It’s official: I’ve moved!

I’ve officially moved this blog to its new home at my website.

The blog’s new address is:

http://blog.efdanehy.com

I’ll keep this site up but I won’t be updating it, though. Update your feed readers or bookmarks and head over there for new posts!

Erin

The argument: Bella is no Buffy, to her detriment.

I found this article yesterday on an author’s blog and I absolutely agree with the article (and the author’s sentiment, though I won’t link back out of courtesy to the author’s post’s request). The article’s author makes a terrific, and alarming, point about the potentially dangerous and potent message of the Twilight books by Stephenie Meyer. (I emphasize potentially. Not every reader will read them this way, nor should they, but the message is there, to be seen.) [A warning, dear readers: spoilers for the Twilight series will abound.]

As the article states:

If only Meyer had taken Buffy as her template. If only she had used that groundbreaking series as her foundation and built on it. If only there was a Whedonesque intelligence and modern, feminist sensibility informing Twilight and its successors. If only.

What you have instead in Meyer’s work is a depressingly retrograde, deeply anti-feminist, borderline misogynistic novel that drains its heroine of life and vitality as surely as if a vampire had sunk his teeth into her and leaves her a bloodless cipher while the story happens around her. Edward tells her she is “so interesting … fascinating”, but the reader looks in vain for his evidence.

(A disclaimer: I absolutely love Buffy and Joss Whedon; go rent Season 1 of Buffy the Vampire Slayer. Go. Now.)

After reading that, my first thought was, Oh, thank God someone just came out and said it in a respectable newspaper. We passionate, obscure bloggers can only do so much.

To stumble-upon-ers: I am a writer and lover of books about kick-ass girls who do things, who save their worlds, who break stereotypes and shatter tradition. I wrote a whole thesis on this. I am fervently critical and passionate about this. When I read a book in the genre I love that praises the passive female protagonist — or rather, praises her for being special when she is not — I get mad. Had the books been written from Edward’s perspective, or in third person, one could probably argue that poor Bella is not so much the protagonist — the one who makes the action happen… because she’s not — but rather the Female Love Interest, or Designated Love Interest to the more vibrant Edward. It’s so much his story. She reacts to him. In New Moon, when Bella is mostly on her own for the book with Edward’s decision to take a break, she isn’t alone. No. She finds a new male on to whom she can latch — Jacob. It’s not so much her story as the story of the dependent relationships she forms.

It’s Bella who is our narrator, Bella who is our guide into this fantasy world. But rather than guide is in and stake out her own space within it, she gets subsumed within it and dissolved by it, replaced with a character who is only a shadow of a strong, independent female; a shadow of the woman Edward keeps insisting she is. Meyer tells us how wonderful Bella is. She never shows us. Poor Bella loses herself in her relationship with Edward.

Granted, Bella has moments. Those moments are what kept me clawingly optimistic throughout my reading of the series. Whenever the plot pulled my hopes down, I clawed out of that hollow of despair and said, “No. Bella will eventually Kick Ass. She has to prove she’s Awesome. After all, why else would both Jacob and Edward love her so much? She has to be Awesome.” But that moment never came — not really. When it kind of did — in a subversive, (passive) way in Breaking Dawn (Bella’s shield) — I was disappointed. Bella doesn’t determine her own destiny, like some fantasy protagonists. She isn’t faced with a destiny she didn’t chose and proves she can brave it and make the best of it, like others. She’s not a fantasy hero or even a heroine. She’s a tragic gothic stereotype of a heroine who, rather than dying spectacularly, just keeps on living.

Here’s another disclaimer: I am engaged to be married. I will be married in March to my soulmate, a man for whom I would do anything and who would do anything for me. I am not some crazy feminist writer/blogger who loves Women Who Do Things and say that women can’t do things with men hanging attached to them. Of course women can do things while in love, while in relationships — any kind of relationship with any one, for that matter. Women can be independent and be committed at the same time. Isn’t that the trait the media most praises in a successful career mother? The woman who is able to balance kids, husband, job, personal life? She is the ideal to which we women in western society are supposed to ascribe, to shoot for.  (Which, in itself, is still sad; that women are still seen to have “complete” lives only when surrounded by that nuclear stereotype, regardless of her personal sense of completeness or fulfillment with her own life, whatever or whomever it may entail.)

And then there’s Bella. When she finally finds the balance, she’s not Bella at all, she’s some thirtysomething analogue whom we don’t recognize from the “normal” teenage girl she once was. One could argue Bella changes and grows throughout the series. I argue, rather, that she inconsistently fluxes between melodramatic anxiety and passivity until she transforms into someone who is most certainly not an organic incarnation of a grown-up Bella but rather a forced shell of who we’re told she is based on roles she is given — wife, mother, vampire… non-human being.

What’s interesting, in the context of me speaking about this on this blog, is the thought that’s occurred to me that criticizing books on this blog while being an author myself is a little… well, iffy? But I suppose the other way to look at it is this: If I met Stephenie Meyer in real life, and she asked me, “What is your honest opinion of my books?” I would, frankly, be honest. I immediately and superficially enjoyed her books — I did — but they left me unsettled. The more reflecting and discussing I’ve done, the more unsettled I’ve become. I am still unsettled, even more so after letting Breaking Dawn sink in. (My enthusiasm was so short-lived.) I won’t be able to re-read them. I know that. Having read them as a happily-in-a-relationship twentysomething, not a depressed 17-year-old bemoaning her lack of love life — oh, how those years changed me — I have a completely different view. Reading those books as a mother, I’d feel different yet again. I suppose the ultimate beauty of a blog is that you don’t have to read it or agree with what I say, but hopefully my point of view might have given you a new view from which to consider while forming your own.

