January 27th, 2012

Mail Haul

Today my copies of Best Canadian Stories 2011 arrived, filled with exciting stories, including my own “Dream Big.” As if this weren’t enough, my contributor’s copies (and cheque) were part of an exceptionally nice mail haul, which also included a handwritten thank you note for Rosemary Sullivan’s lovely kids’ book Molito, a copy of The Fiddlehead, a set of wedding-invitation samples (terrifying), and a letter to someone who doesn’t live with us. There are a number of such individuals that regularly get mail (and phone calls) chez moi, but Cyril is my favourite, because every time I see his name I am afforded a happy memory of Cyril Sneer one of the best Canadian cartoon villains (not a tight race, perhaps) of all time.

And then when I got online, by google alert informed me of this review of *The Big Dream*on The Toronto Review of Books blog.

A day well-begun, I’d say!!

January 26th, 2012

Insane!!

Guess what I did tonight–had coffee with the director, producer, and star of an upcoming short film based on one of my stories. I had met the director and producer before, and they are lovely–creative, enthusiastic, and generous with their time (not every film-maker spends time getting to know the author of the work the script is based on, I don’t think). But the star I hadn’t met before, and it was a shock to me to meet someone who is going to embody one of my characters; who will briefly but genuinely become someone who previously only had life inside my head and, I hope, inside my readers’ heads. It was a strangely emotional moment for me.

Obviously, I think this is all fantastic–fantastic that I wrote something that other people related to so much that they want to re-create it in their own way, in their own medium. And there was no dissonance for me in meeting and talking to the actress–she looks just right to me, and I was fascinated to hear how she thinks about her work. Though I don’t know exactly how it will feel to see and hear her living the role, I can’t wait to find out.

But you can see how this would all be deeply weird for me, can’t you? I hugged everyone goodbye at the end of the night–movie people are good huggers, it turns out. And when I put my arms around the woman who will become this character, I couldn’t help but think, “She’s a real person!”

Wild.

January 22nd, 2012

Unlikable Characters

I’ve been working on a fairly grim new story. A few of my early readers, while they said good things about the story as a whole, were unhappy with the choices the characters made and, while they felt the choices and their results were honest and believeable, wished for better behaviour the fictional folk within the story.

No one has suggested I change these things necessarily, but they have wondered about how easy it’ll be to sell, pointing out that many people don’t like to read about unlikable characters.

It was a revelatory moment for me. People don’t like to read about characters they don’t like? Well, really? Yes, really–what sells a lot is, I suppose, more slanted towards the hero/villain market than the protagonist/antagonist one. Of course there’s always Macbeth, Wuthering Heights, anything by Martin Amis…but really, most of the time, yeah, likeable is what people like. I know this is true.

Huh.

But the other stuff, those other people with their bad behaviour, moral standards at variance to mine, bad spelling and poor table manners–fascinating! People I don’t like–I usually need to avoid sitting next to them on the bus lest they start making fun of my hair or expounding upon libertarianism. But in fiction, I can run through a logic that, while not mine, is *like* mine, and end up at fantastically different place. I am interested in thinking, reasoning, not particularly stupid people (stupid is too easy; it’s a one-word answer) that do things that I think are bad. To just say they are bad, and dismiss them with that other one-word answer, is to say it’s not worth trying to understand hate, or violence, or viciousness, or whatever.

Which is why I’m not interested in amorality–if you don’t know the difference between right and wrong, how can your choice to do wrong be an interesting one? There is a small but thriving genre of serial-killer thrillers written in part or entirely from the point of view of the killer, as he or she relishes the killing and never ever analyzes her choices. I read a few too many of these as part of a job I had, and consider them tantamount to snuff pornography; I certainly didn’t learn anything.

I am interested in immorality–people who do things I consider wrong because of an alternative version of morality or a view of extenuating circumstances or some other thing going on in their heads that makes the issue less than black and white. My objection to treating characters as villains in fiction is that limits the conversation to how others see these folks; we never see them as they see themselves. Because no one is ever not the hero of their own story, no matter how villainous they may seem from the outside. And I truly think no one thinks, or not for very long, “I am a bad person and what I am doing now has no moral justification.” I am interested in the justifications we all find for the compromises we make.

