Book review - The Martian by Andy Weir

(Cross-posted from my personal page and from my Goodreads page. Please feel free to friend/follow me there. I love books and love to talk about them!)

I LOVED THIS BOOK. I shall shout about it to anyone who cares to hear me. I listened to it in audiobook, over the course of about 4 days, which is very fast for a 10+ hour audio. (pro tip: listen while you cook dinner, fold laundry, or other mundane household stuff. I also listen on short, long, and medium length drives, and while I walk the dogs. My dogs are very well exercised at the moment.)

What I liked: this book has so much technical depth and detail. While that can be a bit burdensome at times (particularly in audio) I had a lot of appreciation for the manner it was told in, as the technical stuff was all very accurate and very tangible in terms of what the protagonist was doing with the information. No info dumps, just the protagonist dealing with Mars atmosphere and the equipment he had to survive. I mention this first because it’s something that is probably a barrier to some who aren’t traditional science fiction fans. Please, realize that the author isn’t expecting you to solve differential equations nor talking you through the boring bits. He’s focused on the life and death details of space travel. Pressure, chemical reactions, ways to change states, microbes, terrain, distance. These are fascinating when set in the context of an extra-terra exploration. THIS is why I read science fiction. THIS is why I write science fiction.

I also liked the author’s use of humor. There are many laugh out loud moments. To that end, though, a bunch of the humor is due to the very appropriate use of swear words. For example, when Mark has to compute a distance by figuring the length of the long side of a right triangle, and he concludes (since he has to travel the hypotenuse) “Because Pythagoras is a dick.” — I laughed loudly in the middle of chopping something and almost lobbed off a finger. As I try to mention in all my reviews, the curse words are the ONLY mature content (other than a mild reference about a man and woman sharing a room) and to me are an excellent introduction to appropriate emphatic cursing to make your point or convey your aggravation. Definitely fine for 14 and up, but would be appropriate for younger readers so long as you don’t mind the opening of the book which implements the f word several times. To good effect. Conveys mood, attitude, situational details all in a four letter word. Quite economical.

I have always enjoyed science fiction, and this book just blew my socks off because it blended that geeky science-y stuff (which I really don’t have a firm handle on anymore, lo these 20+ years since anyone asked me to care about any of it in detail) and human nature, and the little details of what it would be like in space. I write books about kids in space and like to include the details of what they would eat, whether there would be pets (I’ve come to the conclusion that OF COURSE there will be cats in space. Because cats.) what you do with your hair in zero gee, what you wear, etc. I loved the little details of Mark dealing with his daily routine. The communications with NASA were fascinating. The story kept me engaged the entire length of the book. The audio narrator talent is excellent and I will seek out other books he has narrated. Highest recommendation. Best book I’ve read this year.

My Complicated Relationship with Classic Literature

Everyone is all abuzz about Go Set a Watchman, the new title from Harper Lee that releases shortly. Literally everyone. Or so it seems. (If you're into it, I hear the Guardian's interactive first chapter, with voice narration available by Reese Witherspoon, is very good. I don't know as I don't plan to watch/read/consume.)

It's interesting to me to watch this new trend in literature, and it comes from an overall trend in society I think. The trend is the Celebrity Author Pedestalling. I can hardly blame JK Rowling for publishing under a pseudonym (this article is worth a read about the field of forensic linguistics, though I understand the original tip came from a blabby wife of an exec at the agency or elsewhere in JKRow's world.) The fuss about Harper Lee is ... confusing.

First, a confession. Due to an odd set of circumstances in my childhood (we moved twice during my high school years so I attended 3 schools in 4 years) I have never read To Kill a Mockingbird. I've also never read Moby Dick. Uncle Tom's Cabin. Beowulf. The Great Gadsby. Old Man and the Sea. Of Mice and Men. Lord of the Flies. The Grapes of Wrath. I don't really regret these absences, though I have The Great Gadsby on a bookshelf. Maybe one day it will out-compete my massive to-be-read pile. I doubt it.

I have, however, read and dissected Macbeth at least 3 times in High School and once or twice in college. I read Gabriel Garcia Marquez's 100 Years of Solitude, which almost killed me, but then was thrilled to find it as an option on the AP English exam that year or the next. I earned a 4 on that exam. (out of 5, which got me out of first year English requirements and composition classes in college.) I've read Dr. Faustus, Madame Bovary, and The Inferno. I've read Dostoyevsky, Tolstoy, Solzhenitsyn, Ibsen, Camus (in English and in French.) I hated with a pure unadulterated passion Kafka's Metamorphosis. Don't remember ever hating a book so much.

The subject of teaching kids classic lit comes up often in the media. (Here's one very interesting article about it, featuring a number of quotes from children and parents that are eye-opening.)

So we're back to the buzz about this new book, which has it's own odd backstory, almost like a book itself (this post isn't meant to address any of that odd backstory.) But I'm so puzzled by the elevation of this book as the One Thing That Is Awesome About Literature in 2015. There are *so* many good books that came out in 2015 or are due to. So much good stuff last year and the year before. So many books to anticipate. Why all the extreme focus on this one author, this one book? I know there's some element of joy of hearing from an author who didn't publish much, but I fear when we laser-focus on one author, we risk further alienating kids from books because they look at something like this and think, meh. Maybe it'll be assigned reading this year in my son's Honors 9th grade English class. I just asked him about his opinion of To Kill A Mockingbird (which he read within the last year) and he answered, "Meh."