But, strangely enough, I am glad these books exist. I am glad I read them.

I am sad about their ridiculous popularity, but I am a firm believer in the idea that dialogue is that which expands our minds and enables us to grow as human beings. Without two (or more) sides to any view or argument, where would the growth be? Without different opinions, what kind of people would we be?

I suppose, ultimately, what I’m hoping for is for more novels and stories (for children and young adults, especially) from the Kick Ass Woman (or strong, assertive young woman or girl) point of view. I want more books that show women doing anything and everything men can do — and have done — in both real life and in existing literature of every genre. I want female characters in fantasy that display the same depth, complexity, assertiveness, and power of many male protagonists in fantasy.

Some authors have and are succeeding at this in certain subgenres of fantasy (Robin McKinley, Tamora Pierce, Garth Nix, Shannon Hale, Patricia Briggs, Jeanine Frost); some have partial yet luadable success (Philip Pullman’s His Dark Materials). Some books featuring male protagonists have casts of female characters with terrific complexity and depth (Jim Butcher, Sherwood Smith, Robin Hobb, George R. R. Martin) and some with female protagonists have surprised and pleased me with the journeys of those protagonists (Trudi Canavan). We have to keep going, though. That’s why I write, that’s why I’ve always wanted to write.

As I’ve said, this also means novels featuring male main characters/ protagonists/ heroes with co- and supporting female characters who are equal to their male counterparts in complexity, emotion, and range of possibility. This is starting to happen more and more frequently; however the waif/weak/incompetent female love interest still exists, though, as supposed counterpart to her brave, heroic, and intelligent male protagonist. Why does this happen in fantasy? Think of the successful marriages you know: those couples are not fractionally as imbalanced and mis-matched as quite a few fantasy couples tend to be. Fantasy characters deserve to be as real as any real person, as any good, realistic character in any other genre.

Parents should get involved and responsible in this discussion, as well, for the sake of their young readers (in terms of children’s and YA literature). They should recognize which books contain which messages and be able to respond intelligently and with good information to the questions curious kids and teens will inevitably ask in response to books that provoke such thought. Regardless of the book, its characters, or its message, if it provokes serious intellectual conversation, I think that’s a terrific and laudable thing.

Reaction: Princeps’ Fury by Jim Butcher

This morning I finished the fifth and latest installment in Butcher’s Codex Alera series, Princeps’ Fury. I have been a fan of them since picking them up from the library earlier this year. I now own 1 to 4 in paperback, all ready for me to read through again.

Back to Princeps’ Fury: it was both excellent and fairly surprising — in a good way. (I’ll keep it general until I give you the spoiler warning.) The characterization, plot, and pacing were all as excellent as in any other installment of the series — the events involving the secondary characters were treated with the same gravity, care, and patience as the events around the protagonist, Tavi, which is something that deterred me from the first book (I love me my hooking protagonists) but ultimately drew me back in and made me appreciate the world anew in the successive books. In a lot of epic fantasy (I mean it, here, to refer to fantasy series where events happen on a large, world-wide scale), I tend to get pulled toward the main plot involving the protagonist because it’s simply the most interesting and exciting, ultimately making all secondary plots/characters annoying and more bland by contrast. (Robert Jordan & Terry Goodkind do this quite a lot.) Butcher doesn’t do that. He gives us enough reason to care and root for the secondary cast as he gives us reason to root for Tavi, but without diminishing Tavi’s importance. The secondary characters and plots are simply different, but commutatively crucial to the overarching plot of the series.

Now for the potential spoilers. You’re warned.

I adore Tavi. The terrific characterization given him (and his band of merry cohorts) is so excellent and so consistent. Except for Max perhaps being a little too annoying, I enjoyed his plot the best. The interplay between he and the Canim was excellently portrayed, and I especially loved the “Tavar” name given him by Varg. Kitai shined, as usual, but expressed an interesting gravity of emotion that was not so “feminine” as demonstrating a maturation of her and Tavi’s relationship that really moves toward deep, devotional, permanent love, and I liked that a lot; it was done organically. In other plots: Isana’s was so exciting, hilariously surprising and yet typical, and very emotionally moving. I loved the revelations about Septimus and their past that Isana, naive as she is and has always been, learns along with us. I love that we’re not learning what she’s always known in that regard; it would change her character if she had been aware all along of what Antillus Raucus and Aquitanus Attis have been. I enjoyed that a lot. That, and her juris macto challenge had me gasping with shock, awe, and glee. I enjoy that the resulting fight was completely in character for her, too, with the defensive movements and the desire to talk, emotionally, with Raucus; she’s not Araris, nor Tavi, and through her I can see how Butcher is really working to demonstrate Tavi’s difference from Gaius Sextus in terms of sheer upbringing and raw personality. The Septimus/Sextus divide is interesting enough, but I don’t know Septimus — neither does Tavi. I don’t care much about how great he was (so I’m glad Butcher kept it relatively toned down), I only care about how what people think and thought of him are reflected in their current actions, beliefs, and motivations (like with Aquitaine; the scene with Amara/Isana at the end was perfect).

Fidelias as usual was entertaining but not nearly as much as in previous books; what little we saw from his perspective this book seemed to built toward the (inevitable?) revelation of his identity to Tavi. I naturally hated him at first but once I (finally, ugh) got to understanding his type of hatred of Gaius and his subsequent motivation, I like him a lot. I think that’s the point, though. 