Which is why I am eager to read and write about people who behave in ways I find abhorrent, who forgive themselves for all of it, and never see the error of their ways–I want to know why, and how. Not all the time, of course–sometimes all I want is to read about is a sweet young book editor who can’t find some of her tax forms and eats too much chocolate, but at the end of the day is kind to her cat and her fiance and is rewarded for her efforts with a really nice new printer. I really hope someone is writing that book.

But other times, when I am feeling strong, I am looking for books that ask me to stretch beyond myself and my own petty concerns, and discover something I didn’t already know about the human condition, even if the new knowledge is uncomofortable or even unpleasant. I’m not saying my work does that…but I want it to. Isn’t that what fiction is for?

January 15th, 2012

What’s Going On

The Big Dream came out four months ago this coming Friday (yes, I do celebrate book birthdays) and it is still enjoying some nice attention. The Globe and Mail ran a very happy-making review on Saturday, and I have a number of events coming up. If you’re not sick of me/this book quite yet, I hope you’ll make it to one. And, as ever, if there isn’t event in your area and you wish there were, let me know–couldn’t hurt.

Hope to see your smiling faces at one of these! Drop me a line if you need more info.

January 12th, 2012

Never do anything that isn’t a verb

I’m going to be presenting at a careers evening at University of Toronto later this month (it’s not open to the public, I’m afraid, but if you’re a student there and want to attend, message me and I’ll send you the deets). I love talking about work, jobs, and careers (are those three different things or three synonyms–discuss!) and this is a chance for me to be even more opinionated than usual.

I’m warming up with a few blog posts (well, perhaps only 1, the way this month is going) about topics the organizers told me will probably come up. First up, the ever-alarming concept of Networking!

One of my least favourite compliments, the one that *always* seems backhanded and snarky, is “You’re such a good networker.” I usually take it to mean, “You effectively pretend to be nice but you really aren’t,” or somethine else similar and dreadful. Also, I sort of think I never “network”–because it’s not a verb, at least it didn’t used to be back in the good old days of rotary dial phones and yellow taxis. The Oxford Canadian now includes the verb form, but the definition I like best is the first one, “n. A group of interconnected or communicating things, people, or points.” Your personal network is all the people you know, and to network is (sigh) to try to expand that group.

I like getting to know and keeping in touch with a wide range of people. Such statements get a lot of eyerolls, especially in these modern times where knowing lots of people is supposed to get you fun friends, but jobs and power and global domination. I don’t know that I’ve had that much in the way of power and success, but it’s not like I haven’t had wonderful support and encouragement from people I know in the writing community, and it’s not like that hasn’t helped me.

So maybe saying I don’t network is just a dictionary game, and maybe I do know how to do this, at least a little. However, I’ve also noticed that people tend to take the need to “network” as license to be awful–glancing over your co-conversationalist’s shoulder for someone better, hijacking conversations with resume-lists of accomplishments, generally getting people to talk to you and then making them sorry they did.

People who are actually good at this stuff have told me that that’s the wrong way to do it, so for all I know, maybe my way is right even though I have not ended up ruling the universe. So here’s my most basic, at-least-won’t-make-things-worse advice on the networking thing:

Be super nice. Be warm and friendly. Start conversations with people who look lonely. Engage on topics they seem engaged by, ask questions, listen more than you talk, and remember what you’ve heard. Share your gum, give up your seat, pick up something someone else dropped. If you admire something someone did or said, say so; if you don’t, don’t say anything. If you think someone is doing something cool, ask them about it. If someone is looking for help or recruiting volunteers, say yes if you can. Show up to events when you are invited–whether it’s a birthday party, pub-band show, or a corporate soire, you have a better chance of meeting new people if you are there to meet them.

Be honest. Don’t feign interest in things you don’t like, don’t spend time with people you don’t enjoy, don’t pursue endeavours you hate. I totally think this is a kind of honesty. I have a policy about not spending time with anyone I know for a fact I don’t like–it’s a waste of everyone’s time, because the feeling is usually mutual, or it will become so when I “fake nice” someone for too long. The thing is, in order to get factual confirmation that I truly don’t like this person, I need to talk to them for a while. And actually engage and converse, not just nod and wait for them to wind down. And then, I have to do it again on a completely separate occasion, in case one of us was just having an off night the first time. After that, if this person really seems like a negative force, I avoid them, smile politely, offer a greeting or a quick question (how’s that tarantula?) when I have to and keep moving. There is simply no point in befriending people I don’t like–it’s no fun and, anyway, most people can tell (I can!)