When we've got so much great fiction coming out, so many great authors, I fear a focus on one title by one author will take away the emphasis on these other great titles, pull from the limited time we all have these days, pull emphasis from these other authors writing great works. It's not a rising-tide-raises-all-ships kind of situation, I don't think, when one author's singular work gets this kind of media attention/spectacle. It's not the same as the Harry Potter Phenomenon, best explained as the fact that when kids (and adults) finished reading HP, they moved on to other books. (Here's a great Leaky Cauldron article about that. I searched and read several other articles, but I find the fansite the best for this particular bit of HP-related trivia.)

I've sort of mushed the idea now that I've mentioned Harry Potter, but it brings up a point that helps me finalize this post -- when there are books like Harry Potter out there which can spark imagination and literally get millions upon millions of people to read, why do we need to over-emphasize just one title, just one book, just one author who wrote this book a very long time ago? And when it comes to literature classes and teaching English to kids, why aren't we using contemporary fiction more? I'm sure I'll have more observations as my son gets into his 9th grade English class, but for now, I'm left scratching my head at the idolatry and love for one book, when there are so very many books. It's like falling passionately in love with one poppy in a field with hundreds of thousands of them.

A writing exercise for your weekend enjoyment

I have a blistering migraine today (this is a regular occurrence for me. Stinks, but I'm used to it.) Today's is a little unusual, though, in that it's distorting my vision somewhat, so I'm kinda useless at the moment as far as typing goes. So in lieu of your regularly scheduled Karen's Thoughts on Writing on the Prosers, I bring you a fun writing exercise I did recently with the lovely and talented +Nina Niskanen (we've been trying to encourage each other to write more by posting every-other-day exercises.)

This one I mined from Gail Carson Levine's great book (geared for children but excellent for all ages) Writing Magic.

Prompt:

“The first time I saw Stephen, he painted a hex sign on my right arm, and I couldn't move my fingers for three hours.”

Here's what I wrote:

The first time I saw Sam1, he painted a hex sign on my arm and I couldn’t move my fingers for three hours. The next time he painted a lightning bolt encircled by an ivy vine, and I vomited for twenty minutes straight. I took him down to the med-bot repairshop before I fell ill again. At this rate my unit? corridor? barracks? some kind of collective noun here to indicate grouping of dwellings, but in a spacestation environment, not turf. At this rate my … <word>’s occupants were going to spend more time being sickened by our medbot than we were being helped by him.

Old McCreary looked up when I wheeled Sam1 through the iris of his door (better way to indicate some cool spacey-waycey door mechanism…) “Oh no, I’m not working on that lump of metal again. He got me with a nanoneedle for supposed Vegaian flu last time. I couldn’t bend my left knee for a week!” McCreary wheeled himself back into the dustiest corner of his dusty grimy shop. The smell of mechanical lubricant hung thick in the air.

“McCreary,” I said, trying to keep my voice firm but cheerful. He hated grumpy customers. “I need some help with our medbot unit. He’s clearly suffering from a fault or defect. My comrades on my corridor <snicker> need a fully functioning medbot to be able to perform their duties and attend school and work. Can you please assist us?”

McCreary was, after all, a mostly mechanized android. He had a skinplate, sure, but so did a lot of them. Sam1, for instance. When given a direct request by a fully skinned human, his programming should require him to comply. Should being the operative word here. I chewed the inside of my lip as I waited for the old bot repairman to answer.

You could almost see his android brain executing lines of code related to interactions with humans. First his brow furrowed, then his lips pulled back to reveal his partially yellowed teeth. For a skinplate, he went full-bore into the realistic stuff. Probably chewed Chetle, too. That crap will stain anything. The smile was clearly faked, but the words that followed were what I needed to hear.  

“Certainly Miss Shasta. I would be happy to attempt to assist you.”

I docked my credit chit before he could change his mind, gave Sam1 a light pat on the back of the shoulder, out of reach of his poorly-practicing medical appendages, and bolted out the opening into the mad chaos of Underlayer 7 on Laxima station.

Why don't you give it a whirl and see where your writing takes you?

A re-run, sounds in fiction

This month our topic is very interesting, we're planning to write about Broken Characters, a meaty subject for sure. Sadly, I've run out of time today and don't want to again fail to post (it's been a busy month already and I'm not quite halfway through!) so I thought I'd bring you an interesting re-run, partly because I'm still working on the novel I mention in this post from 2 years ago, sigh. ;)

I will work on my Broken Characters post for my next posting slot, two weeks from today - stay tuned!

Sounds and Other Sensory Details in Writing

Why I Hate Villains

So we're talking about villains this month on the Prosers. And I have to confess something. Even after decades as an avid reader, and closing in soon on a decade as an avid writer, I really, really dislike villains. (Sidetone: while looking for an image to use to headline this post, I came across this amusing blog post about a Villain Chair. I want!)

There. I said it. Yep. I dislike bad guys. Intensely.

Image via Flikr User Sam Lavy shared via a Creative Commons license

I've spent a lot of time considering why this is, so let me unpack some of the reasons.