Amara and Bernard’s plot was much more interesting in this book, consistently, than in the last; the slog through the swamp could only captivate me for so long, regardless of the (awesome!?) Gaius Sextus’s involvment in it. Amara’s deception with Brencis was excellent and surprising, but not nearly as surprising as where Invidia’s plot has taken her — with the Vord queen?! So interesting, the layers built into that “relationship.” Bernard, cute as always… aw, Bernard. Sure and steady in a way that annoys me in other characters in the genre, though not here. I actually do not really like Amara as a character. I think she agonizes a little much over things — thank goodness it was less in this book than the last two; I was getting tired of it — and I am trying to figure out why I don’t particularly like her. It’s weird. I love Kitai. I love Isana — not quite as much as Kitai, who from the first line of her dialogue I knew she would be important, surprising, and engaging — but Amara has never effectively held my interest. Maybe it was my experience in Furies of Calderon with her, her interaction with Tavi and the others… I put my support firmly behind Tavi from the start and her (quick, infrequent) remarks against him must have hit home? I don’t know why I don’t like her. But even though I don’t like her, her plot was interesting and I do love Bernard. So. I suppose I’m really quickly judgmental about characters? Maybe I don’t like her hot, ridiculous hatred streaks? (Fidelias, Gaius Sextus?) Oh, well, I liked her better in this book and that’s good, I guess.

And then Gaius. He’s been a fascinating character from the start — the hard-edged First Lord whose complexity makes him terrifically fascinating. He’s not nice. He’s not bad. He’s perfectly, reasonably, understandably gray; he does bad things for good reasons, he does good things for layered, deceptive reasons. The quintessential politician and perfect person whom Tavi should both emulate and avoid becoming at the same time. Amara, Aquitaine, Isana, and Antillus (and others) are all justified in their different, complex hatred of him, all for different reasons and with different corresponding reactions. They all ostensibly hate him but none acts on that hate in the same way or with the same ends. His end was brilliant but bittersweet in a way that could only have come across because of the build up to it through the series. He had to go out in a terrific way; the little (almost after the fact) addition that he’d been slowly poisioned by his second wife was relatively unnecessary, to me, but helped explain some things… possibly. I would have accepted pneumonia and gone with it willingly, though. Not every important death (few though they are) in his series needs be motivated by greed, anger, revenge, ambition, hatred, disgust, or jealousy, right? I liked Ehren’s point of view with Gaius; it would be strange to see Gaius’s point of view and I’m glad I never saw it.

It all leaves me excited for the  next installment. First Lord’s Fury, perhaps? One wonders what its title will be. And is it the last book in the series? I don’t read enough forum/website information for me to know (some fan I am!) and I’m curious. But I’m not usually an avid website-checking fan, anyway; I have too much to work on with my own material to be much devoted to anything but the books I read themselves, I guess.

A whirlwind of… what, exactly?

The past two weeks have been just that: an inexplicable whirlwind. A strange combination of me being far too busy and alternately bored, but mostly filled with a desire to get things done that’s really pushing me to actually do just that. For a change!

Firstly, NaNoWriMo was a success. It was fun, it was painful, and it’s over. I can’t wait until next year’s attempt (I have learned, O NaNo, to respect thee and come into November prepared for thine total domination of my mind, ha) but I also, somewhat desperately, want to get back to what I was working on before NaNo took over my life. I recently re-read my draft and got excited about it all over again. I asked my friend to read it over and she’s given me some terrific feedback that’s given new zest to the fire under my butt to get it done. Also, because this is probably, at present, my single most interesting novel, I’m fascinating by the whole creative process — I, by and large, write to discover — but I’m also daunted by all of the things I simply don’t know about this plot yet. I have a vague, overhanging notion of where it’s going, how it will end, what happens to get it there — but it’s vague.

Thus writing to discover’s weak point… the whole vague part can’t really be wholly sharpened until I get there. It’s not that I have so many “things to do” that daunt me. Things are things: tangible, visible things. It’s my lack of certainty, of knowledge, of the plot that’s truly daunting. I hate looking ahead in my imagination and seeing this tangled Black Cloud of the Unknown I now have to plunge into, because while it can be fun, I also do like to have an idea of where I am going as I am getting there. There’s the famous E. L. Doctorow quote, that writing “is like driving a car at night. You never see further than your headlights, but you can make the whole trip that way.” That’s true, but I also like to be aware of landmarks on my route to know that I haven’t gone astray from the path that’s leading toward my desired conclusion. Sometimes the journey there has changed that conclusion (it’s happened more than once that while getting there I realized my vague desire was irrational and needed to be changed). Even so, it’s not an entirely comfortable feeling for someone like me, who tries to go into most things in life as completely prepared for all exigencies as possible. I traveled to Europe with lots and lots of guidebook information both with me and in my head and though we didn’t have a lot of hotel reservations, I worked my butt off before hand so I knew I could survive traveling into a city without being prepared with a bed to sleep in that night. Bryan’s confidence in himself and in me helped me a lot, and he’s been helping me get through writing the same way, with the same faith and confidence in me.

I know I have that same faith and confidence in myself, too. It’s somewhat cheeky, my view of my own future success. I know I will do it. I know it with a pure, palpable, ferocious certainty that will not be undermined or driven off course. I am too stubbornly determined to be a success to not succeed. But there are levels of success, there are levels of perfection — or perceived perfection — and it’s hard, so hard, to be able to plunge forward at this early stage in the game and not want what I am producing now to be as polished and perfect as the end result will be.

