NEWS,
COMPLAINTS, AND OTHER EPHEMERA
3-13-08
Just a
quick update on—ta da!—my life.
Book
news: On April 10, Doppelganger, the third Bloodwater Mystery, will
be published. When a perfect double
of Brian turns up missing, Roni and Brian tackle the mystery of where Brian
really came from, and how he ended up living in Bloodwater, Minnesota.
I’ve been
writing a lot this past year, and 2009 will see the publication of at least one, and possibly two new
novels. The one I finished most
recently is called How To Steal a Car. It’s about,
uh, stealing cars, and will come with a free “How to Hotwire a Honda” DVD. Just kidding about the DVD. But the book is real.
Also in the
works: a romantic comedy, an SSF trilogy tentatively titled The Klathu
Diskos, and a
non-SSF trilogy that has a title so cool I am afraid to share it.
Mary Logue news: Mary’s mystery novel Maiden
Rock is a
finalist for the Minnesota
Book Award in the Genre Fiction category. We will both be there on April 12th with fingers
crossed.
Dog
news: Jacque
(the Terminator) is much better, thank you.
He is back to chasing squirrels and bouncing off the furniture after a
near-death experience with Addison’s Disease.
Movie
News: Several of my books are currently under
option to writers, directors, or producers. I mostly don’t talk about it, because making a book
into a film is an iffy business, and most of these options stall out for one
reason or another, but in the case of the Godless film project, I feel there is a very
good chance it will happen. If the
Ten-Legged One so wills. I should
know more by summer.
Family
news: My brother Joe won the Federal Duck
Stamp contest for the third time.
If you don’t know how incredibly cool that is, go here, and here.
1/3/08
This is a
heads-up for all you prospective “Young Adult” authors out there.
(Warning:
If you are not
a YA author this will be boring.
If you are a YA author, you may find this depressing.)
I was reading
Nathan Bransford’s blog
this morning. You know his
blog? If you are an unpublished
author, you might want to check it out.
Anyway, Nathan’s January 2nd post includes stats on his recent batch of
queries from authors-in-search-of-an-agent. Out of 123 queries, nineteen were from writers of Young
Adult novels. That’s more than
fifteen percent!
Let me put
that number in perspective.
First,
Nathan Bransford is not known for representing YA novels. Children’s literature, of which YA
remains a subset, is a somewhat specialized field. YA novels are sold differently from adult fiction—different
companies, different editorial process, different marketing, different readers,
etc. While some “adult fiction-oriented”
agents will take on a YA novel, it is not usual. Nathan Bransford may sell some YA fiction, I don’t know, but it is
certainly not his main focus, therefore one would not expect him to draw a
disproportionate number of YA queries.
Second, YA
fiction comprises maybe—I don’t know, I’m just guessing here—one percent of the
book market, and maybe two or three percent of the fiction market—if you
exclude Harry Potter. (The boy
wizard is probably two percent of the fiction market all by his lonesome.) If anybody has more accurate figures, please let me know. In any case, YA is a very small chunk
of the pie.
And now,
from this one agent’s blog, I am about to make a sweeping generalization about
the state of the publishing industry…no wait. Before I do that, I have more anecdotal evidence:
1. The
burgeoning number of YA-focused writing programs at colleges. (That’s right. Burgeoning.)
2. The
hollow-eyed look of certain YA editors whose pile of manuscript submissions has
been growing exponentially (Yes, exponentially. Um, maybe.)
3. The
increasing number of new YA imprints from both new and established
publishers. (I don’t know what the
number is. Deal with it.)
4. The
dozens of emails I get every month from people who are “working on a YA novel.”
Okay,
here’s my generalization: The market is glutted with new YA fiction.
For
readers, this is good news. It
means that editors have more to choose from, and presumably they will end up publishing
higher quality work. One would
think.
The bad
news is for YA writers—especially new writers—who are struggling to place
novels that might have been perfectly acceptable ten years ago, but which may
now fail to attract a publisher because they are being crowded out by better
(by which I mean “more marketable”) works.
