May 2012 Can't Get Here Soon Enough

Because in May 2012, this comes out:



I Hate This Part

I just finished A Game of Thrones.

And they killed one of my favorite characters.

At first I didn't believe it. The narrative pans away at the last second and I kept desperately hoping that he was going to show up again in one the very few chapters left before the end. I wanted it to be one of those times when the author convinces the reader that the character in dead only to bring him back in some ludicrous fashion.You know those times where the ludicrousness doesn't bother you because you're just so happy that the character is still alive? I so wanted that. I was being pretty stubborn about it too, actually. I kept thinking, He can't be dead. Not really. They can't kill him. Not for good. But I'm afraid that G.R.R. Martin did in fact kill him. Every single related character had confirmed his death by the end of the book.

There's still this sliver of me, though, that thinks Martin just did a really good job convincing me; that my beloved character is going to show up in book two or three or four and I'm going to be like, I KNEW it!

(A girl can hope, can't she??)

A Sharp Mind

I'm reading Game of Thrones right now, by George R.R. Martin. It's engrossing so far and I think, 125 pages in, that I've gotten the characters straightened out. The chapters alternate between seven different characters and it took me a bit to keep track of who was who, who they were talking about, and the relationships between them. Anyway, I wanted to share a quote from one of them, Tyrion Lannister. He's dwarfed, misshapen, and has just been asked why he reads. He says,

"I have a realistic grasp of my own strengths and weaknesses. My mind is my weapon. My brother has his sword, King Robert has his warhammer, and I have my mind...and a mind needs books as a sword needs a whetstone, if it is to keep its edge." Tyrion tapped the leader cover of the book. "That's why I read so much, Jon Snow."

A mind needs books. I like that thought :)

I'm going to go read the next chapter now.


P.S. I seem to be having technical difficulties again. I'm unable to comment at the moment. I can't stay signed in and sometimes the OpenID thing doesn't work either. I hope this little hiccup doesn't last much longer but, in any case, know that I'm reading and enjoying y'alls posts even though I cannot comment.

Escape Artist?

You know how people talk about how they love to escape into books?

I always squirm a little when I hear someone say that, or read it in an interview, or see it in any other format. It makes me really, really uncomfortable. I finally figured out why: I don't like having books - wonderful, marvelous books - equated with escapism. I don't like the idea of reading being a way for people to avoid or neglect their lives. And the idea of enabling escapism scares me as a writer.

I don't want my readers (assuming they actually exist at some point) to escape into the words I write. I don't want them to grab up my story as a way to run away from their problems. I don't want my books to be the fantasy they turn to when a stressful situation arises. I know I'm not responsible for other people's behavior. If someone uses books as a form of escapism, I can't change that about them. I know that. But I think when writers talk about loving to escape into books we're inadvertantly condoning the idea that escapism is all right and that books are a way to accomplish that escape.

When people use food as an escape, it's perceived as a negative thing. When people use drink or drugs to escape, it's seen as a negative thing. Why is it that when people use books to escape, it's perfectly all right? Sure, it's not physically destructive. You won't end up in the hospital from an overdose or morbid obesity if books are your escape. But when people use books as an escape, it's fundamentally the same as any other form of escapism. It's just dressed in a lovely cover.

Escape is temporary. I don't want to provide my readers an escape. That probably sounds callous. I mean, what if someone has had a horrific, terrible life? Isn't it OK in that case? I don't think so, especially if a reader is dealing with some sort of trauma. I don't want to help them escape it. I want to help them conquer it. I want to help them overcome it. I don't want to give them some sort of fleeting reprieve from their troubles. I want to give them something more permanent. I want my books to foster courage and hope. I want my readers to come away from my books armed with something that goes beyond "The End." I want to give them the inner strength to face the trouble and pain in their lives, because the trouble and pain will still be there after the last page has been turned. I want to give them a quiet place - a place they can leave with a fresh perspective, an idea for how to deal with the difficulty before them, or even just a confident hope that change and goodness and beauty is possible.