To that effect, NaNoWriMo’s Chris Baty had some brilliantly simple advice on the site the other day:

Do not spend a single second making your prose readable until you’re absolutely, positively sure that you have your story locked down. This is the single most important bit of advice I have, and I ignore it all the time and have wasted years of my revising life because of it. The impulse to snappy-up dialogue and make sentences eloquent is almost irresistible at every point in the revision process. It makes sense: We’re surrounded by so many big, messy plot and character problems that it’s nice to seek solace in tidying up sentences. It’s a finite task, it’s instantly gratifying, and it makes us feel like we’re making progress on our books. The sadness comes when we spend six months transforming our first three chapters into Pulitzer-worthy gems, only to realize that none of those chapters will actually end up in our novels because they don’t work with the ending. This happens over and over and over, and it will kind of make you want to die. My advice: Think of your second draft as a house that you’re building. You need to pour the foundation, frame the walls, and get a reasonably waterproof roof over your head before you start to think about putting art up on the walls and installing the basement bowling alley and aviary. Let the art-hanging and bird-bringing be the treat you give yourself for all your manual labors with the cement mixer and nail gun.

When I read that, I sort of snorted and said to myself, “Yep, that’s exactly what you do. Exactly.” Reading the first few chapters of my draft, I noticed how tight and well-written they were. I was proud of myself. Then reading through successive chapters, I saw how much looser the prose got, how much more rambly the dialogue became, how vague the scenery was… and I realized, I’ve spent so much time revising that draft, and not plunging forward, that I’m undermining myself. Every time I make the beginning more perfect, the Black Cloud of the Unknown gets thicker, murkier, and less certain of successful navigation, simply because I keep crystalizing what comes before without first determining what comes after. Katherine Patterson said it in her NaNo pep talk, precisely:

I live in Barre, Vermont which calls itself the “Granite Capital of the World.” Outside our town are enormous quarries, so when I speak in local schools every child has a mental picture of a granite quarry. “You know how hard it is to get granite out of the quarry,” I say. “You have to carefully score the rock and put the explosive in to make the great granite block break loose from the face of the stone. Then you have to attach the block to the chains so that the cranes can lift it slowly out of the hole and put it on the waiting truck. That’s the first draft. It’s hard, dangerous work, and when you’ve finished, all you’ve really got is a block of stone. But now you have something now to work on. Now you can take your block down to the shed to carve and polish it and turn it into something of beauty. That’s revision.”

So I suppose it comes down to this: NaNoWriMo taught me that I am capable of ridiculous output. Make that output now a weekly goal of a certain number of words — or actual time spent world building, researching, outlining/plotting, or developing characters — and I can certainly tackle this beast effectively.

Add to that revamped desire my absolute cheeky optimism, brash confidence, and unwavering determination… yep, I can do this.

The High Lord & the end-ish of NaNo.

I just finished The High Lord by Trudi Canavan, instead of writing (more) for NaNoWriMo. I’m down to the wire and a little behind for my early deadline but I could not put this book down. Absolutely could not. I decided I’d read a chapter or two earlier (I’d been doing that with the book so far, systematically reading only a few chapters at a time, desperately trying to save it for Thanksgiving break and finding I either enjoyed it too much or read it too fast). Then I hit its end-of-Part-I rise and I could not stop. I could barely contain myself all through Part II, getting all giddy and page-turning-crazed every few minutes or every other chapter.

I’ll try to keep the spoilers vague, as usual. Not to give anything away, but the ending both surprised and somehow felt right, though naturally I had thought of two or three other possibilities that I’d been thinking were more likely than what happened. Had I written the book at this stage in my life, it would have ended differently, I know that, and I can’t help thinking of the ending I wanted and didn’t get and feeling a bit sad. But I did enjoy it, let me make that clear. Admittedly, if every book I read proceeded along a path that was perfectly in line with my own tastes and desires, I would have no reason to write, now would I? I started writing books as a kid in “answer” to books that displeased me for one reason or another.

Overall, I really enjoyed this book, and the trilogy as a whole. I’m glad I bought them, retrospectively; I’ll end up reading them again one day, I’m sure. The third book was by and large the best and most exciting, as well as most satisfying, but that was accomplished in large measure due to its being the final book of a trilogy. The plots of each book were distinct and strong, as was the trilogy’s overarching plot. What Canavan built up across the trilogy paid off very nicely throughout. Each book had its little satisfactions but ultimately the third was the best, just because the largest, most interesting set-ups generally have the greatest and most exciting pay-offs. The character of the High Lord, Akkarin, for instance. He’s built up remarkably well — and slowly! — but a lot of that also has to do with the trade-offs between point of view. Canavan made certain POV judgments early on (limited third person) and decided to only choose certain characters through whom we would get to consistently see their world (Sonea, Cery, Lorlen, Rothen, Dannyl), and others to consistently be a mystery for us and the characters to discover. That was a good choice that paid off well. 

Two points disagreed with me, though. The first book took forever to engage me. I was determined but not so many readers are. (I’d invested money which I never do when there are library copies easily accessible, which there weren’t for this trilogy.) I also wasn’t too daunted because the books are not that thick. They’re a good, proper-book size. I like proper-book-sized books. Why take 800-900 pages when you can do it in 300-500? Yet, to give Canavan credit, once you stumble through names and the world (which is immediately presented in full complexity — which was good; but this is not terrifically interesting because it’s all conversations and arguments — which was bad) there is enough there to hold on to. The High Lord and Dannyl probably hooked me the most to start with — even Sonea (the main character) was a little boring, though Cery proved interesting immedaitely. 