(Another
bit of bad news for writers is that the number of YA titles published each year
is rising faster than the number of readers. Do the math if you can stand it.)
I believe
that market forces will eventually return things to whack. As more writers are unsuccessful in
publishing their YA work, they will turn to other types of writing, or other
fields. But for now, we have a
situation in which the bar for new writers is set high, and rising. It’s something to think about as you
undertake to build yourself a career in Young Adult fiction.
My
advice? Same as always. Write the book you want to write, and
keep your day job.
11/21/07
Proof that
you can’t judge a book by its cover.
Yesterday
afternoon I trudged wearily off a Boeing 757 onto a very chilly walkway at the
Minneapolis/St. Paul airport after a long but highly entertaining week in New
York, and I was thinking about cooking.
One week separated from my kitchen, and I was suffering from severe
withdrawal. Not that I didn’t eat
well in New York—I ate very well indeed, and in some marvelous company. Memorable dishes include a side dish of
pan-roasted hen-of-the-woods (That’s a mushroom, Grifola frondosa, common in most parts of the U.S.)
at Hearth, and a fresh porcini polenta with quail eggs and a generous quantity
of shaved white truffle at The Four Seasons. Anyway, fabulous fungi dishes aside, I missed my own
cooking, and as I schlepped my bags through the airport I enjoyed a mental
slide show of favorite home-cooked dishes: braised pork chops, spicy chana dal
with basmati rice, poached salmon, sautéed Brussels sprouts, fish tacos, Thai
basil chicken, duck risotto, ratatouille, chicken pot pie, huevos rancheros,
and so on. (Are you getting
hungry? I am.)
Layered
beneath my food fantasies was another form of withdrawal—the National Book
Awards were over. All summer and
fall I’d been reading books as a judge for the “Young People’s Literature”
category and discussing them with my four fellow judges: James Howe, Patricia
McCormick, Elizabeth Partridge, and Scott Westerfeld. I cannot adequately express what a pleasure it was to work
with such a smart, dedicated, and flat-out nice group of writers.
Last Wednesday the five of us met and, after a lengthy and wide-ranging conversation, we made our selection from among the five finalists. The details of our deliberations are shrouded, but I will say this: When we sat down together that day, not one of us knew which book would get the big gold seal. Each of the finalists was deserving in its own way, and there was not one of them I would not have been proud to have chosen. (Except for the jacket art. Some of the finalists—I’ll let you decide which ones—have stunningly ugly covers. I hope the designers do better on the paperback editions!)
A few hours
after our meeting (the other three judging panels were meeting at their own
secret locations at the same time) the award winners were announced during the
ritzy NBA banquet at the Marriott Marquis in Times Square. Betsy Partridge, our chair, announced
the Young People’s Literature choice: Sherman Alexie’s The Absolutely True
Diary of a Part-Time Indian. (For all the
results and a list of the finalists, go here.)
At the
after-dinner reception I met Sherman Alexie, who is out-of-the-gate one of the
most charming people I’ve ever met.
He’s going to be a great advocate for the NBA, and for Young Adult
literature. The other
finalists—Kathleen Duey, Sindy Felin, Brian Selznick, and Sara Zarr, were all
cool too, each in his or her own way.
For example, Brian Selzick’s shoes left afterimages that lasted well
into the night—as did Kathleen Duey’s flowing red locks. Sindy Felin, pregnant with triplets,
seemed almost as stunned and happy as her editor—Touching Snow was her first book, and his as
well. And it should not have
surprised me (given her book, Story of a Girl) that Sara Zarr was in a way the
most human-feeling of all the authors.
By that I mean she wasn’t wearing a “mask”—she was the only one of the
finalists who expressed even a hint of regret that she had not won, even though
they must all have been feeling it.
Being a National Book Award finalist and not winning is bittersweet at
its most intense.