This also goes for electronic networking. Sure, try a blog, Facebook, whatever you think is your ideal venue for succssful connections with other humans–but if you find you hate it, don’t continue, even if your boss/publisher/career advisor insists it’s an important part of your “brand.” At an online networking workshop I once attended (yeah, yeah) someone once said, “No one ever made a bestseller on Facebook.” These sites are tools like any others–useful when used properly, otherwise potentially damaging. If you can’t image how alienating a grudgingly written blog is–you probably need to research the endeavour more before you begin.

Work really hard. You can befriend everyone in the world, but if your work isn’t awesome, it doesn’t much matter. Always have something in progress that you love, so that if someone asks you about it you’ll be not only able but eager to talk about it. Be eager to do your best stuff even when there doesn’t seem to be enough money or glory (or any of either) to make it worth your while. The thing about networking is that you’re always doing it, even when you don’t want to be. Everyone *does* know everyone, including that boss that you consistently underperformed for, the volunteer team you quit, and the colleague you were rude to.

A big pitfall for folks entering a new field, especially creative ones, is to take internships or do pro bono work for the “resume credit,” then not do a great job because they’re not being paid. The work is still out there, though, representing you, even if you feel it doesn’t. I think if you can afford to, you should probably stop doing anything you don’t like well enough to do a good job–get out before it ruins your reputation.

Everyone’s not watching…unless you give’em something to watch. A neat thing that’s happened to me once or twice is to be standing around chatting with friends at a party, and have a Very Important Person cruise by and say, “Hey, Rebecca, how’s the new book [or some such] going?” Whomever I’m with is always really impressed with me and my successful networking, but it’s really the VIP who is good at it. The more you’re in the spotlight, I think, the more you learn to pay attention to those around you, to learn how to best work with people so you’ll get their best work, and to keep friendly relationships even with those you don’t work with–in case you ever might.

I realize this is an extra rose-coloured post–I hope it doesn’t come across as sappy. I know there are less ingenuous things you can do to expand your sea of connections, but I don’t really think they’re worth doing or thinking about. Besides if you network my way, even if you don’t advance your career, you still might make some friends.

January 7th, 2012

The To Be Read 2012 Challenge

I really enjoyed the 2011 To Be Read Challenge from the Roofbeam Reader site; so much so that I’ve decided to do the 2012 one even though signups have closed and I can’t be an official participant. I think just having the list in mind will be enough to keep me reading.

I was pleased with the challenge because it got me to read books I bought or was given as gifts–therefore, books I had a good reason for wanting to read–but was intimidated by and had been avoiding. The challenge also got me to do another thing I should do but get intimidated by, which is review. There is no better way to study and understand a book than to form a cogent piece of writing about what you think of it. And I seriously doubt I would’ve written 12+ reviews, and thus been 12+ reviews smarter, last year if this list hadn’t been pushing me. So let’s do it again.

The first two books will the alternates from last year–those were no less desirable than the others on the list, just farther down the shelf and thus listed last. Ok, here we go:

1. *Little Eurekas* by Robyn Sarah
2. *Subways Are for Sleeping* by Edmund G. Love
3. *Hamlet* by William Shakespeare (illustrated version by Harold Copping)
4. *The Story of English* by Robert McCrum, William Cran, and Robert MacNeil
4. *Beatrice and Virgil* by Yann Martel
5. *The Bull Is Not Killed* by Sarah Dearing
6. *Small Change* by Elizabeth Hay
7. *The Beauty Myth* by Naomi Wolf
8. *Moon Deluxe* by Frederick Barthelme
9. *A Nail in the Heart* by Ian Daffern
10. *Mouthing the Words* by Camilla Gibb
11. *The Book of Other People* edited by Zadie Smith
12. *On the Road* by Jack Kerouac

Alternates
1. *Burning Ground* by Pearl Luke
2. *The Pickup Artist* by Terry Bisson

Wish me luck!