The second point I wasn’t crazy about was, well, Trudi Canavan’s style. This had its good and its unfortunate moments. She is a terrific plotter and has a very smooth sense for consistent, active pace and tension — only when she’s gotten all of the “set up” done. She spends a lot of time setting up (especially in The Magician’s Guild where that slow start can also viewed as “set up” for the entire trilogy, which a large part of it effectively is). The exposition in that regard was engaging, however, so this only hit me retrospectively. The good of such quick plotting and movement is that the book is a really engaging and quick read once you “get into it”, which I always like to see and read. As much as I like to be pulled in from the first paragraph, sometimes I’ll be more patient if the book gets really good and makes up for it, as these did.

The bad part of her style of writing was that I had a hard time connecting, emotionally, at several pointswith the characters and the scenes (especially in The High Lord). These emotional moments were described in such rough, to-the-point exposition I couldn’t feel with the characters. I was shown (good, at least) how they seemed to be feeling and knew, based on the set up how they must be feeling given very good previous set up and characterization, but that resonance, that which should make me Cheer! or Weep! was not there. My eyes practically flew over these scenes as usual and I felt my mind skid to a halt and think, “Wait, what just happened to whom? What just went on there?” That was disappointing and a little disheartening. I love getting brought to that same height of emotion as the characters, especially characters we care about, or should be caring about. As I wrote about in my thesis, fantasy literature is a form of art, and in its highest form, as any true art, it can evoke in us the visceral emotions of the highest highs and lowest lows of the human experience. Regardless of how magical or inhuman the characters are, they have still got to resonate with us for us to really take something powerfully away from the book — and I do believe the best writing always lets us take something away from it, regardless of what that “something” is.

I bawl my eyes out when reading books; this has happened in the past, both for “happy” and “bittersweet” endings. Robin McKinley’s Deerskin saw me reacting colorfully all over the spectrum, while the third book in Robin Hobb’s Liveship Trader’s Trilogy (Ship of Destiny) had me bawling all over the place and grinning through tears in a way I really was shocked about. (Love/hate with characters? Yes. That book had me all over the place — and one of the most rewarding, shocking, and thoroughly terrific character arcs I’ve ever read. I love Malta Vestrit.) Come to think of it, Robin Hobb usually evinces that strong emotional reaction from me; Fool’s Fate had me bawling for hours, but that was also PMS coupled with one of those unusual twin-emotion realizations: when you realize what the character has seen and felt is what you, in the real world, are experiencing in your own life as well. Fitz and I had a moment, at the end of Fool’s Fate when I read it during the fall of my senior year of college. I think I remember distinctly that Bryan had to hold me as I nattered on and on about things he was really confused about having to do with the book’s plot and its connection to my own life, however tenouous and vague it was factually but how similar emotionally in some weird sense.

Call me crazy but I love when a book evokes that level of response from me. As much as I hate the feeling of “leaving a world” that really, really good books (or series) give me when I finish reading them (and again, upon re-readings), I love it. It’s not “escapist”; no, I don’t read these books desperately seeking an emotional distraction, though I have read books over and over seeking that comfort before. But a really good book does pull me in and let me see a different world and hang around with a hopefully interesting cast of characters, and it’s the most exciting thing in the world for me. When writing, I get as emotionally attached as when reading, though, which both makes it fun and tough, but it’s the most rewarding thing I’ve done.

To conclude, I definitely recommend The High Lord and the whole Black Magician Trilogy, though I bet you won’t react to it the same way I did. We’re all different readers, after all.

Now, to put my mind firmly on being a winner of National Novel Writing Month 2008. It’s been a good month but my brain is exhausted. Wrung out. If this novel had been at all planned or outlined I doubt I’d be feeling so wrung dry of all imaginative juices. But it’s been a really informative month about my own natural pace and capacity for work, as well as given me a newer appreciation for my desperate need to take breaks from stretches of “work” — reading, watching TV, playing mindless games… these are all good things. Really they are. I’ve missed them dearly this month.

Chrestomanci is like Gatsby! Minus the tragedy…

It has FINALLY occurred to me who the character of Chrestomanci in Diana Wynne Jones’ Charmed Life reminds me of, both physically — the dapper outfits, the mysterious descriptions of his past and mysterious power — and I swear, it’s Gatsby. As in F. Scott Fitzgerald’s The Great Gatsby. The similarities between them (polar-opposite genres aside!) are mostly through the feeling I have gotten from them through readings. (I just finished listening to the audiobook version of Charmed Life the other day, thus Chrestomanci has been kicking around my subconsious.)

In both novels, these men are not the “narrator” character — Cat/Eric in Charmed Life and Nick in The Great Gatsby — and both men without doubt dominate any scene in which they appear. Also, the time period (and by extension, the costumes and settings) are also similiar. Charmed Life is set in this strange time period that is at once late nineteenth century, 1911, the 1920s, or some other vague time (hints of the ’40s/’50s, maybe), mostly because it’s set in an alternate reality that diverged from ours some time in the past and because of the existence of magic has inherently evolved differently. Gatsby is of course very straightforwardly a Roaring Twenties novel of society, classes, money, power, lost love, etc. Really. The suits, top hats, dressing gowns, big houses, and stuff… they really remind me of one another. Is that really strange?