First, most bad guys are written pathetically two-dimensional. Or even just one-dimensional, if you want to get into theoretical geometry. They have a single-minded focus on ruining the life of the protagonist. Their only story purpose is to make life crappy for the main character, or scare the beejeesus out of the main character to keep him/her on the run. Or to kill the main character's mother/brother/uncle/dog.

These kinds of bad guys don't work for me for the primary reason of: WHY? What the heck is motivating bad guy to so single-mindedly pursue our treasured main character? And why does bad guy continue doing so even after a point at which most sane people would stop the pursuit? Mostly because it serves the story's purpose, not because it makes any kind of logical sense.

I also dislike the deep, dark baddie because I have trouble believing in that sort of person. Sure, there are some deep, dark baddies in the world and we read about them in the news, but they aren't as commonplace as popular fiction (genre or otherwise) wants you to believe. Of course the counter-argument is that we only tell stories of great conflict and a juicy bad guy helps create that great conflict, but ... yeah. Ugh! Isn't there more to a great story than just a nasty meanie who wants to make life miserable for the main character?

Even when the "bad guy" is part institution/part person, it still falls down for me. Primary example: Hunger Games. I have a hard time believing in the whole story premise because the badness of the government is so great, and the nasty man at the head so nasty, it starts to feel like watching a bad cartoon. I think I have a greater dislike for institutional baddies than most other types, perhaps due to reading too much dystopian fiction.

So what is the alternative if I don't want to see such nasty bad people? How to make a story work without a Big Bad for the main character to be set in opposition to?

Well one of my favorite kinds of stories are the kind where the conflict stems from the main character and some antagonist/oppositional force being at cross-purposes to one another. Stories where there is one character with goal A and another character with goal B and the pursuit of goals A or B mean thwarting the achievement of the *other* goal.

These are hard stories to pull off, but often tremendously satisfying. This usually requires for an investment in time on the part of the author to draw the antagonist/oppositional character fully. Often this is done by giving the antagonist the moral opposite characteristics of the main character. Since real people are morally complex and carry many different views about things, done well this can create a nuanced character that can be difficult to pigeonhole into a "bad guy" category.

Tamora Pierce does this to amazing effect with the last in the Beka Cooper series, Mastiff.

Maggie Stiefvater's Raven Boys series includes some weird stuff and several characters at cross-purposes to the main characters' quests (including a caricature or two of the traditional "bad guy," though she takes us into the POV of one in an effective way.) There's even a character in the second book in the series who is semi-antagonist, semi-mentor role, showing one of the principals how to use his magic. It's definitely a more compelling series to read than many others due to this layered complexity to the "bad guy" aspect of the story.

Isaac Asimov used to play with this quite a lot in his books, an example of one I recently read was Currents of Space. In this book, there is a "bad guy" who put the main character into the bad situation he finds himself in, but that character turns out to be a very minor player, instead the primary conflict is driven by information the main character learns gradually (coming out of an amnesiac episode) which is in direct opposition to how the institutional system the main characters live in operates. It's a more satisfying read because of this complexity, I believe.

Have you seen this in movies you've seen or books you've read? What about movies like Night at the Museum, where much of the conflict is driven by the weird magic of that world, although there's a few baddies as played by the old security team. (But even they aren't really "bad guys" but rather trying to achieve their own goals, which are somewhat understandable and sympathetic.)

What other examples can you think of?

The power of a diary

In 6th grade, I had one of those Epic Teachers, you know the kind who just really made a difference in your life? The kind whose smile sticks with you? Who's kind words buoyed you through childhood?

My 6th grade teacher's name was Mrs. Carroll. In my childhood, she was one of the first teachers to really see me, to see what I was capable of. I was a little bit of an oddball in a class of 40 Catholic grade schoolers. I knew so much and could do so much more than I showed in school, and Mrs. Carroll was onto me. But not in the "call on Karen in class and embarrass her in front of everyone" kind of way. Rather she'd quietly talk to me, invite me (and a few others) to stay late and help her clean the classroom (6th grade entertainment options for suburban Catholic schoolchildren were limited...) She took the time to know me. With 40 of us, many teachers simply couldn't. Or many would see I could do more and attempt to get me to show it. In grand fashion. Which never suited little introverted me (who always felt weird, not knowing how normal my preferences for quiet and books were for an introvert.) 

In one of those after-school chats she shared something really interesting. She told us that she had kept her journals and diaries from her teen years. She kept them so that when her kids, who were entering their teens at that time, whined at her, "Moooo-ooom, you just don't understand!" she could pitch them some journals and say, "Yes I do."

For whatever reason, out of all the many things we talked about, this one point has stuck with me through the years. And here I suddenly (time warp) find myself parenting an 11 year old and a 13 year old and ... omg. My diaries. 

I was particularly addicted to My Melody (in the Hello Kitty universe.) 

I was never a perfect diarist, but I did keep journals and diaries on and off from mid-elementary through to today. I have an entire box of them, and a digital file set from my early days parenting. (I may save those until my children are old enough, for ex parents themselves, to understand the context of the difficult days parenting small children... ;) )

Because of this, when I read this article by Heidi Stevens in the Chicago Tribune this week, I was enraptured. An entire BOOK composed of people's adolescent journal entries, along with essays from them today, putting those journal entries into context, adding the lessons learned, the growth that happened after, etc. 

