Sharon Lee, Writer

Archive for the ‘Blog’ Category

The trees of Maine have initiated their annual assassination proceedings.  The good news is, if I manage to outlast them, as I have for the last twenty-three seasons, I’m safe from their nefarious attentions for another year.

Catching up yesterday, for those who don’t do Facebook:  Steve and I arose at an Unreasonably Early Hour, went to the lab and saw the echocardiogram done.  The promise from the tech was that the doctor would read the results that day, and if there was any problem, would call us immediately.  Otherwise, we should get the results in two to three days.  (Jumping ahead — there was no immediate call from the doctor, so — yay.)

That chore out of the way, we retired to Eric’s for breakfast, thence to the post office, where a royalty check for slightly less than the cost of breakfast awaited (my last such check from Fictionwise), and finally to the grocery store.  Arriving home, I found the galleys for the Ghost Ship mass market paperback my inbox, with a turnaround time of before we leave for Kansas City next week, so that’s what I’ve been putzing along at , with frequent breaks for naps.

In my spare time, I’ve been reading The Prestige by Christopher Priest.  I can’t recall the last time the structure of a novel has annoyed me so much.  Happily, Mr. Priest writes a clean hand, so I don’t doubt I’ll finish reading, but I suspect that this may be one of those very rare cases where I prefer the movie to the novel.

Tomorrow, we again arise before dawn, this time to take Socks to the vet for his post-dental-work check-up and, hopefully, his rabies shot. We’ll return to the Metropolis later in the day to get haircuts, which,  in my case at least, is about three weeks overdue.  Got a definite hedgehog look going…

In between those two necessary events, I’ll be right here, reading galleys.

It’s really rocky and there are several leaps, but that’s all fixable, now that the story’s out on paper where I can see it.

Progress on “Emancipated Child”
5,296/6000 DRAFT!

So, one doctor visit, numerous phone calls, and two reviews later! The insurance will graciously allow Steve to have a diagnostic echocardiogram. Damned big of the insurance company, says I, and we’re having that done tomorrow morning early, before the mail can deliver yet another form letter, this one saying that they’ve changed their mind.

In other news, it’s damp and chilly; the zombies in charge of the Maine state government are set to pass a budget that will defund Headstart, slash MediCare funding, and gut prescription drug assistance for the elderly. The zombies will of course be making massive donations from their own bank accounts to those private sector organizations that already serve these communities, so that those in need of education and health care will not unduly suffer.

*cue laugh track*

In the broader apocalypse, Yet Another Idiot Republican is sponsoring Yet Another Idiot Idea — this one an amendment to the United State’s Census Bureau’s budget, forbidding the agency from conducting the American Community Survey, calling it “an unconstitutional breach of privacy.” A link to the data generated by this same survey can be found on YAIR’s website, because the data generated by the American Community Survey is an important tool for businesses that are trying to determine if a particular community is a good match for their business.

The stupid — the meanness — it is too much, and I am weary.

*Deep breath*

*Another deep breath*

Pursuant to our conversation of a couple days ago, it turns out that what people read really does influence them in real life. Who knew, right? Here’s the article.

Also, Teh Intertubes, which has fostered in us all a fevered need for instant gratification, is forcing some writers to write more in order to maintain their standard of living. Here’s the article. I’m not sure exactly where the one novel a year measure comes from, myself. It was said to me when I first started publishing, ‘way back in the Paleolithic, that “one novel a year was a career, but three novels a year was a living.”

And, ending on a high note, here, the Maine Marriage Equality movement got a nice boost in funding.

That’s all I have, so I’m going to go brood, now.

No, wait — I’m not.

I’m going to go finish writing a short story.

It was my stated intention today to complete “Emancipated Child,” an Archers Beach short story, in first draft. I would have had to write at least 6,000 words to have accomplished that; I only wrote slightly in excess of 2,000, and there you have it.

Contributing to the Unconscionable Delay of Progress was that I had to do research. Yes, I’m writing fiction, but I’m writing fiction set in an only slightly alternative iteration of several places that exist in real-time geography. It strikes me that I need to spend a good long day or two at the History House at Old Orchard — something to put on the list of must-dos for September. First, there was — and remains — the wretched business of the Vanished Avenue; now there’s this other thing — when did Old Orchard Beach, a created town in its own right*, gobble up Surfside?

And! For eight hundred dollars and the car! Why can’t I find any real history of Surfside on Teh Intertubes?

So, anyhow, establishing boundaries for half-imaginary towns, not to mention deciding important things like the size of its population “now” kinda chewed into the writing time.

Other than that, the project’s going well. The story flipped about three sentences in, taking a sharp left turn from the outline, gaining speed the further away it got. Typical, really.