I know. These characters are more different than they are alike but they remind me of each other. The same way Disney’s Beast in the Broadway version of Beauty and the Beast evokes Robin McKinley’s Corlath from The Blue Sword. (Robin McKinley’s personal novel affair with the Beauty and the Beast retellings notwithstanding.)

On the NaNoWriMo front, I am struggling to get to 50,000 words by next Tuesday — before I leave for Thanksgiving. Oh, dear. I hope I can write 15,000 words (or slightly less) by then.

NaNoWriMo, Day 14

My NaNo novel is an unwieldy beast. And by that I mean it’s going well but its plot can easily go in four directions and I’m conflicted but only really conflicted because I am sort of getting to the point of procrastination. I KNOW, it’s day 14, I can’t afford that. But even so. I’m at 16,890 words last night/this morning and I really do need to get a move on to catch up to where I have to be. (1,667 x Day # = Where I Ought To Be.) I am confident I can get there today or this weekend, but that hinges on my getting down to work. That’s where I’ll go right after this.

I actually spent a lot of Tuesday/Wednesday (and the few days before it) reading the first two books of Trudi Canavan’s Black Magician Trilogy, called The Magicians’ Guild and The Novice. I started the final book The High Lord but early on I shut it and said, “No. You will not get wrapped up in this book. This is bound to be an awesome book. You do not want to read this. NO.” Thus, I stopped and started working again. I actually never meant to read those books in November. I actually – gasp – bought them the last week of October, intending to read them all in 3 days, as is customary usually when I finally break down and buy a book I’ve never read. So I started The Magicians’ Guild… and read it… and read it… and forgot about it… and forgot… and guiltily picked it up again… and pushed and pushed… and then I got to one scene, mid-book – MID-BOOK! The hook of a good book never takes that long for me! — and THWWWP. I finally, finally saw possibilities branching out for this world and its plot and I dove head-first after them. By then it was the first week of November and I’d been casually reading a chapter here or there before bed or while bored because, well, it was not a hooking but a diverting book. So I finished the book with the stunning final scene’s revelation and I… well. I went right over to the shelf and picked up The Novice and went right into it.

I saw The Novice’s plot picked up a few months later and that it was about to go into the boring-ness of the beginning of the book and its set up (Trudi Canavan is a plotter. Her books’ characters are interesting by virtue of the things they do — or did, or have done — and when/how they do them, not how they say them or what they look like. There are no complex images; the writing is blunt and direct. Thus, I could sense there was Plot to set up, so I was able to calm down a little.) A little meant waiting a day before spending the whole of the next day (Tuesday) reading it. I wrote maybe a dash that day. I really worked hard at night to overcompensate and I did a little. I started The High Lord just enough for the brief synopsis set up and to discover if there’d been any revelations in the year between the end of that book and the start of this, then read a biiiit more to see where the plot was likely to go (I’ve got a few firm suppositions now) and I put it down. I hid it. I ran to the computer, opened my NaNo story, and started vigilantly resuming my word count. The way I write is so vividly different from Trudi Canavan, it’s funny. That, and I find myself so much more interested in character-character stuff rather than setting up world structures (like, for instance, a school; though I must mention I do not enjoy writing stores that take place within the confines of a school, much like Diana Wynne Jones). I think when I do write structures like schools they end up feeling more like Ursula K. Le Guin’s A Wizard of Earthsea’s school, which was there, and developed, and involved some scenes and some characters, but was by no means the reason for the book nor did the bulk of the plot take place there.

I’ve already learned a ton about myself because of NaNo. Firstly, when I’m in the zone, I can pump out thousands of words easily. When I’m not, a hundred is torture. Getting in the zone take as little as rereading the last stuff I wrote, or honestly working to immerse myself in the word by doing world-building stuff in my extraneous documents or pumping up the music. (I write to mindless pop and/or musical soundtracks I can sing along to. I usually prefer to write to musical soundtracks because I like that each musical’s song evokes a part of a plot with character motivation, desires, and stuff like that. Musical songs bring a character or characters from Point A to Point B through their singing, and that’s more interesting usually than a plain old pop/rock song. Though I occasionally do like me some rock. Or lyricless movie scores.)

Next, reading a book when trying to meet a deadline is clearly just a Bad Idea. Thus the rather large and intimidating pile of constantly renewed library books (I am keeping them around for Thanksgiving’s train ride, I tell myself). Next, I am easily conflicted — ooh, not really a surprise — and I am, or can be, really creative. I am proud of myself, actually, for some of the things I’ve come up with. When creating two important secondary characters, I deliberately chose new and interesting character directions for them and came up with some dynamics I’ve never written before — but the kicker is that they work so beautifully in conjunction with the main character and the plot. I get a bit gleeful sometimes when I surprise myself and I find myself doing that a lot with some of the blundering decisions I’ve made because of time constraints with NaNo. I do not, however, think that it’s solely because of NaNo. I knew I did that in one of my novels ages ago (when 80K words in a document was me not finishing the book and realizing that I’d written some behemoth of no coherent villain motivation and a lot of necessary-but-not scenes of world-building).

Oh, back to the grind I go.

NaNoWriMo Conflict

National Novel Writing Month starts tomorrow and I’m eager for it but I keep going back and forth between the projects I want to work on for it. Neither are technically begun, which is their precise appeal for NaNoWriMo, but I’m so conflicted I might end up writing half and half, which will just be plain old bizarre. That, and the project I’ve been working on for the last few months is still not finished and I keep writing scenes (in my head, ugh) for it, and those really do need to get written. (All of this brain-clogging with not-yet-written stuff will be detrimental for speedy neuron processes, I’m certain.)

