

Just awful. Very scary. And I believe it is entirely possible that had there been street lights the accident could have been prevented. Seriously, getting onto the highway here at night is like being in a submarine plunging into black water; the lights stop at the top of the exit ramps, and you’re on your own. It’s incredibly dangerous.

But the important thing is no one was killed.

See? I told you it was terrifying.

But on a brighter note…there’s an Inauguration tomorrow! I love Inaguration Day. I always watch them–I always love to watch them. I don’t care who’s being inagurated, I just watch and take pride in the whole system. That we elect a President. That we swear that President in with great ceremony and pride. That we are solemn and joyful at the same time. It’s fantastic. It makes me proud, and it usually makes me cry a little, and I just love it and I’m very excited. So who’s going to be watching with me? (Assuming I get to watch of course; I don’t know if CNN or Fox will be covering it, and those are the only news we have access to that might show the whole thing. So fingers crossed. I haven’t missed watching an Inauguration in…oh, gosh…since Reagan’s first, so this is a Big Deal to me.)

Funnily enough, I started planning this post on Saturday, and yesterday I wandered over to Smart Bitches and saw they were wondering the same thing–as, apparently, was a writer at The Guardian.

I’m not sure I agree, though.

See, I read a bad book this weekend. A bad book (and no, I am not going to tell you what it was, so don’t even ask). A book I found almost no–no, make that no, period–redeeming features about. It was badly written and clunky. It was all tell, no show. There was some awful sex in it; really, really bad, complete with orgasms that sounded more like epileptic fits and terrible, unsexy word choices. I was informed characters were smart, when in fact the book showed them to be insipid ninnies; I’m surprised they were able to figure out how to work a faucet. The hero was an asshole, of the self-pitying crybaby type; the heroine was a hateful, childish moron.

Bad characters are one thing, but bad writing is insulting. And this was badly written, oh yes. I cringed. I gave so many snorts of incredulous laughter the hubs asked if I was coming down with a cold.

Now according to the Guardian writer, and the fabulous Bitches, this should be a positive experience, and make me better able to appreciate the really good books I’ve read. And I suppose to some degree that’s true.

But reading that dreck made me think. It made me think about a review I saw once on Amazon, in which the reviewer complained that a character’s backstory was not explained in the beginning of the book–in other words, she was upset there hadn’t been an infodump.

And it got me thinking. What sort of books did that reviewer normally read, that she expected the main character’s entire backstory to be explained right up front? You don’t generally find those as much in popular fiction (and by “popular” I mean NY-published books with large readerships.) Oh, sure, you see them on occasion, but I think most professional editors see infodumps for the marks of amateurism they are, and don’t buy novels with that sort of thing in them.

Which tells me that in large part, that reader was probably reading largely Bad Books.

I could be wrong, of course. It could simply be that she doesn’t read much (or he; I don’t remember the name of the reviewer or anything else about them.) Or it could be he or she does read good books and dislikes all of them for the same reason.

But I’m always amazed when I see books I’ve read and thought were just terrible on a technical level get great reviews. I don’t mean books where the writing wasn’t stellar but was serviceable, and the plot was good enough to keep me involved. I’m talking about really, truly awful books. The kind we’ve all read; the kind where, for example, historical characters use modern verbiage, or every other sentence ends with an exclamation point, or entire sentences fail to make any kind of sense despite several readings. (Here’s an example of what I mean, that I just made up:

She held a hat in her hands and walked along the river, before it falls and blew away into the night sky with the water flying everywhere and tears hit her shoes.

See what I mean?)

So I see those positive reviews, and I can only assume one of two things. Either the reviewer hasn’t actually read the book, or the reviewer is simply so well attuned to terrible prose that they don’t notice it anymore, in the same manner as someone living near a dump wll eventually no longer smell the garbage.

Now, I’m not claiming my own writing is so great, either. This isn’t about me being better than anyone else. Who knows, maybe the book I read this weekend is actually great, and I’m the dipshit who isn’t smart enough to get it (although the reviews of it I’ve seen elsewhere agree with me.)

But whether or not it’s a skill I truly possess, good writing is important to me. Words that snap and flow, images and metaphors that are poetic and clear. Characters who practically climb off the page, but not in a creepy The Ring kind of way. Plots that make sense, and fall neatly into place.

These things are important. Good writing should be both easy and difficult to read; it should resonate while challenging us. It should feel strange and familiar at once.

But once you grow accustomed to reading books where that challenge, that strangeness, that unique voice, isn’t present…perhaps good writing becomes harder to see? Harder to recognize? Isn’t it possible that, much as a person who only ever eats potato chips may have a hard time eating something more complex–indeed, may begin to hate something more complex, as it forces them to experience something new and different–reading nothing but bad prose may make good writing seem too hard? Too much of a challenge. Instead of wanting to watch a story unfold we begin to want everything up front; we don’t want to get to know the characters, we don’t want to spend time in the world. We don’t want to have to pay attention to what’s on the page, in other words.

I’m not saying every book we read has to be incredibly high quality, not at all. And again, I’m not saying I’m such a great writer, either.

I’m just wondering if perhaps bad writing, instead of teaching us to appreciate good writing, only breeds more bad writing. When a writer reads published books as part of their learning process, and those published books are lazy, lousy, and unclear…what does that say to them? What level of work will they shoot for, if they think the terrible book they’ve just read is where they need to be?

What do you guys think?