Louise Marley

A year or so ago I lamented the abuse of James Frey over the fact-faults of his memoir A MILLION LITTLE PIECES. (and now I know why we need tags, which I was lazy about in the early days--can't find the post) Oprah excoriated this recovering addict on her program, in an interview too painful to watch. My complaint against the great O was that she should have known the poor man, as an addict, would lie. It's what addicts do.

But. Now, according to an L.A. Times reviewer, Janet Maslin, Frey has redeemed himself with a wonderful new book, BRIGHT SHINY MORNING, which is evidently a sort of F. Scott Fitzgerald novel set in Los Angeles. I was blown away by Frey's first book, and I didn't care a lot about whether it was a factual memoir or a fictionalized one. It was brilliantly written. He broke every literary rule in the book, and every infraction was justified.

My complaint here is that Maslin has attempted (and failed) to write her review in James Frey's style. For example: "He wrote a book but it was bad, liar bad, faker bad, it got him in trouble. A million little pieces. It was the name of the book. It was also how hard he got hit. He had to sit there on the couch. Everybody saw. The television celebrity book club woman got mad, she let him have it. He had to sit there on the couch. He squirmed, he cringed. Everybody watched, everybody blamed him. Then it was over. Then he was gone."

And later: "He wrote a big book. He wrote about a city. Los Angeles. He made up a lot of characters, high low rich poor lucky not, every kind, the book threw them together. It was random but smart. Every now and then he would pause the story, switch to the present tense and throw in an urban fact."

Why she would do this, and why the New York Times would pick it up, is a mystery to me. If you love this sort of--what would you call it--imitation? homage? You can read the whole thing here: http://www.nytimes.com/2008/05/12/books/12masl.html?ref=books I think I'll just buy the book and decide for myself. And avoid this critic's reviews in the future.

To erase all doubt:




I offer this illustration for those who say they don't "believe in" global climate change. That's like saying you don't "believe in" water hazards on a golf course. (I say that all the time. It doesn't, for some strange reason, make them go away.)

This picture shows legendary writer-in-hiding Salman Rushdie consoling the twenty-eight-year-old author Roberto Saviano at a party in New York. Saviano is the author of the 2006 hit GOMORRAH (Gomorra in Italian), which exposes a nearly unrecognizable--to most of us--underside of Italian culture. (The woman with them is a book scout, but considering she's holding a glass of wine, she might as well be me. I seem to always have a glass in my hand when someone takes a picture.) Saviano is under death threats from the Neapolitan Mafia clans.

Saviano is the new Rushdie, in the sense that he travels everywhere with police protection. The difference is that Rushdie at least felt safe in New York, but Saviano has to be protected even there. Rushdie and Saviano agreed, apparently, that "living in hiding is worse than death." And the FBI said of Saviano, "He's not a writer. He's something else." Their anti-Mafia division has made him their special project, according to the article in the New York Times. www.http://papercuts.blogs.nytimes.com/

In LA REPUBBLICA, Mario Calabresi writes that Rushdie and Saviano agreed, in this conversation, that continuing to write was the important thing, even though Saviano is having to change residences constantly, and can't move without three policemen guarding him. http://www.repubblica.it/2008/05/sezioni/spettacoli_e_cultura/saviano-rushdie/saviano-rushdie/saviano-rushdie.htm That's got to be a horrendous way to work!

This got me thinking about the long tradition of writers who become soldiers in wars of culture and politics. Remember Solzhenitsyn and THE GULAG ARCHIPELAGO? Or Giordano Bruno, burned at the stake for his scientific views? The list goes on and on, and it seems writers make the list by refusing to give in. Saviano is a young man whose life is no longer his own. When I wrote THE TERRORISTS OF IRUSTAN, I didn't think about the possibility of a fatwa in any serious way. And I suppose I thought it might be worth the risk even if it happened. That was naive of me. It must take a soldier's courage to keep working in the face of such adversity, and I'm not sure I have that courage.

I did one of those dumb things that can cause so much trouble. I left my debit card in the ATM machine at my bank, and didn't realize it until I took out my wallet at the grocery store. I spent half an hour on the phone with the bank getting it temporarily deactivated, and then I got a phone call. A high school girl had found the card, looked me up in the book, and called to make arrangements to return it.

Cool, right? But it gets better. When I met her after school yesterday--a tall, well-spoken, slender young lady--I gave her a copy of SINGER IN THE SNOW, knowing no other way to properly thank her for her trouble. She left the coffee shop, and I watched through the window as she opened the book, looked at the inscription, read the back, and then stopped and turned around. She came back to me, and said, "Didn't you write THE GLASS HARMONICA? I loved that book!"

Wow. It was a moment. Not only did I get to meet a lovely young person (whose parents should be very, very proud) but there was a moment, one of those that keeps us all writing.
Awesome.

Warning: snark factor of seven

I despair of trying to teach good writing skills to my students. If this example, from a reprint of Philippa Gregory's THE OTHER BOLEYN GIRL, is now acceptable to both editors, copyeditors, and readers, I've gone wrong somewhere:

"The lances were down like arrows flying to a target, the pennants on the end of each lance fluttering as the gap closed between them, then the king took a glancing blow which he caught on his shield, but his thrust at Suffolk slid under the shield and thudded into the breastplate."