I want people to take books off the shelves to enrich their lives, not escape them. I want people to use books to explore new places and perspectives, and through that exploration, to expand their own view of our world and all the complexities of it. I want people to pick up a book when they're upset or depressed, not to escape, but to be encouraged that there is good in this world and it's worth fighting for. I want people to open the cover when they're bored, not to escape the boredom, but to find something to inspire them to action.

Now maybe I'm overreacting. Maybe people don't really mean that they escape into books. Maybe they're just lazy in their diction. But if you don't actually view books as a means of escape, don't describe them that way. There are thousands of words. Find some that acurately describe what books are to you.

I read to improve not just my mind, but my character, my being. I write to the same end. I write to make beautiful minds - minds filled with whatever is true, noble, right, pure, lovely, admirable, excellent, or worthy of praise. Because beautiful minds make beautiful people and beautiful people make beautiful lives and beautiful lives make a beautiful world.

That's what I want to be a part of.

"The unreal is more powerful than the real. Because nothing is as perfect as you can imagine it. Because its only intangible ideas, concepts, beliefs, fantasies that last. Stone crumbles. Wood rots. People, well, they die. But things as fragile as a thought, a dream, a legend, they can go on and on. If you can change the way people think. The way they see themselves. The way they see the world. You can change the way people live their lives. That’s the only lasting thing you can create."

~ Chuck Palahniuk

A Day in Someone Else's Shoes

This week's Friday Five from Paper Hangover is just too good to pass up. So, even though I've already posted today, I'm still going to participate.

Which five (book) characters would you trade places with for a day?

1. Vin, from the Mistborn Trilogy by Brandon Sanderson. From street rat to one of the most powerful allomancers? Yes, please. And if that's not enough, there's the crazy cool stunt-like abilities of the Mistborn. Oh, and saving the world.

2. Lucy, from The Chronicles of Narnia by C.S. Lewis. Need I say more?

3. Nat, from Carry On, Mr. Bowditch by Jean Lee Latham. This book is probably one of the most inspiring stories I have ever read. I read it again at least once a year. If spending one day in his shoes gave me even a fraction of his determination and diligence, it would be a day well spent. I'd love to learn how to "sail by ash breeze."

4. Beric, from Beric the Briton by G.A. Henty. He is one of the most incredible characters I've ever met between the pages of a book. He fights a lion with nothing but his cloak and wins (yes, he is that impressive). So many things happen to him and his response is never less than honorable. Actually, I think I'd rather be the girl he marries, but I don't remember her name. So, Beric it is ;)

5. Tally, from the Ugly Series by Scott Westerfeld. Here's a girl who is tireless in fighting for what's right, even when it seems impossible both internally and externally. Also, she's awesome on a hoverboard.

What about you?

Badar Basim

"It's like that name...the name with two D's or two B's. When you forget a name like that you don't really forget it, because when you hear it again you know it instantly." - Shahrazad

 (as portrayed in Shadow Spinner, by Susan Fletcher)

Some stories are like that too.

The Iron Peacock, by Mary Stetson Clarke, is one of them.

I first read it years ago when I lived in this tiny little town that quite literally had more cows than people. A little town with lots of cows, friendly down-to-earth farming folks, and a quaint old library. And in this library was this book. I read it. I loved it. And then I forgot about it.

For years, I never thought of it, not even in passing when talking about favorite books. At some point, and I don't remember what prompted it, my sister and I both remembered this great book we had read when we lived in Lisbon. About a girl...and a guy...and an iron thing for a fireplace. That's all we could remember - not the title, not the author, not the characters' names. Nothing.

