BEWARE: blaspheming ahead.
Here are my favorite things for this week:
Be careful with that touching, guys. And do your hair like these ladies–He’ll like you even more.
Both images swiped from here.
Now for my new motto:
Go, friends, go! Do epic shit! And *you* decide the definition of “epic”. You don’t have to save the world. Just spend an hour with your grandma. GO!
This guy is an environmentalist named John Francis. In 1971, he witnessed an oil spill in the San Francisco bay, and he swore off motorized transportation for 22 years. But–more amazing to me–in 1973, he decided to be silent. FOR 17 YEARS, with the exception of 1 phone call to his mom after 10 years. No writing, even. He taught himself Indian Sign Language, then realized nobody spoke it, then just used gestures and touch and pantomime. 17 YEARS, FRIENDS. I couldn’t do it for 17 days , even though I desperately want to right now. But teachers/writers don’t get very far without communicating. And–get this–the guy completed 3 college degrees (including a Ph.D.), all in silence.
John Francis matters to me right now because of two things: 1) I need a conflict for my next novel, and I can see a teenage boy refusing to speak for long periods of time; and 2) he was a black man who carried a banjo (see above), and this intrigues me. Of all things–a banjo. Francis said that if he *didn’t* carry his banjo, then he was a tall threatening black man. If he *did* carry his banjo and play it, then he was a friendly guy with a banjo, not a tall threatening black man. I admire his ability to hide and/or change stereotypes with a goofy instrument, though it sucks he had to think that way in the first place.
John Francis claims he set out to show one person can make a difference. His Planetwalker organization continues to work for environmental change and goodness, which is fantastic, plus he made a difference to me–he gave me a conflict for my character (at least an initial one, though we know how revision changes things, grr). I’m going to study this dude some more.
Tell me, friends: could *you* be silent for 17 years?
I love how life contributes to art. Or not.
At the moment, I’m trying to write some big emotions for a couple characters, and I’m not quite getting there. Things are still flat. So what does Life decide to do? Hand me situations that I can translate to the page. Grrr . . . I’ve gotten brained with the sad stick and pounded with the angry stick about sixty times this week (thank you, birth family! thank you, publishing industry!), but hey, it’s great for my WIP, right? Grrr. But now I get the sadness that drags Callie down, and the anger that eats up Ray’s insides. Still–dang–I’m tired!
Luckily, life also whacks you with the happy stick, and those beatings contribute to the goofy, silly things my characters do. So, some things that have made me happy this week:
Image swiped from here, and the guy with the website is the guy with the funny sign. LOVE. IT. And yay for same-sex marriage in California!
Also this:
I was in the mood to strafe the world, and I let them do it for me. Perfect. Plus it’s a decent action film with a relatively coherent script.
Back to your regularly scheduled emotions. Whew.
BACKSTORY: I’ve been looking for a way to feature writers/writerly peeps on my blog, because part of blogging is returning the blog love. So–Outlaw Boots. Now I’m sure you’re asking, because you are discerning blog friends: what the hell? What are Outlaw Boots?
BEHIND THE BACKSTORY: I love writing YA because of outsiders–almost every protagonist believes s/he’s an outsider, in whatever way. That I-don’t-belong sensibility is near and dear to my heart, partly because I’ve felt that way as long as I’ve been able to think about myself.
Then, at some point, “outsider” got translated to “outlaw.” This correlation isn’t exact–some outsiders aren’t traditional outlaws, but there are still take-charge, let-me-mess-with-you elements to outsiders, too. I see outsiders as the key element of the basic YA “formula”: outsider/outlaw makes crazy stuff happen, and hilarity may or may not ensue, then we discover all the vulnerability *underneath* the outsider/outlaw posturing, and oh man, perfect setup for a story. I love my genre!
OK, so, with that loooong introduction, I give you the first set of Outlaw Boots, worn by Courtney Summers. Courtney is the author of CRACKED UP TO BE, SOME GIRLS ARE, and FALL FOR ANYTHING (out in December), all from St. Martin’s Press.