And then it
was over. Ka-thunk. For five months I’d been immersed in
reading, evaluating, re-reading, and judging a field of 250 books. Now it was time to go home and (gulp)
start writing again. So…I was
brooding about that, and thinking about food, and wishing I’d worn a heavier
coat, and wondering how much weight I’d gained eating things like eggs benedict
and veal breast, and—oh yeah, after the NBA festivities, I spent four days at
the NCTE (National Council of Teachers of English) convention and ALAN
(Assembly on Literature for Adolescents) workshops, so I was thinking about
that too, hoping I hadn’t said anything unforgivable at the ALAN reception, and
wishing my presentation at ALAN had been better, and remembering how I forgot
to tell a couple of authors whose books I really really liked that I really really liked their books, and…y’know how
when you’re both dog-tired and over-stimulated your thoughts do that clothes-in-the-dryer
thing? Yeah, you know what I’m
talking about.
Back home
at last, and hoping to avoid taxi cabs for the next few months, I began to
settle down. But I decided that I
wasn’t ready to give up my NBA buzz quite yet. I figured I could stretch it out for a few more days by
talking about some of the books we read that did NOT make the list of five
finalists. I am not going to
discuss which books “almost” made the list, because that would be cruel and irresponsible.
Nevertheless, I have to give some well-deserved strokes to some talented
writers and illustrators, so I’ve a new page I call “Books I Like.” Check it out!
What I made
for dinner: A lettuce and avocado
salad with artichoke dressing, and linguini carbonara. (Carbonara advice: you
really don’t need the shallots and cream.
Keep it simple. Use good eggs.
Do not stint on the cracked pepper. Good quality thick-cut bacon substitutes nicely for the
pancetta. Do not use any cheese
other than parmigiano reggiano.)
It was
delicious.
10/11/07
Why I
haven’t been taking care of my website this year…
As I
mentioned last August, I’ve been reading a lot. Mostly YA novels and other books aimed at a teen or slightly
younger audience. This summer, I
averaged about three books a day.
Why would I
do that? Because I agreed last
spring—without really understanding what I was signing on for—to be a judge for
the National Book Awards in the “Young People’s Literature” category. Next thing I knew, the books were
pouring in at the rate of 5-10 a day—and now my postman hates me. Yikes.
Sounds
great, right? Free books. The very best that American publishers
have to offer. And it was great at
first…but then I would pick up the next book in my growing stacks (a total of
256 books) and look at it and realize it was a book I would never read if I
didn’t have to—like, a book about two teenage girls who open their own nail
salon and sit around trimming cuticles and dishing for 600 pages*—and I would
know that the author put her heart and soul into writing the thing, and that it
might be the best book about nails and gossip ever written, and it might be a
book that teenage girls would love, and if I didn’t give it a fair read, I was
potentially depriving the author of a National Book Award, which is a hell of a
thing to take away from someone, and suddenly that book would turn to virtual
lead in my hands: the weight of responsibility.
All those
books, and not one I could throw aside because I didn’t care for the cover, or
the title, or the author photo, or because the length of the acknowledgments
offended me, or because I find the genre bewildering, or any of a hundred other
things that can put me off a book.
In fact, two of the finalists had covers so ugly I had to use salad
tongs to remove the dust jackets before reading them.
It was a
different kind of reading than any I have ever done before. I had to give each and every book a
careful look, setting aside, as best I could, my prejudices and tastes. I think it was good for me. Hope so.
Fortunately,
I was not alone in my mission.
There are five judges in each of the four National Book Award
categories, and none of us were shy about telling each other what we thought,
as in “What? You gave up on Britney
and Madison’s House of Nails* after only 300 pages?
It gets really good after page 326! Give it another try!”
I think our
panel was pretty good at covering each other for weaknesses, and making sure
that every book got a fair shake.
Anyway, it
was a challenging task to get through all those books while trying to remain
fair, impartial, true, and sane. I
read a lot of books that I would never otherwise have been exposed to—some of
them truly excellent. (There is no
shortage of quality writing out there.
It’s scary sometimes having to compete with it.)