This, my dears, is a run-on sentence. Times two. It should properly read:

"The lances were down like arrows flying to a target, the pennants on the end of each lance fluttering. The gap closed between them. The king took a glancing blow on his shield, but his thrust at Suffolk slid under the shield and thudded into the breastplate."

One of these can sneak by an author, an editor, and a copyeditor, but this is a whole book full of such offenses. I was prone, being an author myself, to blame the copyeditors and simply think Ms. Gregory doesn't read her galleys, but in a brief visit to her blog, I found that this is characteristic writing for her.

I want to say, despite this, that it's a good story, and the writing is colorful and usually strong. I'm reading on, and simply trying to ignore the run-on sentences. Lord, I hope this experience doesn't blunt my sensibilities so much that I don't know one when I see one! I'm worried that now that the book has been anointed by Hollywood (turned into a movie) that critical faculties across the known world will deteriorate into mush.

And those of you who are my students, don't read the book. Bad example to follow.

Adventures in SciFi Publishing is a whiz-bang podcast, full of substantial up-to-date information about speculative fiction, with author interviews and impressively well-informed commentary. The latest edition, in particular, appeals to me because it takes on the issues of Borders' possible collapse and the influence in general of the big box stores on the publishing industry. Listen if you dare: http://www.adventuresinscifipublishing.com/

Toby Bishop had a very busy weekend in Boise at the Children's Literature Festival created and run by the incredible young independent booksellers of Rediscovered Books. They've only been in business for eighteen months, but yesterday Bruce and Laura Delaney saw their roomy, bright bookstore teeming with adults, young adults, and children for hours as they entertained six authors and a fabulous illustrator. A quite astounding young storyteller also made an appearance that left me breathless.

It can be done, evidently! Laura and Bruce are proving it.

From the Idaho Statesman: "Six regional authors and one illustrator will participate in the two-day festival, a joint venture of Rediscovered Bookshop of Boise and the regional arm of the Society of Children's Book Writers and Illustrators.

While aspiring children's writers and adult literature buffs will get plenty out of the festival, the first-time event is geared toward young readers as well.

Here's a look at Children's Literature Festival events appropriate for all ages, being held Saturday, April 5, at Rediscovered Bookshop, 7079 Overland Road.

EDWARD TULANE VISITS REDISCOVERED

Edward Tulane, the china rabbit from the award-winning "Miraculous Journey of Edward Tulane," will make an appearance at 2 p.m.

In Kate DiCamillo's young adult novel, which will be made into a film in 2009, Edward is given to a 10-year-old girl by her grandmother.

After falling overboard from an ocean liner, Edward is caught by a fisherman and learns about love from a succession of owners.

A recorded interview with DiCamillo will be played during Edward's visit.

MASTER STORYTELLER

Ben Kemper, a national champion youth storyteller from Boise, will give a reading at 3:30 p.m.

The teenage Kemper, a Boise High School student, won the "Grand Torchbearer Award" at the 2007 National Youth Storytelling Showcase. He will perform original stories.

AUTHOR EXTRAVAGANZA

All seven of the authors will bring the festival to a close with readings and book signings from 4 to 7 p.m.

Participating in the "Author Extravaganza" will be illustrator Julie Paschkis (Seattle) and authors Kristiana Gregory (Eagle), Gloria Skurzynski (Boise), Judy Cox (Ontario, Ore.), Alma Alexander (Seattle), Toby Bishop (Seattle) and N.D. Wilson (Moscow).

Collectively, the authors have published more than 100 books and won dozens of awards."

This is so, so cool. I love it when a book comes along and tells me something I already believe.

John Medina is a molecular biologist who's just published BRAIN RULES, a book about how our brains work and how we can keep 'em working. The good news? Some parts of the adult brain are just as malleable as infants' brains, and can continue to create neurons! That is SO great. I can create new ones to replace all those the cabernet sauvignon took away.

His twelve principles include exercise as a way to improve brain function, which is right up my alley. Any time I've felt stymied by some plot issue or other (it's always plot issues, never the other stuff) I've done something physical, and found my way through. So, if you're blocked, hustle yourself AROUND the block! Or walk the dog, or vacuum, or something that ups your circulation.

Dr. Medina also recommends afternoon naps (my Scottie loves those), repeating learned information within two hours of first acquiring it, and respecting the way each individual brain is wired. And--for me, this is a big one, since I've been trying to address the too-much-input issue--he says that "multitasking robs focus, promotes inefficiency and causes mistakes." I'll bet it weakens plot development, too.

The website is http://www.brainrules.net

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Another new convention has been organized by that most dedicated and energetic of communities, science fiction fandom. This one will be in Spokane, Washington, August 1st to 3rd, 2008.