Edited to add: I didn’t even tell you what her books are about! Basically: high school girls behaving badly, mostly to each other. For example, from the CRACKED UP TO BE blurb: “Perfect Parker Fadley isn’t so perfect anymore.” Hmmm . . . interesting! Or, from the blurb of SOME GIRLS ARE, “Climbing to the top of the social ladder is hard–falling from it is even harder.” Provocative! All you need to know: read them.
Full disclosure: Courtney is an agent sibling. But even if she wasn’t, I would still love her, because 1) she’s sparkly, but not in a vampire-y way; 2) she’s funny, smart, and talented; 3) she’s Canadian, which seems rather outlaw and outsider to begin with; and 4) I loved loved loved CRACKED UP TO BE.
There are questions (dun dun dunnnn!) for those who wear Outlaw Boots, and these are Courtney’s answers:
Who’s your most outlaw character (in any book)–why?
Definitely Parker, because of her determination to go against the grain.
Are you an outlaw too? How do you know?
Maybe! I refuse to compromise a lot. I don’t know if that makes me an outlaw so much as a jerk, though.
What kind of shoes does your outlaw wear (you or your character–maybe outlaw boots?)?
A kick-ass pair of flowery slippers.
Pirate, ninja, nerd, other outlaw title for you/your character:
I always go with ninja. Because Ninjas are cool.
Best thing about being an outlaw:
Not answering to anybody.
Favorite outlaw food:
Zucchini fries! Wait. That’s food that should be outlawed. 😉
Favorite outlaw role model/why:
Pierre Trudeau! He was a bit of an outlaw as far as Canadian PMs go. He didn’t take no guff!
Image of kick-ass flowery slippers stolen from here. Courtney also moonlights as Pele, the volcano goddess, because she hearts volcanoes. When she is not sparkly, she looks like this:
Thank you, Courtney, for wearing the first pair of Outlaw Boots!
Confession: I am not good at maintenance.
This confession applies to many things. For example, I don’t scrub out the fridge except in the summer. I just did it today, which is why I’m thinking about maintenance. I cleaned my oven two years ago ONLY because I won cook-for-me chefs in a charity auction. Laundry is OK, but dusting is horrible. I get pissed when I have to shave my legs (TMI, but it falls under this category) and color my hair. I don’t vacuum my car. I also don’t do so hot at publicity, which is really maintenance of one’s writing career.
Maintenance ALSO implies that you own it/you bought it/you’re responsible for it. Oh come on, can’t I be irresponsible? For a supporting argument,please see this post. Clean ALL the things???
Damn.
Some of my maintenance crabbiness is really just laziness. Some is skepticism (who sees the inside of a fridge?) and some is futility (I’ll just have to get highlights AGAIN?? WOE IS ME!) Some is self-preservation (dear child, can you fix your own lunch SO I CAN WRITE AND GET THESE PEOPLE OUT OF MY HEAD???).
On the upside, usually I am good at maintaining relationships. I write, I call, I e-mail, I FB (I don’t Twitter much). I kiss my kid and husband good night every night, and I pay attention to them (except at lunch). I call my mom. All that other stuff is just that–STUFF. Step off, stuff.
I realize it does matter–people accept me better if I shave my legs. People will see me if I blog/Twitter/have a web presence (my publicist will like me better).
But please, oh please . . . don’t make me maintain anything else today. The fridge was enough.
(Full disclosure: my lack of desire to maintain stuff frustrates the shit out of my husband. He is good at maintenance, and is an ace at housework.)
Do you know the play FENCES? I teach it in my Intro to Lit class, and it just closed on Broadway (three Tonys, including one for Denzel). Awesome play. An African-American play, but a universal play. The main character, Troy, never gets his fence finished. He needs to protect his heart, his family, his territory–but what is he also keeping out?
I am thinking about this because we just finished discussing FENCES, but also because I read this fantastic blog post and its comments, all about inclusion and exclusion in children’s literature, and it directly relates to books 1 through 3 of my repertoire. So directly I blushed.