The five
books we chose as finalists are all extraordinary works, as were ten or fifteen
“near-misses.” (I’ll be writing
more later about some of the books that I loved, but that didn’t make the cut.) For a list of all the finalists, and
the names of the other judges, go here: 2007 National
Book Award Finalists.
Much as I
would like to, I can’t be specific about exactly how and why we made our choices,
and I certainly cannot weigh the finalists against one another in public. I will, however, say that even with all
my “insider knowledge,” I would not bet a plugged nickel on which of the five
books will win. I won’t know that
until November 14th, the day of the National Book Awards Banquet,
when the National Book Foundation dementors lock the five judges (all of us
full-time writers, all opinionated, all a little odd) in a restaurant somewhere
in Manhattan and refuse to let us out until we agree on a winner. I just hope the food is good.
*I made
that up, so don’t go looking for it at your favorite independent bookseller.
8/28/07
Books
Are Ubiquitous
I’m writing
today not because I have anything to say, but because my most recent post was from
way last May, and it got to be embarrassing. I’ve had my nose in a book (about 250 of them) for the past
three months, and I’ve been letting every other aspect of my life slide. Mary says I’m acting like a
druggie. Popping books like
pills. That’s kind of what it
feels like. Each book a new
trip. Two or three a day. Mostly novels. But I’m not tripping out for
kicks. This read-a-thon is for a
just and noble cause, about which I’ll write more later in the year.
Anyway, I
looked up from my reading this morning and discovered that summer is almost
over so I figured I’d better add a few lines to my blog. (Yeah, okay, I know this doesn’t really
qualify as a “blog,” but I don’t know what else to call it.) So let’s see…what do I give a damn
about lately other than my own micro-universe of reading books and
how-did-I-sleep and what’s-for-dinner and
is-there-enough-money-in-the-checking-account and
is-that-a-regular-mole-or-cancer?
Hah! Not much. I am ensconced, for the most part, in a
relatively safe and comfortable routine that filters out things like people
losing their homes to flooding, or their lives to violence or disease, or poor
Alberto Gonzales resigning (sob), or those miners…did you already forget about
the miners? No, not the nine who died
in Utah. I was thinking of the
180-plus trapped underground in China.
Good thing we got those filters.
Which reminds me of a line from Casablanca, the one where Bogart says to
Ilsa, “I’m no good at being noble, but it doesn’t take much to see that the
problems of three little people don’t amount to a hill of beans in this crazy
world.” How would that play in a
modern film? Could such a film
even be made? Even with Matt Damon
backing the project, it would be tough to raise the money. But never mind that. I’m worried about Karl Rove. How will he keep himself busy? And how can I give money the American
Lung Association when the Girl Scouts need to unload all those cookies? And don’t those fine young Mormon men
with their white shirts, black trousers, backpacks, and bicycle helmets need
someone to listen to their tale?
The grass needs mowing. Are
faeries real? Is there really a
dog?
There’s a
scene in, I think, Mean Streets, where a guy gets shot in the face and, instead
of falling over dead (like in every other movie I’ve seen), he clutches his
head with both hands and runs off going “Ow ow ow ow ow ow ow.” At least that’s the way I remember
it. Anyway, that’s how I feel
right now. This is too hard. I
gotta go read another book. Maybe
I’ll read this one about a girl who discovers she has tainted faery blood. Wait, here’s one: A boy is marooned on
a Pacific island with two cats, a Quechua-speaking robot, and a crate of
chocolate manhole covers. Yeah,
that sounds perfect. Bye now.
5/17/07
Books
Are Dangerous
Recently,
as I was
participating in an “author panel” a member of the audience asked a question
about censorship—both about the extent to which we authors self-censor our
work, and about how librarians can and should deal with censorship and/or book
challenges from parents and school administrators. I can’t remember the precise phrasing of the question, but I
do remember that two of the other authors on the panel responded by vigorously
defending their work, asserting that their books would never encourage
self-destructive behavior in their teen readers.
I’ve heard
that before. The argument usually
goes something like this:
Questioner: "Do you ever worry that your book
about teens sticking needles in their eyeballs might cause some kids to indulge
in self-destructive behaviors?"