What an amazing thing. I am off to scour the internet for my own copy of My Diary Unlocked: Stories of Teen Girls Heal the Inner Adolescent of Our Soul.

And maybe, just maybe, to hand my 6th/7th grade journal to my daughter who is finishing 6th grade...

From Polished to Published - Karen

There is still a lot of mystery in the writing field about how we writers go from a finished work (when is it finished??!) to something tangible in the world, a piece of writing that others can read, maybe even others beyond just our family and friends who we force into reading our work.

Let's talk about a few aspects of that process.

My self-published novel, Convergence, available online everywhere!

First, the finished work. When is a project finished? This one is funny. As a writer who is constantly evolving, whose interests change over time, and whose skills are (hopefully!) improving over time, looking at a piece of my writing almost always creates in me a desire to change it. I can tweak until the cows come home, quite literally. Seeing as how I don't live on a farm, this could be forever.

So I have to create an arbitrary deadline for myself to get out of the "constantly editing" cycle of doom. Sometimes it's a pledge to submit to a certain market (the Writer's of the Future contest is helpful for it's quarterly deadlines.) Sometimes it's a plan to complete a piece during a specific time interval - e.g., this week when I have few outside commitments. Sometimes the deadline is completely self-imposed by a desire to get a piece self-published. And sometimes other criteria enter the equation such as waiting on critiques or a cover from a cover designer.

Having a deadline of some sort, though, is essential to me getting anything finished. Without a deadline, my projects lie forever in a 3/4 done state. Literally I have 6 novels in that state, I might have a problem.

For me with my current goals, once a piece is finished, I have to decide if I'm going to pursue a traditional publishing route with it, or if I will indie publish it myself. I am still on the fence about this, there are so many moving parts to the publishing world and I continue to hear stories from friends with crap deals coming out of traditional publishing, I tend to teeter over to the indie side more often than not, but I remain open to the possibility of a traditional publishing deal. Best not to burn bridges.

Since I don't have a current traditional publishing deal, though, let's talk about what indie publishing entails. This isn't meant to be an exhaustive list, but rather an overview for those who might be considering this route. I'm sure I'll accidentally omit a few steps (see, even blog posts are never finished!) so please add them in the comments.

1. Finish your piece! See aforementioned need to have an arbitrary deadline as my secret to getting something finished. 
2. Create accounts on the sites that permit self publishing. I have author accounts on amazon.com, bn.com, smashwords.com, and have a need to create ones on kobo.com and apple. To create accounts most require some level of personal information because selling books means income in the US - consider whether you might want a separate business banking account and if you need to get a P.O. box for professional writing correspondence. Now would be a good time to set those things up. 
3. Edit your work with an eye toward final polish. This may mean hiring an editor, or asking several detail-oriented (anal-retentive!) friends to read through with a fine-toothed comb. Reading your work aloud can help you identify last lingering typos, too. While you can upload revised versions of your manuscript later if you find issues, most readers are easily frustrated by simple mistakes particularly early in the book. Don't frustrate your readers, spend time on this step!
4. Choose a cover for your work. There are many great cover designers who create stock covers that are reasonably priced and have quick turnaround. (I recommend The Cover Counts and Mallory Rock. There are also groups of designers like Cover Art Collective.)  If a stock cover isn't for you, get on a cover designer's schedule 4-6 weeks in advance of when you hope to put your book out (popular cover designers may have even longer design schedules, contact them early in your process!) Sometimes a cover may be one of the arbitrary deadlines that helps you move your writing to completion, don't forget this step early in your process. 
5. Format your project for your desired platform. Formatting can seem like an insurmountable task. I recommend a writing program like Scrivener to help simplify the process. Scrivener lets you save your project (compile it) into all the different formats (.mobi for amazon, .epub for everywhere else) that ebook publishers require. The basic process you will need to follow is to compile your project into the proper format, upload it onto your author account on that platform, then preview the work to see if it looks right (all the sites have some sort of viewer for this, or you can load your formatted project onto an e-reader to check yourself.) Other writer friends use In Design, but I find I can do what I need to within Scrivener 99% of the time. 
6. If you are doing a print-on-demand version, work on that formatting via Create Space (I recommend downloading the template for the cut size you plan to print at. I do not have a ton of experience with this yet, so I welcome input for what other tools people use to format POD books.) 
7. Press done! Wait 24-48 hrs for your project to go through final approvals on the publishing sites. Then tell *everyone* about your available work (but don't spam us. Once a day for a few days and then once a week or less after that.) 

Fun with Generators!

One of the best parts about being in a writing community, wherever it is that you may find it (and find it you must, or you'll go stark raving mad as a writer because we're such oddballs! It may take a few tries to find one that suits your particular oddball style, but please persevere, your sanity depends on it.) is that within a writing community people make and share the most AMAZING things.

Today we're going to have fun with one of those things.

First first, I need a visual. In lieu of trying to find an image that actually fits (too hard!) I give you one of Galen Dara's awesome pieces. I met her at World Fantasy Con 2014 and she's fabulous. And I'm left to wonder if she ever did get that awesome tattoo that we discussed...but never mind that, enjoy her beautiful space unicorn art (also the cover of Uncanny Magazine's first issue) and if you really like her work go buy one of Galen Dara's art prints on Etsy!