January 4th, 2012

Rose-coloured reviews *Snow Crash* by Neal Stephenson

I don’t know know much about hard science fiction, but I think Neal Stephenson’s *Snow Crash* might be the closest I’ve come to reading some. The structure and plot of the book depend heavily on real–or reality-based–scientific propositions, and the writing is highly logical, research-based, and dense. I believe Scott chose this book to give to me (please correct me if I’m wrong, SW) because Stephenson, possibly unlike some others of his breathren, is a very vivid, fun writer, and *Snow Crash* is at times wildly exciting, hilarious, and even a bit sexy.

The story starts with the Deliverator, a pizza-delivery-person named Hiro Protagonist–half-black, half-Asian, entirely brilliant computer programmer but too alienated and independent to work with others. So he is an aggressive vigilante style pizza guy zooming through the franchulates of what was once Los Angeles.

Oh, did I mention that *Snow Crash* is set in some other version of reality than ours? It’s not the future: the book was published in 1992, and I think that’s about when it is set. At least, at one point we learn Hiro is 30, and at another, that his father was a WWII veteran, so it would seem 1962 is about the latest he could’ve been born. But it’s a far advanced version of 1992, where the twenty years between then and now seem to have already happened: people spend copious time on the internet (called “the metaverse” here), within there are programs called “Earth” and “Librarian” that do almost exactly what GoogleEarth and Google do now. But it’s also a seemingly post-apocolyptic America, where there are no laws, most suburbs are run by commercial enterprises, and the rest by the mafia. It was very confusing and I never really worked out what the recent history of Stephenson’s universe was.

It didn’t keep me from enjoying the book, though. Let’s go back to that first scene–it’s brilliant. Actually, it’s probably the best part of the book but we’ll get to that. This 20-page zoom through the burnt-out remains of LA in a mob-owned car is full of new ideas and new words, my favourite of which is “loglo”–the yellow glow of the all the illuminate logos on a commercial street. Neat, huh? It took a second reading to realize that the first half-dozen pages have no action at all–just hyper-kinetic descriptions of the wild, Mafia-run world in which Hiro Protagonist lives and works and drives really fast.

But then Hiro gets fired from his job for reasons that mostly pertain to his colleagues, who are a crazy ethnic stereotype of idiotic Eastern Europeans (there are lot of ethnic and sexual stereotypes in the book, which are annoying but not really worth discussion), and who never appear again. Nor does the job appear again, though a lot of what we learned about the mob is useful. However, the problem with this scene is not one I realized until afterward I’d finished the first reading and started again–Hiro never behaves in this way again, never does anything that coincides with, reflects, or refers to this period of pizza delivery. It’s a cool stunt, a neat thing to read and likely to write, but it could’ve been much shorter and allowed the real action of the book to get on.

One thing the scene does accomplish is to introduce the other main character, YT (Yours Truly), a skateboard courier who harpoons Hiro’s car (which is what the skateboard couriers of the future do to make time) while he’s struggling to deliver that pizza. When Hiro does something very stupid–drives into an empty swimming pool–YT helps him out and delivers the pizza at the last possible second, drawing her to the attention of the mob bosses.

YT is a 15-year-old girl and, unlike Hiro, a truly cool and fun character with an interesting backstory and definite personality. She is also a skateboarder, on a futuristic board (“plank”) that his millions of tiny feet instead of wheels, and which can skim over gravel, turf, and prone people. I *love* reading about skateboarding, and these scenes are awesome.

Unlike YT, Hiro never becomes a real character; he remains a vehicle for advancing story, as perhaps you would expect of someone named Hiro Protagonist. That’s what I’m not certain of–it’s certainly clever of Stephenson to make his hero/Hiro a blank cypher decorated with heroic awesomeness, but it’s kinda frustrating to read and I could never figure out if Hiro’s blankness was on purpose. Sometimes Stephenson seems to be making fun of sci-fi heroics, like when Hiro tags along on a murder investigation, running up a hill easily because “his legs are in incredible shape from sword-fighting.” That sort of teen-girl swoon writing is funny, or really bad–I’m not sure which.

However, this isn’t something I had a problem with as I read–the first half of the book moves very fast and is funny, interesting, and pretty exciting. Then…dadumdadum…we get to the part with the research. Oy vey, I’ve never seen anything like this. Hiro gets wind from an old love interest (who then disappears for 100s of pages) that various corporate and religious interests have become linked in a nefarious way that has something to do with the ancient language and culture of Sumer. He pursues this by doing what any of us present day folks would do–looking it up on the internets.