It was the tiniest smidgen of a memory, the kind that normally fade from mind as quickly as they arrive, but it stayed with me. It kept popping up every time I was looking at my Wish-To-Read and Wish-To-Buy list. What was that story? I don't know how but I finally recalled the title one day. I immediately typed it into Amazon, really hoping that I had remembered rightly, and there it was. There were only two left in stock. I bought both. They arrived, I ripped open the box, picked one up, and just held it thinking, Oh, no.

I didn't recognize the cover. I didn't recognize the blurb on the back. Absolutely nothing about it seemed familiar. So I start leafing through it thinking, Please, please be the right story. There was one scene I remembered vaguely - it involved dancing and a red petticoat. I couldn't find it. I started skimming over the dialogue, trying to find the main male character somewhere so I could find his name. It wasn't working. So I flipped to the last page (even though I never do that), hoping for something, anything familiar. And that's where I found these lines:

"'Tis the way I first saw ye, as pretty as a peacock in your velvet cloak, with your head held high. I thought then ye were as proud as one, but I've learned different since. 'Tis not pride, but courage ye have, lass. Ye've the strength of iron."

Oh, yes. Yes, this is it. Ross, that was his name! The moment I knew I had the right story, I flipped back to page one and started reading. And with every page turn, I remembered more and more - what happened next, the supporting characters, the way it all worked out. I was so happy. This was the story, the characters, I had loved and forgotten. 

Re-reading it, and seeing it now on my bookshelf, it's like having a childhood friend back. A friend you liked so well that you can't imagine how you ever managed to forget them. A friend who you know instantly when you see them again. 

   

Because, sometimes, it's like the name with two D's or two B's. You never really forget it. It just gets covered with the dust of days gone by.

Words that Dance

Yes, dance.

And sing, and fight, and love, and laugh, and hate, and struggle - words that live.

Those kinds of words are the reason I love to read and why books are such marvelous companions. They are so much more than organized sequences of lines and dots filling up the numbered pages with figments of the author's imagination. They're...well, they can be so many things: exciting, full of adventure and fascination; wonderful, opening your eyes to new people and places and things; challenging, presenting a different vantage point and thereby making your scrutinize your own; delightful, filled with that which is good and lovely and inspiring.

They can also be boring. Depressing. Horrible, to the point where you want to throw the book across the room, or rip out the ending and paste your own in.

It takes several things working in combination to make any book, great or awful. There's the basic grammar and language component. Then there's style. And any number of other things I won't bother to enumerate. But the heart of the book is the story. The heart of the story is its characters. And the heart of characters is that they live.

Yes, I know, they're imaginary. In a very real sense, though, characters are alive. Or, at least they should be. Need to be, really. We identify with characters because some part of them translates into our world as real. The more of them that translates, the more we love them, the more we learn from them, the more we tell all our friends to go buy this book because it's just that good.

That realness has to exist in the characters before it can translate off the page. And for that realness to exist, the characters have to be alive within their own story. (This is why people think writers are crazy)

That's what I mean by words that dance. At some point along the storytelling timeline, something inexplicable happens. The words stop being mere words. The become people. Places. A whole new world (or our own world at a different time). A world full of people who dance, and sing, and fight, and love, and laugh, and hate, and struggle - people who live.

The trouble, for a writer (as a reader, you just get to enjoy it), is that once your characters are alive, you can't exactly control them. And that can be slightly problematic. They hate the wrong person, or love the wrong one. They rebel when you try to fit them into the story arc you had so carefully constructed. Or they up and die on you (and that's really, really annoying when you like said character). Oh, and if your story world is alive, guess what? Random characters appear and throw all sorts of wrenches into "your" story. Ask me how I know.

But when words come alive, they dance right through all the pages, through THE END, and into our hearts and minds.

I think that's worth a few complications.

My Favorite Things

"The love of learning, the sequestered nooks,
And all the sweet serenity of books."
Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

"The best of a book is not the thought which it contains, but the thought which it suggests; just as the charm of music dwells not in the tones but in the echoes of our hearts." 

~Oliver Wendell Holmes