Second first, the background. I took a short story class with the lovely and talented Mary Robinette Kowal. It was a great experience, conducted via Google+ Hangouts. (Sidenote: I'm not sure what future classes Mary is going to offer, but the Writing Excuses Podcast this year is focused on taking you to school. There's also a cruise with classes taught by Writing Excuses staff!) And not only did I leave the class with some new confidence and knowledge about writing short stories, I also left it with a group of 8 writers I could meet with regularly, all my particular flavor of oddball (what are chances?)

Since then, Mary has taught numerous other classes and created an alumni group from all of her classes. The group numbers over 200 by now! And in that alumni group, I met Kate, a fellow writer who has created a few different generators just for fun.

These generators can be used as a tool for working out details of a story. Or we can just have some fun with them! :)

For instance, using the Character Appearance Generator, I've come up with:

A reliable woman with a cynical outlook on life.

who is:

a little shorter than average
soft, tending to rounded build
overweight
wrinkled medium-brown skin 

She even included personality quirks in her generator. This stuff is pure gold:

Constantly wants help with even the simplest tasks.
Nudist.
Takes practical jokes very poorly.
Thinks up elaborate solutions then discards them for being too easily seen through.
Pathological liar: lies even when he doesn't want to, or doesn't intend to.
At least ten minutes late to any appointment.
Picky sleeper; cannot sleep on the floor, or near-floor level.
Often gets sick from overeating. 

Okay, okay, so I have a character. A little heavy and short. Maybe older. What's her backstory? Have no fear, use the Character Backstory Generator to figure out this char's relationship to the protagonist and more!

Relationship to protag, how do they know each other? through social group; relationship is casual, interactions are sporadic

Well that's great. How about a Belief System? What's common in this world? There's a Belief System Generator as well.

The system is polytheistic. The divine follows a familial model.Origin myth: The world was created when land emerged from the waters, and humans were made from fallen deities. It is heresy to say humans were made from mud, or from the divine.

(The Belief System generator was one of the early ones Kate created and very thorough, fascinating to pull through and see some of the different configurations of beliefs and deities.)

Other generators related to language and country/geo-political factors exist. And Kate adds to this as she finds other things of interest to her and of possible interest to other writers.

See, this is something I've learned from my various writing groups. Not only are other oddball writers great to connect with because it's nice not feeling so oddball all the time, they also are super generous with their time (offering critiques for your work, comments on your questions) and talents (creating these kinds of generators, sharing book recommendations.)

So go have some fun with these generators! Share your results in the comments!

A Sense of Place - Karen

This month we Prosers talking about a sense of place.

One of the more interesting things about traveling, particularly in this day and age, is being able to see and get a sense of places where people live in other parts of the world. Thanks to the magic of airbnb and trip advisor and the like, my family has stayed in a thatched-roof miller’s cottage on the banks of a river in Ireland, an old coachhouse/waystation in North Wales, a roomy flat in the center of Paris, and this summer we’ll stay in an apartment on the east coast of Scotland.

Each of these places gives to me, the writer, a chance to consider the small details of daily life somewhere completely other than my home. This works even though I don’t tend to write fantasy or even anything I can set in Ireland or Paris (perhaps I need to find a way to do that!) Most of my novels are set in space, in or on spaceships or space stations or on other planets entirely. Really, in seeing how others live I’m trying to integrate into my own subconscious the small details that might be different and noticeable. Because the small details that are different and noticeable to me in Paris might be similar to small details a character would notice are different in her new apartment on a space station in geosynchronous orbit around Earth or Jupiter. Might be the same as how a person living on a moon base has to adjust how she cooks because the utensils are different.

In Ireland, our first international trip in a decade, having stayed US-bound when the children were young, I woke up first in my family, desperately in need of coffee. We were in the miller’s cottage right on the banks of the King River just south of Kilkenny City in a small town. A two-pub town. We love how Ireland measures town size by # of pubs. A two-pub town was so small there was only one tiny convenience store and nowhere to buy pre-brewed coffee. That’s right, not a Starbucks in sight, thank heavens.

The cottage was picture-perfect adorable, completely with wood burning fireplace and resident kitty, Felicity, who jumped into our window the first night and promptly curled up at the foot of the bed my daughter was sleeping in.

But that next morning while the rest of the family slept off jetlag, I was up and coffee was a moral imperative. There were coffee grounds and mugs, a jar of sugar, the works, but the only way to make the coffee was a contraption I knew in theory was a French press, but had zero – absolutely zero – idea of how to operate.

I wandered around the small kitchen looking for other clues to its use. There was an electric teakettle. A measuring scoop in the coffee bin. Nothing else coffee-related that I could see.

Remembering that one of the reasons we booked this particular quaint little cottage was it’s internet connection, I googled French press coffee and sat in a 200 year old cottage and watched a video of an Italian guy making coffee.

From that moment on, I became a French Press convert. And I’ll never forget that moment of panic, my need for coffee significant and my ability to turn the grounds in front of me into actual coffee limited by my lack of knowledge of how to use a kitchen implement that was clearly everyday to the people who lived here, but foreign to me.