So here’s a request: what about gates in the fences? Or maybe a big ol’ pasture with little fenced-off spaces inside it? Places to mix and mingle, but still with some protection for those who feel the need? I’m not discounting the need, either–I have no idea what it means to have to protect yourself to survive, and I have no right to refute that feeling. But man, I’m here, outside your fence, trying to say hello because I like you and want to get to know you. Yes, I know. Privilege. I don’t have to have a fence. But I mean it: I like you and I want to get to know you. You can give me the finger, and you have every right. But I really don’t want to walk away.
Thanks to Malinda Lo for showing me Arthur Levine’s blog (he’s the man who brought Harry Potter to America, I could kiss your shoes, dude).
I am so lame–Pride Month is over today! Happy Pride! I love Pride Month–I always want to take my homophobic students to a parade and say “Look. Not all gay men wear buttless chaps. They’re regular people, just like you.”
I am the advisor for SCC PRIDE, a safe-zone group at my school. I love it, but I realize it’s not ideal, because I am an ally. Problem is, I don’t think any of the people in the LBGT spectrum who work there feel safe enough (work-wise, not violence-wise, I hope) to be the advisor. How’s that for shitty? So I do it, and I’m honored to do it.
However, one student called me out. She said it wasn’t my fight, since I don’t know what she goes through every day. Fair enough–no I don’t. Some folks don’t trust allies for that reason. Understandable. But it’s still my fight, because of all my family and friends who don’t have the same rights I do. Civil rights fights are everyone’s fight. Plus I fell desperately in love with Harvey Milk when I saw the documentary THE TIMES OF HARVEY MILK when I was an undergrad. MILK is phenomenal, too, but that documentary–holy shit. The candlelight march (which is in the Sean Penn film)? It still reduces me to tears.
It’s also my fight because I wanted to say, to the real Tessa who inspired SKY, that it would have been OK. Had she come out to me when we were in high school, I would have still been her friend. She knows that now, in real life. But I think she liked that it happened in a book, too. And it makes me happy that she likes it.
Graphic stolen from WIPEOUT HOMOPHOBIA ON FACEBOOK (which isn’t letting me link), a phenomenal page, except it should be “Wipe Out,” not “Wipeout,” like the surfing song. English teacher = always a possible grammar lesson. Sorry. :
In our house, we like Rick Riordan. My husband and son devoured the PERCY JACKSON series this winter, and I finally finished it late this spring. When we saw his latest series, THE RED PYRAMID, we were all over it–woo hoo!
Last week it was finally my turn with the new book. By page 7 I know this brother and sister do not look alike. Carter takes after his dad, who is African-American, and Sadie takes after her mother, who was white. Here’s Riordan’s description of Julius, their dad: “He has dark brown skin like mine, piercing brown eyes, a bald head, and a goatee, so he looks like a buff evil scientist” (3). Carter also dresses like his dad (business-like but stylish, always dress clothes). Sadie, on the other hand, looks like this: “. . . she takes after our mom, who was white, so Sadie’s skin is much lighter than mine. She has straight caramel-colored hair, not exactly blond but not brown, which she usually dyes with streaks of bright colors . . . [and] her eyes are blue. I’m serious. BLUE eyes, just like our mom’s” (7).
Why is this important? You’ll see.
I’m reading away, lost in the adventures, and we get to page 373, where Carter is practicing with his sword on a back-porch thingy on his RV. People are looking at him, because he’s on the interstate and traveling very fast, so he makes this comment: “Once in a while we’d pass a rancher’s truck or a family SUV, and the driver would get wide-eyed when he saw me: a black kid swinging a sword around on the back of an RV. I’d just smile and wave . . . .”
Wha?
By this point, I’d totally forgotten Carter was black, so the sentence snapped me back to reality. And I was embarrassed, because I’d forgotten that fact. Then I had to ponder WHY I’d forgotten it. I came up with a few reasons:
**it didn’t matter to the story
**I didn’t think fourteen-year-old black guys should be dressed in dress clothes while going on adventures and playing with swords on the back of RVs
**another reason I’m unaware of
I have no idea which of those reasons is the predominant answer. Maybe all of them, maybe none of them. In my head, when I was imagining Carter and his sword, I saw a kid that sort of looked like Harry Potter. Got a little cultural bias there, Kirstin?