And then the book reproduces everything Hiro discovers. It’s not digested, it’s not worked into the narrative–it’s a big Wikipedia entry, broken up with action sequences (he has to take breaks from the research to do more interesting stuff). In Stephenson’s Metaverse, they’ve progressed beyond reading for them selves to a “Librarian Daemon” who speaks the information to you, but it’s not a like an actual character–it’s like Wikipedia in quotation marks.

My knowledge of Ancient Sumer ain’t what it ought to be and in large part I couldn’t figure out whether Stephenson had made up the more outlandish bits of the research or not. I wondered, if he had gone to the trouble of writing his own history of a civilization, why he didn’t present it in a more engaging manner, and if it wasn’t original, why he didn’t trust us to go read the encyclopedia ourselves if we were interested.

In the end, it would seem that the material is all real, because that digital librarian is always remarking on whom he’s quoting, and the in the acknowledgements the author states “most of the words spoken by the Librarian originated with [historians and archaeologists] and I have tried to make the Librarian give credit where due, verball footnoting his comments like a good scholar, which I am not.”

Which just goes to show that different people want different things from a novel. I certainly did not want 50 pages of relentless info-dumping, but that might be my fault. In all honesty, though I maintain as I always have that I am not stupid, I had a very very hard time following all the research and then a second section that worked over that material as a kind of metaphorical template for the present action. What were all those Russian Orthodox folks doing in Oregon? Why did Hiro’s long-lost love get an antennae implanted in her skull? Was Asherah a person? Why did the Mafia turn out to be the good guys…or did they?

Nevermind, the ending’s brilliant. I didn’t understand all of it by I don’t care–it was fantastic. All that running around on boats, and some really cool scenes with YT, proving when Stephenson gets interested in developing a character (pretty much only the one in the whole book), he does a great job of it. The action was amazing–helicopters, glass knives, oil tankers, heroic self-sacrifice and bitterly learned lessons, a posse of skateboarders, it was insane.

I have never been so divided on a book, I don’t think–so much to love, so much that made me want to stop reading. There’s no saying this author can’t write–obviously he can, but sometimes chooses not to? Or something. Whatever, I had fun, though the book took me two weeks to read and I fell asleep a few times. I would like to read another book by Stephonson, though preferably a shorter one.

This is my 12th and final book for the To Be Read 2011 challenge. Better late than never.

January 2nd, 2012

Back!

Hello and welcome to 2012–I hope you had an excellent holiday and did not spend as much time in the Halifax airport as I did. But except for that little blip, and the fact that I never seemed to get the time to blog as I meant to, I really enjoyed my time off. It was spent reading, swimming, eating, playing with cats, talking to friends, talking to family, talking to people who will soon be my family, eating, wishing for more cats, opening presents (so many presents), and eating some more. There was also a lot of sleep involved–sometimes multiple naps per day.

2011 was one crazy mofo of a year–a wonderful one, but there was a reason for all those naps over the holidays–I was exhausted. In 2011 I talked to so many cool people, read so many excellent books, petted so many excellent cats, there’s really no boiling it down. So here’s a list of random good stuff from 2011:

Best cat of 2011: Evan, who likes everyone and everything except boredom, who didn’t panic when he fell into a half-full bathtub (twice), who sometimes gives actual hugs, and who desperately wants to eat a moth.

Awfullest Moment: When I realized I had hired the movers for the wrong day. The fact that it was the realization and not the actual move that was the worst day tells you something about the excellent friends (and brother, and partner) I have. Thanks, Scott, Ben, Mark, and Wren, for being not only the nicest but the physically strongest people around!!

Best musical discovery on my part of 2011: I don’t know how long they’ve actually been around, but I didn’t know about Elliott Brood until this year, and I’m sorry it took me so long.

Best-Planned Book Launch: Jessica Westhead’s launch party for *And Also Sharks* was such a superlative example of fun and inclusivity for a book that actually merits the excitement that surrounded it.