Left turn or not, the story remains about Jason Thibodeau (pronounced TEEbow. Yes, I know. But it is. Really.), the emancipated child of the title. We meet Jason as he’s running away from his cousin Matt, who is bent on beating the crap out of him. For having gone and gotten himself emancipated, but that’s sort of beside the point.

The point. . .is that my protagonist — short, smart, ambitious, and attitudinal — is running away from a bully.

And that got me thinking about how very many science fiction and fantasy stories start with the protagonist running away from a bully, or a mob of bullies, or having come fresh from an encounter with a bully.

Bullying is a hot topic nowadays — y’all know that. I’m not saying that’s wrong; in fact, I think it’s wonderful that we’re talking about this and trying to make change.

But the thing is — science fiction and fantasy writers have been saying this for years, and years, and years — that Funny Looking Kids are bullied for no reason other than that they look funny**; that not fitting in can be a death sentence for some kids, absent a magical intervention. They’ve said it so often, and at such a pitch that it’s become a cliche.

Was no one listening?

No one?

That’s. . .rather depressing. I like to think that people can — and do — learn from stories. But, I guess if you don’t read — or if you don’t read “that trash” — or. . .

I mean, honestly — did you think we were making this stuff up?

Well.

Tomorrow’s goal is to finish “Emancipated Child” in first draft. Could be I’ll actually manage it.

——————
*Old Orchard Beach separated from Saco, Maine in 1883.

**Trust me — a girl who was six foot tall before she was twelve years old, having, in addition, a really weird and screamingly funny speech impediment? Knows something up close and personal about the treatment dished out to Funny Looking Kids.

Intruder, C.J. Cherryh (read aloud w/Steve)
Blameless, Gail Carriger (e)
Changeless, Gail Carriger (e)
The Quiet Gentleman, Georgette Heyer (read aloud w/Steve)
Unbroken, Rachel Caine
The Talisman Ring, Georgette Heyer (read aloud w/Steve)
Sylvester / OR, The Wicked Uncle, Georgette Heyer (read aloud w/Steve)
Death and Resurrection, R. A. MacAvoy
The Unknown Ajax, Georgette Heyer (read aloud w/Steve)
Black Sheep, Georgette Heyer (read aloud w/Steve)
Stealing the Elf-King’s Roses, Diane Duane (e)
The Reluctant Widow, Georgette Heyer (read aloud w/Steve)
Friday’s Child, Georgette Heyer (read aloud w/Steve)
Dragon Ship manuscript, Sharon Lee and Steve Miller (e)
Kim, Rudyard Kipling (e)
Regency Buck, Georgette Heyer (read aloud w/Steve)
Pollyanna, Eleanor H. Porter (e)
Chimera, Rob Thurman (e)

Today to-do
1. Laundry (towels)
2. Bake bread
3. Promo copy
4. Outline short story

The Eternal To-Do List
(numbered for ease of viewing, not necessarily in order of urgency)

1. Sort through email and Deal with various bidness and webmistressly issues addressed therein — ongoing
2. Finish transferring music onto various devices
3. Read, read, read
4. Schedule follow-up vet visit and rabies shot for Socks
5. Buy tire(s) for Binjali; re-inspect
6. Carousel Tides t-shirt
7. Turn in novel proposals (3) to Madame the Editor
8. ConQuesT — May 25-27
9. Record word lists first two books (at this point, we’re guessing the “first two books” are Agent of Change and Fledgling) — June 10 (approx)
10. Interview at WERU Writers Forum with Joan Clemens & Ellie O’Leary, June 14, 10 a.m.
11. June 15 — quarterly taxes due
12. July — Excise tax due — both vehicles
13. Turn in short story to Baen — July 1
14. Turn in Trade Secret — July 15
15. Prep and write Carousel Sun, and Carousel Seas, due early and mid 2013
16. Get Liaden Weird Word lists onto web
17. Stage Two feasibility study: bathroom remodel
18. September 4 – October 4 Lee on-site at Archers Beach
19. Ongoing — locate new site for Cat Farm and Confusion Factory.
20. Finalize 2013 travel, if any

Things to be done in-between the things to be done:
1. Autograph 1,000 pages
2. Proofread galleys: Ghost Ship mmp, Dragon Ship hardcover
3. Write new stories for Splinter Universe

Blameless, Gail Carriger (e)
Changeless, Gail Carriger (e)
The Quiet Gentleman, Georgette Heyer (read aloud w/Steve)
Unbroken, Rachel Caine
The Talisman Ring, Georgette Heyer (read aloud w/Steve)
Sylvester / OR, The Wicked Uncle, Georgette Heyer (read aloud w/Steve)
Death and Resurrection, R. A. MacAvoy
The Unknown Ajax, Georgette Heyer (read aloud w/Steve)
Black Sheep, Georgette Heyer (read aloud w/Steve)
Stealing the Elf-King’s Roses, Diane Duane (e)
The Reluctant Widow, Georgette Heyer (read aloud w/Steve)
Friday’s Child, Georgette Heyer (read aloud w/Steve)
Dragon Ship manuscript, Sharon Lee and Steve Miller (e)
Kim, Rudyard Kipling (e)
Regency Buck, Georgette Heyer (read aloud w/Steve)
Pollyanna, Eleanor H. Porter (e)
Chimera, Rob Thurman (e)