The first project I wanted to work on was something entirely new. It’s set in the same world of my other projects, but because I’m a single-novel girl, it’s its own single novel. New characters, different country with different customs, all of that. I only have a bunch of disconnected images and a few sketched characters for it (all in my head) so that project’s appeal is in its complete new-ness.

The other project is a novel I started (the first draft) back in high school. That draft is unrecognizable as the second major draft of it, which I wrote in 2004-05. And that again is completely different from what it now is — in my head. I’ve been editing this story mentally for years now and I really want to write it down. But I am so busy with my other projects that I’ve put it off, procrastinator style. I would be following the tenets of NaNoWriMo — fresh document, blank page, just go – but the difference is that I know a lot more of what will happen in my head for this one than I do for the other. (The odds of me referencing its old drafts? Slim to none. It’s that different.)

I probably will end up trying to write 50,000 words for one and 20,000 words for another, just because I want to do both, I think, and I want to make sure I write 50,000 in one novel to truly win NaNoWriMo. We’ll see how it goes… that is a lot of words… but I know I’m fully capable of that level of (attempted) insanity.

House of Many Ways

Last night I finished House of Many Ways, Diana Wynne Jones’s most recent book and the third book set in the world of Howl’s Moving Castle after Castle in the Air. I read both Howl’s and Castle in college, and I am a huge fan of the Miyazaki film adaptation of Howl’s Moving Castle, despite the plot differences (I actually really do enjoy Miyazaki’s interpretation and story, and it pretty much has the same themes/conclusion anyway). Considering that in the last month I’ve read both Conrad’s Fate and her Dalemark quartet — and thus have been high on her style of storytelling — it was only natural that I raced through this book gleefully.

And I did love it. It was such a fun, clever book. The plot is simple: The sheltered, teenaged Charmain is volunteered to look after her Great-Great-Uncle-by-marriage’s house while he recovers from an illness. While living in and exploring this house, Charmain discovers a door that has many ways to it and encounters several crazy, funny, and fascinating characters, including, of course, Mrs. Sophie Pendragon and her family. Hilarity, magic, and life lessons ensue culminating in a satisfying, classically Diana Wynne Jones style of revelation-conclusion. (In that regard it was very Conrad’s Fate.)

I have to say, though, this book felt more like a Chrestomanci book than Castle in the Air did. Had Howl (and yes, he of course has a role in the book) not been so very… Howl, he would have been very Christopher. (For those of you who have read the book: Christopher would never have pulled the Twinkle stunt. Never. He’s much too haughty.) Even so they’re very similar characters — both somewhat selfish and self-important, both powerful magic users (in different worlds with different systems of magic; Howl is a wizard, Christopher is a nine-lifed enchanter) — but also distinctly different. Howl is obsessed with his appearance in a vain, almost endearingly self-conscious way; Christopher is fastidious and prim. What’s interesting too is that these men capture the attention and admiration of those around them but their wives are very simple, compared to them. Though Sophie is certainly a spitfire compared to Millie (in Charmed Life Millie, not the younger versions of Millie).

Charmain was an interesting protagonist, as was Peter as the sidekick/counterpoint character. I’ve never really encountered a character who is really a cleverly, well-drawn “sheltered” character who nonetheless thinks she can do anything she puts her mind to — and fails and fails at it. Her successes are brilliant accidents. Then there’s Peter, also sheltered but much better and more practically educated but anything he sets his mind to — with perfect form, perfect methodology — ends up going hilariously awry. Together they make a bumblingly real pair. I saw them so vividly in their arguments, their pitfalls and disasters, and their terrific successes. Talk about terrific characterization.

Then there’s Sophie, Morgan, Calcifer, and Howl. There is something to a series (or companion books) when you know certain characters already so you can appreciate the riotous one-liners that the author throws out there. And there are a lot. They are terrific. I laughed out loud the most reading this book than I have reading any book in a long while. Witty banter is all well and good but sometimes it’s just a really well-timed one-liner that can bring you to giggling tears. That, and Diana Wynne Jones is absolutely excellent when it comes to the set-up and pay-off. She sets up a lot quickly and drops clever details constantly, but you can never tell when a set-up will pay-off — but when they do… they are perfect. Maybe these books are simply perfectly in line with my particular brand of humor? (I absolutely did find myself laughing a lot while reading the Chrestomanci books and the Dalemark books — The Lives of Christopher Chant and The Crown of Dalemark probably involved the most laughter of their respective series.)

One aspect I really enjoy about the Howl’s and Chrestomanci books are the fact that the kids and teenagers involved as protagonists and supporting cast are always at the point in their plots where they’re still learning how to do things and they make mistakes. Frequently. Neither are they usually “in school” but they’re usually outside of a consistent structure (or fight to escape that structure) and they find themselves in a place where they have to create their own structure, goals, and discipline. (Thank God for an alternative to the “school story”-driven plot of Harry Potter.)