The best part was, everywhere we went after that we saw and used French presses to make our coffee. We were served French press coffee in restaurants, found French presses of all sizes in other flats we rented. This has only continued as we traveled to England, Wales, and France itself. Kind of hilarious when you think about it, to a European, it was the most basic way to make coffee, but in my Keurig-filled suburban life, I just hadn’t encountered one before.

I can assure you I’ve become a complete French press convert, in case you were worried. All my coffee at home is made via French press. I pick out grounds with a care previously exercised for only the finest wines and fresh produce. I have several French press pots, each working slightly differently and each appropriate for a different kind of coffee.

There are other things we’ve learned in traveling to other places. Like how washcloths just aren’t a part of every household’s linen supply. The whole duvet thing in Europe (which, for the record, I love.) The idea of a toilet being in a whole different room from the rest of the “washing up” elements we consider typical of a bathroom. In one flat, the toilet wasn’t just separate from the shower, it was on a completely different floor! We have a growing collection of street and informational signs that are meant to convey things like how to avoid poking your eye out or plummeting to your death. But my lesson about the most basic of morning rituals has stuck with me.

Karen's Secret Weapons

We're writing in February about Secret Weapons in writing. Shh. They're Seeeeeecrit. Actually, not really. Here's some of my fellow Prosers' posts about their secret weapons in writing:

• Nina's
• Melanie's
• Sheena's
• Sabrina's

(yes, in case you were wondering, Melanie and I do have a complex about the fact that our names don't end in an "a.")

I have to admit, I'm suffering from Where-I-Am-Right-Now tunnel vision, something that often afflicts writers, I think. I also suffer from it in reading, wherein the *last book I read* is my favorite book and the one I recommend to everyone. Unless we're talking Code Name Verity, in which case I might strap you down and use a Clockwork Orange-style device to keep your eyeballs on the page. Theoretically. Because it's that good.

But ANYWAY - where I am right now as a writer is knee-deep in revisions on my novel, ABNORMALS, which I haven't written the blurb for but is basically about teens with superpowers.

I have a few things I do to make revisions easier, since I really truly hate editing with a burning fiery passion. I thought I'd share them as secret weapons, because they're part of how I motivate myself to do the editing.

First, I edit on dead-tree paper. I do! I'm a tree-hugger environmentalist most of the time, but for my primary editing runs on novels I print the buggers out.

Next, I put the dead-tree paper into a binder. Cool binders are helpful, as I look nifty carrying around this read faux leather number, don't you think? (Sidenote: Office Depot or Max, I don't remember which, and it was only about $7-8! And reusable for the next novel!)

Third, LOTS of red pens. Lotsa. That's a word my kids invented when they were small, and we still use it even though they've long since learned proper diction. It conveys *so much.* How many M&Ms do you want? Lotsa. How many kids were on the bus? Lotsa. How many times should we ride the Harry Potter ride at Universal? Lotsa. See? Very useful word. I use lotsa red pens because it enables me to get the feel I want. One funny thing about working in paper is I can be fussy about the pen, the paper, etc. in a way you just can't be with typing. It's a great way to waste more time! And money if you're as addicted to office-supply shops as I am.

Speaking of paper - I really like grid paper or graph paper. I'm a visual-spatial person (do you know about visual-spatial learners? If not please go check out Linda Silverman's site and see her info about us weird folk) and found long ago that grid paper helps me orient myself on the right/left (east/west) axis of my page the way horizontal lines orient you on the top/bottom (north/south.) I feel better when I write on grid paper, so I have sought out good grid paper for years. This pad happens to be a Levenger (note, price is for a pack of 5. Still ridiculously expensive. I think I received these as a gift…) brand pad, they definitely make the best paper out there but it's the spendiest.

And so, there it is, my super secret writing weapons, a bunch of analog world items that help me survive the editing phase. To be honest, I do the same thing with planning/outlining (dead-tree planning) but without the red colored pens, I use black or blue or ticonderoga #2 pencils (black barrel/eraser preferred. I'm very fussy!) and some really nice paper or a new notebook. I love the smell of a new notebook, and the fresh feeling of possibility I get when opening a new one. Ah, if only that would actually write the words, eh?

What are your favorite meat-world writing tools?

On Editing and Seeing Other Authors

I'm editing this week. Hopefully. I've at least taken several productive steps toward editing. I've printed the novel I'd like to edit (my YA Superhero book ABNORMALS.) I've put it in a snappy red binder. I've begun carting the binder from room to room. It's all part of my editing dance where I do things other than editing in the hopes of gearing myself up TO edit. I hate editing.

My cat likes to "help" me edit. She knows I hate it. Good kitty. 

In the meantime, I had a neat opportunity this week to meet Brandon Mull, author of the Fablehaven series and several others. He spoke at my children's school for an author event sponsored by our awesome local independent bookshop, Anderson's.

As I watched Mull give a great presentation to schoolchildren and pondered my own lack of gumption (Mull's first book came out in 2006, which is one year before the year I started writing. He's since had 14 books published and has contracts for at least 6 more. Le sigh.) -- I also got thinking about whether other writers know about this great thing about seeing authors speak/give presentations. It's a fascinating way to connect with other writers, though most authors at a signing are a little busy/preoccupied they usually have time to share a favorite writing website or podcast or answer questions from the audience about getting started or how they work on revisions or what have you.