So, a while back I promised two blog entries — one having to do with a…reader complaint of the Crystal books, in which science and technology inconsistent with the “future,” bad grammar, and an inadequate understanding of principles of advanced math and physics are cited as reasons why the books are “bad” — and another question buried in a blog thread I can’t put my hands on at the moment, asking, in essence, “How did we learn to write like that?” (In which “like that” was not necessarily a bad thing.)

For this blog post, I’m going to focus on the questions “bad grammar” and “how did you learn to write like that?” — along with a dollop of genre history.

This may get long, so bear with me.

* * *

History first:  Steve and I started writing together in 1979.  Our first collaborative short story was “The Naming of Kinzel:  The Innocent,” written, it says here on the card, in June 1980.  Our first collaborative novel was Kinzel the Wanderer, sold to Donning in 1981.  It looks like it was planned as an illustrated novel — there are prelim sketches from Colleen Doran in the recently unearthed file.  At this point, I no longer remember what exactly happened, that the project never went forth.  I’m assuming an editor-scramble at Donning, or maybe a lack of money to follow through, either or both being possible, given the dates.

I’ve been saying for years that Agent of Change was our first completed novel (there having also been the first…20 grand of a romance novel also written in the early ’80s, which convinced us that we weren’t romance novelists) — but apparently I’ve been saying wrong.  It looks like the Kinzel novel was complete at least in first draft.

The things we forget.

Anyhow, we’ve been writing together for a long time.  The first Kinzel stories, having some passing kinship with High Fantasy, were written in the language of fantasy.

You of course know that writers use. . .techniques. . .in order to signal readers, gently letting them know what sort of experience they should expect.   A prominent technique is the use of genre-appropriate language — High Fantasy reads differently than Hard SF, which reads differently than Urban Fantasy, all of which reads differently than Mystery.

Back a few years ago, some writers decided to step over the lines, and started doing genre mash-ups.  Part of the fun of that, besides the obvious fun of, say, making your hard-boiled private eye a magic-user on the outs with the White Council, is that writers of mash-ups get to mash-up the genre language(s), too.

I’ve mentioned before in this journal that writers are weird, right?

Related to this, and pertinent to this particular writer, is the fact that spoken English is my second language.  I really didn’t get the whole talking out loud thing until very late in life, and when I did start speaking, in more-or-less complete, but almost utterly randomized sentences, people couldn’t easily understand me.

Because I had this. . .difficulty, I studied, and one of the things my study revealed to me is that even mono-lingual folk routinely speak different languages, depending on the situation in which they find themselves.

So it was that, by the time I graduated high school and took my first job as a secretary, I spoke three distinct languages:  Business English, Street, and House/Familiar.

I read many more:  High Fantasy, Folk Tale, Romance, Mystery, Regency, Scientific, Business Report, Business Courtesy, Literary, Technical, Fairy Tale. . .

. . .you get the idea.

Fast-forwarding to the present — for the last — what? quarter-century? — Steve and I have mostly been writing space opera.  Our particular flavor of space opera is cross-cultural, multilingual, and character-driven.

One of the challenges — and I mean one of the biggest challenges — in writing a story in which some characters speak Language A — let’s call it “Liaden” — and some characters speak Language B — let’s call this one “Terran” — and still other characters speak Language C — let’s call that one “Clutch” — is portraying the different languages.

Think about this:  We have to write in English!  This is the only option we have, because our (primary) audience are English-speakers and English-readers.  How on earth are we going to cue the reader which language the character is speaking?

You might — as some have done — ask, Why does it matter?

That’s a good question, and the answer is — it matters because language reflects culture.  It also illuminates, to some degree, the sophistication of thought that may be available to a particular character.  Language does present some interesting boundaries to thought.  The Liaden language(s), for instance, encourages its native speakers in subtlety, and offers a framework for very complex ideas, such as melant’i.  Terran — at least, port Terran — is a lot more straightforward; an action language in which subtle thought is possible, but not top-level.

So, in order to cue the reader, and place them correctly within language and culture, the languages need to read differently.

Yes, Miri speaks “ungrammatically,” when she speaks Terran.  Yes, Cantra’s sentences have an. . .odd cadence.  Yes, Liaden is quite formal, and prone to rolling periods.