In some ways, I go with reason #1, because Riordan doesn’t make it significant that the kids are biracial (or I missed it, which is possible, because I was so absorbed and reading fast). The cover gives no real clues, either. If you look at the book’s cover, the kids are turned away from the reader, plus the cover colors are not realistic–it’s mostly golds and browns (though their hair is different from each other’s). Still, Riordan *told* me the kids were biracial. My brain just chose to impose whiteness on them–at least on Carter, anyway.
Does this make me bad? Probably not. Does this make me a product of my white Midwestern culture? Yes. I asked Shae if he knew what color Carter Kane was, and he said no, he didn’t notice. When I told him Carter had dark skin and Sadie had light skin, his eyes got wide. His comment: “I saw him as no color,” which means white, but it also means he just took him in, and his skin color didn’t matter to what Carter was doing. That’s all right.
One last question: how would those kids appear to readers of color? Would they switch them out as white? I bet not.
This is something to think about.
I’m waiting right now. If you’re a writer, you’d better know how to wait. It’s not a good word.
I’m waiting for people to say yes. I’m waiting for people to say no.
I’m waiting for inspiration to strike.
I’m waiting for trepidation to recede.
I’m waiting for confusion to clear up (ha ha–never!).
The other verbs that go with waiting are goofing off, surfing, thinking and avoiding.
I’m goofing off in every possible way by doing *other* kinds of work, which is BAD.
I’m surfing the interwebz for new author promotion strategies.
I’m thinking of all the ways I can strengthen my characters.
I’m avoiding the tough stuff–should I *really* be a writer? Should I quit my job, pierce my lip, dye my hair teal, and take up photography? Should I buy a pair of purple Chucks? Should I run away to Australia? All of these things are valid questions, except the last one. I couldn’t run away because then my kid wouldn’t take his vitamins, and then he’d die of scurvy and rickets and other horrible diseases, which would not be OK.
Despite all this roiling about, underneath it all, there’s always waiting.
(Do people even know what “four-letter words” are anymore? Like p*ss and sh*t and f*ck? Maybe the four-letter word concept is old and tired, but I still think wait is one of them.)
The pug is for you, Amy Tipton, and the sign is from here.
One of my students (a high-school guy) said that to me: “Nobody ever gets shot on the Hallmark Channel.” Exactly! It’s not their audience. Knowing your audience is a key part in selling things, including writing. Granted, I don’t know about the Hallmark Channel–I’m not their audience, except for being a woman. Maybe people really do get shot there, but I’m sure, if it happens, it’s only bad guys or for a good reason, and there is forgiveness all around.
Henceforth, two wildly different examples of knowing your audience:
Example #1: It’s a Chamber of Commerce buffalo, isn’t it? Actually, it’s a random buffalo I found in Custer State Park outside of Custer, SD, but he looks like he was planted there to sell the place, down to that raised right front foot. He needs a coffee can next to him that says “tips”, or the state of South Dakota should have him on retainer for standing around like that. He read his audience (people who drive around looking for SD wildlife) quite well.
Example #2: Hyperbole and a Half. I have no idea why I like this blog, except for the fact that her screechy insanity appeals to me more than almost anything I read these days. I think her audience is people who *want* to be crazy-ass weirdos who scrawl funny drawings about stupid stuff heaped with sarcasm and wild amusement *but have no guts to do it*. Like me. I hope Allie Brosh won’t come after me for swiping her drawing, hopefully not since I only said good things.
On a related note, I did see fish at Shedd Aquarium in Chicago that posed for cameras–swam right up to the glass and showed people their best sides and smiled in a fishy way. I was floored. So maybe this buffalo posed too, I don’t know. But I’d guess not. I always figure a buffalo could give a fsck about a camera, because he’s huge, powerful and able to trash a car in three seconds. He knows he’s better that you, tip jar or not.