It's also a great look into the kind of people that make up the writing world (the conference I attended last fall was another really interesting look into that world!) And while it can occasionally fill me with regret (fourteen books, eh? In one more than the sum total of years I've been writing? I mean…to be fair I've written 9 books in that time. But alas, I'm still over here on the unpublished side. And that's partly because I hate editing so much--most of these books I've written are waiting for a little more attention, need me to write the ending, or otherwise require edits before they can be seen by anyone.)

One of the fun bits at the signing was seeing my son set up the a/v equipment!

But to give you a little taste, here are some of the things Brandon Mull talked about in this school presentation (side note: if you write YA/Middle Grade, it's ideal if you can find a way to see an author give a school presentation, as these are generally a little different than the presentations they give to the general public at a signing at a bookstore.)

• Told silly stories about his family (here's my dog Buffy the Vampire Slayer. Here's my dog Buffy running with my daughter. Here's my dog devouring my son. Just kidding!) 
• Talked about the importance of imagination
• Told his most embarrassing story from childhood. It involved falling down stairs and using a leap to try to cover it up and making it much, much worse. 
• Invited some students up to make up an imaginative world where it rains basketballs and giant pancake creatures roam.
• Emphasized the importance of imagination again
• Played a book trailer for his new series, Five Kingdoms
• Played a silly video from the author he was co-presenting with that evening at Anderson's Bookshop
• Answered questions from the student audience (I noticed how he would answer questions in a reasonably brief fashion, keeping the presentation moving.)

To me, this is what writing books for kids is all about. During the presentation the kids were all attentive. (Mull had a great ability to keep their interest with a combination of interesting stuff, silly business, and audience participation.) They were excited to hear from the author. They loved the imagination stuff, kids are so imaginative naturally, hearing an adult encourage and support that side of them was very empowering for the kids, I think (including the kids' own silly business. The raining basketballs? Genius idea that the child might not have felt comfortable sharing with others if not for the context of the author visit.) When the presentation was finished, those kids who bought books were so excited to get the chance to have their books personalized. One fourth-grade girl enthused (upon seeing the set of Fablehaven books her mom had ordered) "I won't have to go to the library for a LONG TIME!"

Our school librarian selected this Occulus as a gift for Brandon Mull, which he gushed about (it's plot-essential in one of his books. You can see all, but your sanity may be impacted when you use the Occulus!)

So what's my point? Even if you can't manage to finagle an invitation to an author visit in a school, you should go see other authors at readings and signings whenever you can. Ideally you'll be doing the signings some day, right? Plus it's a great way to get an extra jolt to your own writing goals. I feel much more excited about that big red binder on my desk now. Maybe I'll be the next Brandon Mull, right? You just never know…

Karen's Writing Goals: 2015 version

For whatever reason, I'm dreading this post. I'm having trouble staying motivated as a writer. It's been a hard slog the last few years and writing down what I want to do is sometimes demoralizing, if I compare it to the list of things I wanted to do last year and realize it's 50% the same, for example.

But I've also made a pretty good run of doing New Year's Resolutions related to writing (it was a NY Resolution that initially got me into writing, in 2007.) So time for a new batch. What's on your list of things to do for 2015? Any places where we can overlap or share resources?

Photo credit: Flikr user: Dafne Cholet
https://www.flickr.com/photos/dafnecholet/

Straight out writing goals:

• Finish Jak the AI killer short story, send to F&SF via CC Findlay's e-submissions
• Finish Guide Me Through the Deep Space Night, 2014's nano project and the sequel to a prior Nano project, A Star to Lead Me (which is actually complete!) These books are very fun space-set SF and in Guide Me I've introduced aliens for the first time (even though I write a lot of SF, I have avoided aliens because so much of their treatment in SF is cliche. Let's hope I can avoid the traps.) 
• Finish False Magic (another unfinished Nano project.) This is my only fantasy novel and has a really interesting magic system and I'm very excited about it. At World Fantasy Con 2014 I had a conversation with a researcher/lecturer in warfare and I got several ideas for how to manage the final conflict in this one. The book is 90% done, I stopped right before the final conflict. My thinking at the time was something like, "Oh, I know what will happen now. Plus this is such an exciting spot. No WAY I won't get right back to this project." Um. er. (this was my 2012 Nano project, I believe…) 
• Finish Abnormals. What, another Nano project that isn't quite complete? How *strange*! This is my superhero story from 2013. A writer/artist friend has a great piece of art that I was planning to license to use as a cover, so the motivation here would be to finish this book and then publish it myself. 
• One more pass on Adrift. This is the only novel I wrote at a time OTHER than National Novel Writing Month aka Nano. I wrote it one summer a couple of years ago. It's a middle grade SF novel and takes place in the same "universe" as my other space-set SF novels (Convergence, A Star to Lead Me, Guide Me, etc.) It's a cute story, it's finished but I keep going back to it because I know it could be stronger than it is. I have shopped this around traditional publishing and received some encouraging rejects, but rejects all the same. I'm not sure what I hope to achieve with another pass on this, but I'm midway through it so I might as well complete the pass. Afterwards I need to decide if I want to try submitting it again or if I should just publish it myself. My awesome cover designer has a cover about 80% of the way finished for it that I *adore.* 

Whew. I'm exhausted already. ;) Each of these projects alone isn't a huge amount of work. They need 5,000-10,000 new words, but I will have to re-read the books to get to where I'm ready to write the new words. While I'm re-reading I might as well do my first pass mark-up edit (I edit on paper, so this is an amusing phase where I carry a binder around with me everywhere for a month or two, mostly not reading the novel but just carrying it with me like a boat anchor. The ways we torture ourselves as writers are many and sundry.) 