Author
response: "Absolutely
not! My book is a realistic
account of eyeball-stabbing, and it makes perfectly clear that such behavior
can only lead to misery and blindness.
I cannot imagine any teen reading my book, Needle of the Eye, and wanting to pierce her tender
young corneas!"
Let me
state here and now that I am opposed to censorship, book-banning, book-burning,
and author-lynching. Most authors,
including myself, admit the possibility that inappropriate teen books might
exist somewhere, but we like to insist that our own books are entirely
appropriate. Nevertheless, to
claim that books describing dangerous behavior never encourage such behavior is
self-serving crap.
Books are
powerful. Books are
dangerous. Teens (and others) read
things in books that may sometimes cause them to do things they would not
otherwise have done.
If books
could not affect the behavior of readers, no one would bother to write
them. And any author who believes
that his or her book will encourage only intended behaviors is operating under
a delusion. It is no more credible
than for a shotgun manufacturer to claim that his products will be used only
for hunting ducks. Once the gun is
in the hands of consumers, anything can—and probably will—happen.
I wrote a
novel a few years ago called Godless. In that book,
a group of teens climbs a water tower.
I make it quite clear in the book that climbing a water tower can lead to
injury, death, punishment, or all three.
I also mention that the view from the top of the tower is spectacular.
Will some
teen somewhere read my book and decide to climb a water tower and check out the
view? It would not surprise me in
the least.
Might one
such teen die as a result of his misadventure? It is entirely possible.
In another
book, No Limit,
I tell the story of a teen who discovers in himself a talent for high-stakes
poker. In that book, I describe
the dangers—and the attractions—of gambling. Will No Limit cause some kid to start playing poker, and go on to develop
a life-destroying gambling addiction?
It is not only possible, it is likely. Will it cause some other teen to think twice about wagering
his money in a poker game? I hope so!
Several
months ago I was talking with a group of teens, and asked what it is they look
for in a book. One girl said,
"I’m, like, fourteen, and my life is really boring. I want to read about a girl just like
me who goes out and, you know, steals a car or something."
That’s one
of the reasons we read books. We
want to know what it’s like to do things we would "never" do. We want to read about climbing Mount
Everest, robbing a bank, killing a dragon, having passionate sex with a
forbidden partner, capturing Osama Bin Laden, eating magic mushrooms, ruling
the world, playing professional football, living on Mars, or facing down a
charging rhinoceros.
Most
readers—nearly all, in fact—are able to read about such ill-advised adventurers
and risk-takers without being tempted to emulate them. But there will always be a few fools
who opt to try some of the crazy stuff they read about in books. Some of them will get hurt. Some of them will die.
And that’s
okay. We don’t stop manufacturing
automobiles because people die in traffic accidents. We don’t stop having children because women die in
childbirth. We don’t prevent
people from swimming, boating, or bathing, even though some of them will
drown. As a species, we are
engaged in a constant game of risk management. That many activities entail the risk of injury or death does
not necessarily make them unacceptable.
Reading
books is one such risky activity.
You take your chances. To
assert that a particular book can do no harm is akin to promising that a knife
will not cut. Books are
dangerous. They should be. Treat them with the respect they
deserve.
5-2-07
Quoth
the Raven, “Maybe next year.”
Okay, so we
got our butts kicked at the Edgars…but it was a fun night, and well-worth
getting dressed-up for. And while
Mary and I did not come home with the coveted Edgar Award statuette, we did
each get our own Edgar Allan Poe bobblehead. Click here
for a picture of Rene with my bobblehead:
4-20-07
Quoth the
Raven, “Nevermore.”
Next week
is Edgar Week, which means that I’ll be dusting off my tuxedo, and Mary Logue
will be wriggling into her elegant new frock, and we’ll be flying together to
New York for the Edgar Award Banquet.
With a little luck (okay, a LOT of luck), we’ll return home with a
spiffy new Edgar Allan Poe statuette—better known as an “Edgar Award,” the much
coveted honor bestowed annually by the Mystery Writers of America.