A lot of the plots involve the children/teens making the very mistakes that grow into the problem of the novel itself that they have to solve. (Or, as in Christopher’s case in The Lives of Christopher Chant, finding his loyalties divided and all of his “good” intentions making everything worse.) These characters must take responsibility for their own mistakes and must bring themselves to ask for help, even when they think they don’t need it … these are themes that really resonate. They feel so particularly real. In Dalemark, for instance, there is a distinct element of fate and things beyond one’s control but even so the kids/teens are the ones who make the big choices and who must live with the consequences of those choices. Unlike in adult epic fantasy where sometimes the protagonist is forced along a path he/she doesn’t want nor choose, the element of choice is so vitally crucial to the plot of Diana Wynne Jones’s books. The kids/teens are the ones who convince and win others to their cause, who see the truth that some of the partisan, selfishly greedy adults can’t see. But these kids aren’t pure and innocent either. Dalemark’s Mitt, by fourteen, is a several-times-over criminal and manipulator; Eric Chant, called Cat, in Charmed Life, is almost cripplingly meek and shy; Christopher is so self-motivated and self-centered for so much of The Lives of Christopher Chant, almost every negative event in the book can be traced to decisions or neglectful actions Christopher has taken to make it so — all of which he has to then work to correct. Even Charmain, in House of Many Ways, finds that burying herself in a book whenever something goes awry doesn’t magically make the problem disappear; wishful thinking isn’t what changes things — taking action is the only way to change things.

So in conclusion to this rambling entry… Diana Wynne Jones’s House of Many Ways was a terrific book, though you’ll appreciate it a lot more if you’ve read both Howl’s Moving Castle and Castle in the Air first.

Dalemark

I just finished The Crown of Dalemark, the fourth and final book of the Dalemark Quartet by Diana Wynne Jones. I think this is going to be one of those books — series — I’ll need to re-read. Gosh, add these books to the to-buy list! I read the first two books — Cart and Cwidder and Drowned Ammet — nearly two weeks ago now, and I finally, finally finished The Spellcoats, the third volume, yesterday. I started the fourth yesterday and finished it this evening. There was just enough space between the first two books, focusing on the characters of Moril and Mitt, respectively, and the fourth that I was eagerly able to tear through the fourth with only a little bemoaning of the lack of easy book reference. (When I finish a series book quickly I often need it at hand to reference something when a supposition about the plot of the subsequent books comes into my head, so I can verify and/or dismiss it.)

I took so long reading The Spellcoats because it’s written in a completely different, foreign voice from the others (first person, too) and it takes place hundreds of years before the events in the first, second, and fourth books — but its events help explain and illuminate the others, as well as provide the foundation upon which the fourth’s plot is built. I’m glad I didn’t skip it! (I admit, I was tempted. I saw Mitt and Moril’s name in the blurb of the fourth and I was almost — almost — off like a shot, skipping book three. Good completionist me, though! Saved by my own obsessive compulsive completionist nature. Also, looking back, the third book is unusually wonderful. The way it’s written is… beautiful. Its narrator, Tanaqui, is a clever thirteen- or fourteen-year-old girl whose narration is actually her weaving. She weaves coats, on which she weaves the story of her and her family’s adventures, and so the book is actually the “translation” of this weaving. It’s a wonderfully unusual way to tell a story — and naturally has consequences for the story’s conclusion and the way the story is discovered and found later on in that world. How fascinating!

Which brings me to the point I found I’d come to after finishing the fourth book: I love Diana Wynne Jones’s stories. So, so much. Every novel of hers (and short story) I’ve read demonstrate a terrific efficiency of language, consistent — and quick! — characterization, and an imaginative level of storytelling that astounds me. Even this, her “epic fantasy quartet” was as good and wonderful, fully, as any of her Chrestomanci books or those set in the world of Howl’s Moving Castle. I obviously need to read more of her works, though I think I’ve hit the “big” “famous” ones.

But back to The Crown of Dalemark and the whole quartet. These aren’t perfect, to my sense, but then again, I am a completionist. I finished the fourth book and thought, “Oh, no! There’s no fifth book is there? Is there? IS THERE?” and moaned about it for a good ten minutes of frantic pacing and cleaning. (I do that when I finish a book. I need to extract my mind; I need to clean and moan about the bereft feeling I’m too often left with after leaving a terrific world. If Bryan is around I jump and try to give him the five minute plot summary and he looks at me, annoyed, and says, “You know I haven’t heard any of the words you just said at me, right?”)

Diana Wynne Jones leaves out a level of detail (and completion) that I wish I could see, but to some degree it fascinates me. These are, in truth, children’s books, and it gives a greater depth of the “what if” to leave a lot unsaid. I know as a kid I always asked myself (and when my parents read with me, they encouraged these questions, and I recall this vividly) about all of the detail left un-detailed. I noticed there’s a lot of lack of particular inflection after each character’s dialogue. Some authors use the dialogue to show the character’s personality (through a lot of particular adjective and verbs attached to the dialogue) but Jones (Wynne Jones? Diana? Ha.) has a knack for characterizing through short bursts of personality demonstration or anecdote more in general. She’ll demonstrate a character arguing back unnecessarily in an annoying manner and make a comment like, “And he was always doing nettlesome things like that” or “He was the last person you wanted to start an argument with” or the like, to demonstrate that person’s nature, so when you see dialogue pop up with a particular line of, say, “No I certainly will not” then you automatically find yourself inflecting the dialogue with an irritated tone and you can imagine the other characters making faces like, “Oh, not again!” And it’s so naturally implied! Maybe I’m simply an imaginative reader. Maybe I naturally thicken characters who on the page are simple structures of basic traits. But I think I can credit Diana with a lot more than that. She develops a richness in her simply-yet-complexly plotted children’s (and young adults’) books that is undeniable. And that’s why I love them.