Most puking: That honour would go to the lady across the aisle on my Toronto to London (England) flight, who vomited noisily for nearly four hours. Obviously she was very ill and I doubt that this small honour can make up for that–I really hope she was all right and able to enjoy England, but oh my goodness gracious, that was a lot of puking.

Closest approximation of my life in 1991: Nintendo Wii. Seriously, I was wicked good at Super-Nintendo, and some things never fade.

Best interviewer: Well, obviously I’ve not been interviewed by all that many people, but sometimes it starts to feel like I have–all the ones who don’t enjoy it (plenty of good ones, too, of course). But Kerry Clare’s stage interview with me on the night of my book launch was so thoughtful, so insightful, challenging and interesting, all those things the best interviews are supposed to be, that it makes up for a lot of inane questions.

Dumbest illness: Getting mono just before my 33rd birthday, and a trip to NYC. I was never *that* sick, but I was undiagnosed for a while, which led to the stupidest thing anyone said to me all year–”It’s probably not leukemia” from the doctor at the walk-in, which did not lead to a very restful sleep that night. They actually didn’t figure out what I had until I’d been prescribed the counter-indicated drugs, which resulted in the year’s (and hopefully the lifetime’s) worst rash. Also, now it’s painfully obvious that I didn’t get kissed much in high school!

Best moment: Getting proposed to on the beach. Rashes, vomit, moving, who cares–this was the best year ever.

Best rap video partially set at No Frills: Show Me Where Ya Noms At by Hannah Hart and Songs to Where Pants To. Seriously, watch it now.

December 22nd, 2011

Liking: Not Just for Facebook

While I’ve been completely dug under with horrible work, some things I wrote early, before the weight of the world crushed me, have been going up online. Good to remember my more positive days!!

A book I like, on the Advent Book Elf: And Also Sharks by Jessica Westhead

A journal I like, on The Literary Type blog: The New Quarterly

A website I like likes me back: Salty Ink’s Top 10 Canadian Books of Short Fiction

An artist I like: Marc Chagall and the Russian Avant Garde. Ok, that’s not online, but if you have a chance to see the exhibit at the Art Gallery of Ontario, go. So good, so joyful.

Also, hey, it’s Hanukkah, and almost Christmas, and the weather is nice. I still have so much to do but I think I can be the light (candles? twinkle lights?) at the end of the tunnel, and it’s sparkly.

December 19th, 2011

The Year in Books

I read a lot, and I never feel like I’m reading enough. Everyone is always talking about some book I’ve never heard of, or worse, some book I’ve heard of a thousand times and want to read but haven’t gotten to yet. I am perpetually behind in my periodicals, searching for the next book-club book, seeing reviews of stuff I need to pick up, attending launches and buying those books, being overwhelmed when my library holds finally come in, and then cruising past a “new releases” table at the library or bookstore and going, “Hey, what’s this?”

I would not, of course, have it any other way. I’ve read more this year than ever before (since I started keeping track in 2006) but still not nearly enough. Lots of bloggers run reading stats just to see, and I never have but it looks like fun, so I did it this year, just for those I read cover-to-cover only; I don’t count it if I skim or flip or don’t finish.

I categorized by genre (anthologies, novels, non-fiction, short stories, YA, graphic, and poetry, and then again by author genre. I don’t know why I picked these categories, except that they seemed obvious. I had meant to do national categories as well, but I realized I don’t know where all my authors are from, some move around, and I actually don’t care.

I’m not posting the math because I couldn’t actually make the two sets of numbers total the same, which is embarrassing but not worth doing all the math a third time to see what the problem is. I would approximately 85 books, about half of those prose fiction. Surprises? Yeah, that the poetry and graphic novel numbers were so lame (guess I know what my reading resolutions will be), that gender parity is perfect (the book I have in hand is by a dude, so I guess the scales could tip). On the other hand, I am not surprised that the YA number is low; I respect the genre but I rarely enjoy it, and I don’t think I’m going to resolve to read more, at least not this year. The non-fiction number is respectable but it’s also kind of a lie, containing narrative non-fic like *Black Like Me* in the same category as wedding planning guides (yes, I read them cover-to-cover; I can’t help it).

This was a curious exercise, and it proves some blind spots (not least of which are my math). I might try to reflect on the year more qualitatively in my next post–ie., a best-books-this-year post. The quantitative method doesn’t seem to be doing to much for me.