Edgar
Awards are given in several categories.
Mary and I are finalists in the “Best Juvenile” category for The
Bloodwater Mysteries #1: Snatched. Alas, we are
competing with some very good books.
Here’s the list:
Gilda Joyce:
The Ladies of the Lake by Jennifer Allison (Penguin Young
Readers - Sleuth/Dutton)
The Stolen
Sapphire: A Samantha Mystery by Sarah Masters Buckey (American Girl Publishing)
Room One: A
Mystery or Two by Andrew Clements (Simon &
Schuster Books for Young Readers)
The Bloodwater
Mysteries: Snatched by Pete Hautman & Mary Logue (Penguin Young
Readers - Sleuth/Putnam)
The Case of the
Missing Marquess: An Enola Holmes Mystery by Nancy Springer (Penguin Young Readers - Philomel/Sleuth)
Our
publisher, Penguin Young Readers Group, did very well this year with their
Sleuth imprint—three nominations in the Juvenile category!
A few years
back, I was an Edgar Award judge in the Best Juvenile category. That year we chose a wonderful little
novel called Looking for Jamie Bridger, by Nancy Springer. I make her the favorite this year as well.
Win or
lose, we plan to have a blast in New York, our favorite city. Wish us luck!
4-14-07
I just
returned from the Texas Library Association conference in San Antonio—a HUGE
conference with something like 7000 (can that be right?) dedicated school and
public librarians. It was fun. The librarians love their work in a way
that you will never see at, say, a convention for plumbing parts
salespeople. Not that I have
anything against plumbing—I love my hot water heater. But these librarians are a different breed. They do what they do because they love
books, and they approach their mission with enormous enthusiasm, even though,
like teachers, they are egregiously underpaid for their efforts. It’s humbling.
I also met
a bunch of authors I didn’t know (but wanted to), including John Green (Looking
for Alaska), Ellen
Hopkins (Crank),
Scott Westerfeld (Peeps), Patty McCormick (Sold), Tim Wynne-Jones (The Maestro), Justine Larbalestier (Magic’s
Child), and Jamie
Adoff (Jimi & Me).
Sometimes these conferences are
simply exhausting, but this one turned out to be energizing. It made me want to write more
books. Time to get to work.
March 26, 2007
The Romantic Octopus
It’s been quite a while
since I’ve posted anything here, mostly because I’ve been struggling with a
short, frothy little novel--or novelette--that turned into a big fat novel novel when I wasn’t
looking. After completing the
first draft--which came in at nearly 400 manuscript pages—I spent another
couple of months beating it back to 300 pages. It’s still a lot longer than I envisioned it, and it's
flailing around like a pissed-off four-dimensional thirteen-legged
octopus. If I can hack it down by
another fifteen or twenty percent, I think I’ll have a pretty good book. Hope so, anyway.
When I’ve been working
hard on a book and sink deep into the story, I start to lose my
objectivity. I wish there was a
pill I could take that would make me forget what I’ve written so that I could
read my own work with fresh eyes.
Fortunately, I have the advantage of living with another writer. My partner, Mary Logue, provides me
with some of that much-needed objectivity, ranging from "Wow, that really
reeks," to "Genius, pure genius."
I'm calling the book a
"romantic comedy." Title
is highly classified.
Meanwhile, on the
commercial front, I have two new books to flog this spring, beginning with Skullduggery, the second book in the
Bloodwater Mysteries series (ages 9-13), written with Mary Logue. Mary and I really like this one. It has caves and bats and skeletons and
toxic plants and explosions and tainted love and secret passages and Native
American artifacts and an orchid-faced man with a cane and motorcycles. Okay, motorscooters.
Skullduggery will be available on
May 10. The Edgar Award nominated
first book in the series, Snatched, will be released in paperback at the same
time.
My new young adult novel
(for ages 12-up), will be arriving the following month. All-in is a sequel to No Limit , the story of Denn
Doyle’s rise as a professional poker player. (I know, I know, I ranted against sequels in a previous
post. Well, part of the reason for
my previous rant was that writing All-In was a beeyatch.)