Yes, yes, yes!  When Miri is speaking Liaden, her sentences are quite formal, and prone to rolling periods!  Yes!  You noticed!  We meant to do that!  It’s a feature, not a bug.

The other thing we do, deliberately, is that we play with the narrative voice.  Since we’re head-hoppers — yet another of our bad habits — we need to let the reader know which character is describing the action/scenery/bold plan of attack.

This means that scenes told from Val Con’s viewpoint (for instance), and scenes told from Miri’s viewpoint (for instance), will read differently.  More! They notice different things, and, because of that, they may draw different conclusions.

This approach does mean that yes, you will get “bad” grammar, not just in dialogue, where the conventions of genre fiction allow it, but in the narrative.  I’m not an English teacher; I’m a storyteller; grammar is just going to have to take a back seat to the story’s proper telling.

So, to recap:  “Bad” grammar — yes, fair cop.  “Where did we learn to write like that?” — by reading, and by listening.  “Why do we write like that?” — for you, our readers, so you’ll know whose head you’re in, and what language they’re thinking in.

* * *

So ends Part One.  Part Two will address the notion that science fiction is the fiction of “the” future.  That will be, I suspect, some days down the road.

Changeless, Gail Carriger (e)
The Quiet Gentleman, Georgette Heyer (read aloud w/Steve)
Unbroken, Rachel Caine
The Talisman Ring, Georgette Heyer (read aloud w/Steve)
Sylvester / OR, The Wicked Uncle, Georgette Heyer (read aloud w/Steve)
Death and Resurrection, R. A. MacAvoy
The Unknown Ajax, Georgette Heyer (read aloud w/Steve)
Black Sheep, Georgette Heyer (read aloud w/Steve)
Stealing the Elf-King’s Roses, Diane Duane (e)
The Reluctant Widow, Georgette Heyer (read aloud w/Steve)
Friday’s Child, Georgette Heyer (read aloud w/Steve)
Dragon Ship manuscript, Sharon Lee and Steve Miller (e)
Kim, Rudyard Kipling (e)
Regency Buck, Georgette Heyer (read aloud w/Steve)
Pollyanna, Eleanor H. Porter (e)
Chimera, Rob Thurman (e)

Upcoming Travel

Hey, we’re going places!

Realsoonnow, for instance, we’ll be in Kansas City for ConQuesT, along with fellow GoHs Ursula Vernon, Gardner Dozois, Tim Miller, and Toastmistress Susan Satterfield. Read all about it here, and hope to see you there Memorial Day Weekend.

On June 14, we’ll be in Blue Hill for an interview on the WERU Writers Forum, with Ellie O’Leary, but you’ll be able to listen in on that from the comfort of your very own computer

Then. . .we’ll be home, writing, like good writers, and possibly watching with interest and, on my part, at least, chortling glee as our bathroom is destroyed and resurrected.

Due to the grid-lock of a number of factors — see “bathroom,” above — we won’t be attending the Chicago WorldCon — y’all have a really good time; we’ll miss you!

The next convention we’ll likely attend is Boskone, in February 2013, though Steve might be off somewhere in September — watch this space for details.

Reminders

If you’d like a signed copy of the hardcover of Dragon Ship, which will be published in September, Uncle Hugo’s has been promised another 100 copies — so you don’t need to be shy about ordering here.

In case you missed it, there’s a very nice interview with us here

The Eternal To-Do List
(numbered for ease of viewing, not necessarily in order of urgency)

1. Sort through email and Deal with various bidness and webmistressly issues addressed therein
2. Finish transferring music onto various devices
3. Read, read, read
4. Schedule follow-up vet visit and rabies shot for Socks
5. Buy tire(s) for Binjali; re-inspect
6. Carousel Tides t-shirt
7. Turn in novel proposals (3) to Madame the Editor
8. ConQuesT — May 25-27
9. Record word lists first two books (at this point, we’re guessing the “first two books” are Agent of Change and Fledgling) — June 10 (approx)
10. Interview at WERU Writers Forum with Joan Clemens & Ellie O’Leary, June 14, 10 a.m.
11. June 15 — quarterly taxes due
12. July — Excise tax due — both vehicles
13. Turn in short story to Baen — July 1
14. Turn in Trade Secret — July 15
15. Prep and write Carousel Sun, and Carousel Seas, due early and mid 2013
16. Get Liaden Weird Word lists onto web
17. Stage Two feasibility study: bathroom remodel
18. September 4 – October 4 Lee on-site at Archers Beach
19. Ongoing — locate new site for Cat Farm and Confusion Factory.
20. Finalize 2013 travel, if any

Things to be done in-between the things to be done:
1. Autograph 1,000 pages
2. Proofread galleys: Ghost Ship mmp, Dragon Ship hardcover
3. Write new stories for Splinter Universe