In addition to all those goals, which I'm having difficulty sorting into an appropriate order of which comes first, I also need/want to be doing more to sharpen my writing and keep myself in a creative mindset. 

To that end, some "sharpen the saw" (if you don't know about Steven Covey's 7 Habits stuff, go check it out at the link. Hugely supportive and positive life coachy stuff from way before there were people whose job titles were Life Coach.) goals and activities for 2015:

• Maintain my involvement in my online writing group. Get back into the saddle w/my in person writing group (I've missed our meetings for several months due to incredibly bad overlaps in schedule. February I should be able to get back into these twice monthly meetings.)
• At least one writing-related thing each day. Options include:
• New words
• New story ideas (sketched out roughly)
• Reading about writing (I have several very good books about writing that I should be reading and am not…like for instance:)
• Wonderbook by Jeff VanderMeer
• Shadows Beneath by the Writing Excuses crew
• Listening to podcasts about writing
• Watching videos of writing (particularly the Write About Dragons stuff of Sanderson's. He seems to have outlining down to a science and that's my kryptonite, so I'd like to get through more of this material and see what I can pull into my own process.) 
• Journaling, with some eye toward documenting progress on writing goals or other meta-writing
• Another writing class, probably a virtual class. I don't anticipate traveling for writing workshops or conferences this year but that may change as the second half of the year takes shape. I'm most strongly considering a Dave Farland class, but there are many others. If I were to go to an in-person workshop, I'd probably consider the Superstars Writing Seminars first. The Writing Excuses cruise sounds great, but I can't take that much time away from my family. 

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In lieu of my regularly scheduled post, I bring you …

How to wrap a cat.

This cat wins the award for the most patient cat ever. Hilarious!

I hope you had a happy holiday whatever one or ones you celebrate. I hope they involved lots of wrapped cats. xoxo Here's to a happy and productive 2015!

Holiday Book Recommendations

Looking for a book to pick up this holiday season? Shopping for a young adult/middle grade reader on your list? I've got some recommendations that are both on my to-read and have-read piles.

First, of course there's this great up and coming author of YA and MG Science Fiction that you should TOTALLY read. Her space-set book CONVERGENCE is really fascinating, a great read for kids (ages 10 and up or so.)

(buying link here - available in paperback and ebook. This is my SF novel, just in case you hadn't caught on yet.)

How about a little steampunk train fantasy which feels just a wee bit science fictiony? My kids and I really enjoyed The Mark of the Dragonfly by Jaleigh Johnson this spring, and it's worth a look for readers of all types.

How about military SF cyberpunky stuff for teen readers? Very appealing to boys? The series that starts with the book INSIGNIA, by SJ Kincaid, is excellent. Another bonus, the series is complete, which means you don't have the long wait for another book in the series. YES, I'm looking at you, STEELHEART! (Steelheart is a great book for teen readers featuring a future Chicago with superheroes, only the superheroes are the bad guys. Excellent story, but the second book is only JUST coming out in January. Firefight's publication date is listed as Jan 5. We've waited so long!)

What else is out there? In fantasy, we adore the Magic Thief series by Sarah Prineas, and this fall a fourth book in the series came out, called Magic Thief Home. This one is great for younger readers, too. My kids began reading this series around 2nd grade. There are a few dark bits but not too much, and the books tend to end on a hopeful or upbeat note.

In older kid fiction, I'm really enjoying Blue Lily, Lily Blue, which is the final book in the Raven Boys series by Maggie Stiefvater. I recommend it to (older) teen readers and adult readers alike. It's a complex story of magic set in the modern day. I think what I like the most about this series is the complicated relationships the author sets up between the characters. Here in the third (last) book, I find myself just *understanding* the relationships between characters so deeply that their reactions to situations make sense even at the beginning of the book. I love an author who can characterize so deeply. There's also such a dreamy quality to the way the author describes the area, she clearly both knows and loves the environment she set this book in. Due to some strong themes of drug/alcohol use and abuse in the second book in particular, I don't recommend this younger than teenagers.

I'm just finished with a long bout of audiobook listening (a listening jag? Does that even work) of the Lois McMaster Bujold Vorkosigan series. It was an absolutely stunning ride, I'm still smiling. I love these books and as a friend suggested, I'm going to make my wishes known to my family that if ever I'm in a coma and they don't know if I'll recover, I want them to play these audiobooks in case I can hear. You, dear Prosers Readers, are responsible for reinforcing that wish if it ever comes up. I recommend starting with Shards of Honor. I really enjoyed this in audiobook, loved the narrator, but it would work in print as well. It's an older teen and up book, though, not for kids.

No matter what direction you read in this holiday season, I hope you read, read often, read lots, and share books with those you love. I've become "that crazy aunt who gifts books" and…I like it. (Gave my nephew a signed copy of The Mark of the Dragonfly, from above, for the holidays!) Enjoy!