Once again, Denn Doyle’s
story deals with love, poker, betrayal, and kismet. Denn moves to Vegas, shows the pros how it’s done, falls in
love, then gets his ass handed to him on a platter (what does that even mean?) You don’t have to know anything about
poker to read All-In, but we did include a handy glossary for those who want to
learn more.
More later, after I
finish polishing my “romantic comedy.”
June 9, 2006
I don't know whether I
should be laughing or crying about this, but FOX News "media
personality" Ann Coulter has just published a book titled
"Godless" that debuted at #5 on Amazon.com. That means that
when you search Amazon for "Godless," the top hit is Coulter's
hyper-conservative screed.
Okay, whatever--book
titles are not protected by copyright law. She can call her next book
"Portnoy's Complaint" if she so desires. But here's what's
funny: Sales of my own book Godless have enjoyed a
nice bump the last couple of days, because whenever someone searches Amazon for
"godless," they find not only Coulter's book, but mine as well.
I haven't read
Coulter's version of "Godless," but I'd be willing to bet that we
have very few readers in common. At least we did until now. Maybe
Coulter's fans are ordering my book Godless by accident--kind of
like the problem some voters had with those butterfly ballots. Hey, I'll
take new readers any way I can get them.
Now if only Rush
Limbaugh would call his next book Rash ....
May 3, 2006
Recently,
I spoke at the Minnesota Book Awards, presenting an award called Letters About
Literature, a writing contest for school children. As a presenter, I was asked to talk about the book that
first "welcomed (me) into the world of the adult."
I
thought about that, and came up with several titles, including The Spy Who
Came in from the Cold, The Fountainhead, and the IRS's "Instructions for Form
1040A." But the more I
thought about it, the more I wondered whether I had, in fact, become an
adult. I kept thinking about the
closing lines of The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, in which Huck, who
has been "welcomed" into adulthood repeatedly over the previous 400
pages, says:
.
. . because if I'd 'a' knowed what trouble it was to make a book I wouldn't 'a'
tackled it, and ain't a-going to no more.
But I reckon I got to light out for the territory ahead of the rest,
because Aunt Sally she's going to adopt me and sivilize me, and I can't stand
it. I been there before.
So
my talk went something like this:
Well,
I'm not a-going to do that, because not long after I felt those first pangs of
adulthood, I began a headlong retreat toward immaturity.
It
is true that, as an adolescent, I was extremely interested in joining the car
driving, cigarette-smoking, money-wielding world of the adult. I wanted all the powers and freedoms I
associated with adulthood. But
once I attained those dubious heights and started paying the bills--both
material and otherwise--I began to suspect that growing up was a zero-sum
game. Maturity arrives at the
expense of childhood.
I
once saw one of our local literary treasures, Kate DiCamillo, climbing into her
new BMW Mini, the cutest little car on the road.
I
said, "Kate! How do you like
your Mini?"
She
said, "It's the only thing that makes it worth being an adult."
Today,
as a writer and as a reader, I do not seek out books that make me feel like a
grownup. I want books that make me
feel like a child.
Pablo
Picasso, who died young at 92, once said "Every child is an artist. The
problem is how to remain an artist once we grow up." Fully formed adults make unimaginative
painters, stilted actors, soulless musicians, and pedantic writers.
From
the most esoteric literary novels, to the most hide-bound and cliched genre
series, it is the writer's ability to see the world with the eyes of a child
that makes books readable. It is that innocence that binds us to characters,
and that childlike acceptance of new ways of seeing and understanding that
rewards us as readers.
This
is reflected in some of our best-known characters from modern fiction--from
Huck Finn to James Bond, from Holden Caulfield to Sherlock Holmes, from Harper
Lee's Scout to Philip Roth's Portnoy--all either children--or childlike--all
holding up a fresh, clean window on the world.
Well,
maybe not so fresh and clean in Alex Portnoy's case, but definitely childlike. As for James Bond, if you gave a
13-year-old boy an Aston Martin, a Beretta, a license to kill, and a bevy of
scantily clad young women . . . you would get double-O-seven.
My
point is, to be a writer of fiction or poetry--to be involved in any of the
Arts, for that matter--one must not only cling to whatever shreds of childhood
remain, but reinforce them continually.
We
each of us have our techniques for keeping our inner child alive. Some of us drive tiny toy-like
cars. Others eat Froot Loops for
breakfast, or play pickup basketball, or play dress-up, or watch Teletubbies
(one of my favorites) or, most importantly, read books that help us hold onto
our sense of wonder and delight in the world.
March 6, 2006
Octavia E. Butler died last Friday at the age
of 58, too young.
Octavia Butler was a novelist who wrote mostly
science fiction. She was one of the best, in or out of the genre. I
began reading her work with her first novel, Patternmaster, back in the late 70s,
and have bought every book she has published since, I think about 14 in
all. She was one of a handful of writers that I can point to as a direct
and profound influence on my own work.
Some authors are notable for their
individualistic and unconventional prose. A sentence by Hemingway or
Faulkner is immediately identifiable as such, and a line of dialogue by Elmore
Leonard might as well have his trademark stamped upon it. We admire
writers who come to us with a unique voice, and make it work.
Octavia Butler was the other kind of great
writer. Reading her, one never notices the prose, because it is so
transparent, so clean, so modest, so direct. Once you start reading, you
are gone. She never let words get in the way of her story--and if you think
that's easy then you might as well let go of any fantasy you ever had about
becoming a writer.
I never met Octavia Butler, but two months ago
I wrote her an effusive fan letter, something I have done only once before (to
the previously mentioned Elmore Leonard). I was wondering why she didn't
write me back--then I saw the obit in the paper. Thunk.
I will miss her.
If you have not yet
read Octavia Butler, I envy you. All of her books are good. Two of
my favorites are Wild Seed and Fledgling.
February 17, 2006
Sorry, but I just can't
not say something about the Cheney hunting mishap.
Anybody who has hunted
quail (or partridge or pheasant) can imagine how it all went down. Naturally, the unfortunate event is
subject to a lot of spin, depending on how you feel about our current
regime. Most everybody agrees it
was an accident. The spin comes
when attempting to assess who was being just how careless, and whether Dick
Cheney acted appropriately immediately after the accident, and whether he was
contrite enough later on.
So I'm here to weigh in
on the degree of carelessness part.
To accommodate all you non-hunters, I'm going to give it to you as an
analogy.
A guy named Dick is
driving an automobile. He is
driving pretty fast, but that's okay because he is in a small town with only a
handful of citizens.
Meanwhile, this other
guy named Harry is strolling down the sidewalk on his way to the neighborhood
Dairy Queen. He isn't really looking
where he is going on account of it's a small town and besides, he's, like, 78
years old.
Suddenly, Dick sees
something exciting. A Dairy
Queen! Desiring a Buster Bar, Dick
makes an abrupt, unsignaled turn into the DQ parking lot and runs spang into
old Harry.
Dang! (Dick thinks) And me without my driver's license!
It could happen to
anybody.
Back in my hunting
days, I learned that there were certain people I did not care to hunt
with. One of them, I regret to
report, was me. So I gave it up. Certain individuals would do well to
follow my example.
February 10, 2006 (I Cloy Me)
I've never heard
anybody talk about this before, so here goes. . .
Yesterday I was a
visiting author for Minnesota State University's "Good Thunder Reading
Series" in Mankato, Minnesota.
The day began with an hour long Q&A session, followed by lunch with
Richard Robbins, the program director, followed by a short "talk on
craft," with more Q&A, then a dinner with assorted faculty members,
then a formal reading, and ending with a reception at Terry Davis's home near
campus.
In short, it was a typical day for a visiting author, better organized than most, and quite pleasant and successful, from my perspective. I met some new people, enjoyed a couple of decent meals in good company, got a chance to promote my books to