I somehow never understood about science fiction conventions until I attended Clarion West in 1993. When I started going to them, beginning with Potlatch and Orycon and World Fantasy, the whole thing was a great mystery. It took me several years to understand about hall costumes, about panels, about the prevalence of Asperger's among fans, about fans themselves. It finally dawned on me that fandom was the very essence of community--a place where a diverse group of people with a shared interest could find each other, make friends, talk about their passions, express their incredible individuality without risk of scorn.

An added benefit is the Dealers Room which is a feature of every con. Independent booksellers, small vendors of various kinds of art and jewelry, of comics and videos and all sorts of other things that appeal to sf fans. Conventions are microcosms of our particular society, with its particular bent. (Yes, we're a little bent, or we wouldn't be readers of science fiction and fantasy!)

Okay, I'm preaching to the choir. But it's a phenomenon, isn't it? And here's a nice new con to celebrate it.

Addendum: I'll be attending as Toby Bishop. You'll know me by the Scottish Terrier following me everywhere.

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(Warning: snark level of 8)

When Borders Books & Music ran into financial difficulties a little more than a year ago, what did they decide to do? This is a multiple choice question:

1) Track book preferences of different U.S. markets (as in, Florida loves romance, but Seattle loves science fiction)

2) Require their clerks to know something about books

3) Hire the CEO of a high-fashion clothing retailer to address their problems

Did you get the right answer? Of course you did.

Alas, the former CEO of Saks Fifth Avenue, George Jones, who became the head of Borders last year, had this to say today:

"'This will be a challenging year for retailers due to continued uncertainty in the economic environment,' said Borders chief executive George Jones.

'Looking forward to 2008 and beyond, the company determined that additional capital was required to execute our operating plan, and as a result we began to explore various financing options.'

But he added that the 'current credit environment has made many of these alternatives prohibitively expensive or entirely unavailable."

The translation of all that is: "We're in deeper trouble than ever, we had a net loss of 147 million dollars in 2007, and no one wants to loan us any more money. It turns out selling books is different from selling Dolce & Gabbana jeans that cost $1200. Anybody wanna buy a book company?"

Last weekend, kenyonsf and I were guests at the very first of what I hope--and lots of people in the South hope--will be many OmegaCon Science Fiction Conventions. There were problems, birth pains, if you will, but the enthusiasm of the 3500 fans who attended was a reminder of why this genre is a living, growing community. There were lots of costumes, lots of gamers, a few television and film personalities (love that Paranormal State cast, I just LOVE 'em!)and quite a few writers, some very well known, like Mike Resnick and Steven Brust and the GOH, David Drake, and not a few midlisters. But we all, writers and fans and gamers alike, share that sense of fun that is at the heart of fandom, and which informs the fascinating phenomenon that is a sci-fi convention, as the mundanes call it. (The mundanes can't help it. They don't know that we on the inside, the cognoscenti if you will, call it sf.)


Earthwood Returned, as promised! The audience was on the small side, but my boys and I had a lovely time. CD's will be forthcoming, I hope, by the end of this year.

Kay Kenyon launched the second in her magnificent quartet of novels at the con, energetically supported by the booksellers of Books-A-Million.

Kenyon and I have been on a mission to attend conventions far from home, to meet fans who we otherwise might only encounter online. It was worth it! I met some delightful readers who have been following my work for ten years, and that in itself was worth the twelve hours of flying and waiting and frustration that it took to get to and from Birmingham, AL, from Seattle, WA.

My dear children, if any of you are still waiting to try a con, stop waiting. Go. You never know what delights await you.

It appears that rainy Seattle, my beloved home town, carries more than its weight with the publishing world. Not only do we have Nancy Pearl, the intrepid librarian icon who wrote BOOK LUST and MORE BOOK LUST, to entice readers to new and diverse books, but we have Amazon, Costco, and Starbucks, and according to the New York Times, these companies have a big effect on book sales.

Kevin P. Casey, of the Times, writes:

"In many ways, Ms. Pearl’s rise in the book world parallels Seattle’s rise in the publishing world. Though the big publishing houses are still ensconced in New York, the Seattle area is the home of Amazon, Starbucks and Costco, three companies that increasingly influence what America reads.

Books by relatively unknown or foreign authors become best sellers by dint of their anointment at the hands of Amazon editors. A forgotten older paperback, recommended and featured by the book buyer at Costco, can sell more copies in six weeks than it did in the last few years combined. Almost every book Starbucks stocks in its coffee shops sells more than 100,000 copies in its outlets alone. That pushes most Starbucks selections into the top 1 percent of all books sold that year, without counting sales in other types of stores.

The three companies settled in Seattle for different reasons, and each had its own motivation for choosing to sell books. Together, though, their combined power in the book industry has put the city in the position of tastemaker.

Each company, in its own way, “guides their customers, by selecting the books they will see,” Ms. Pearl said. 'New York may publish the books, but Seattle significantly defines America’s reading list.'"

Imagine that. Little ol' Seattle.

This report won't surprise genre readers, though. The Pacific Northwest boasts a long list of fine science fiction and fantasy authors. Greg Bear, Ursula K. Le Guin, Vonda McIntyre, the late Octavia Butler, Robin Hobb, Richard Paul Russo, Kay Kenyon, Brenda Cooper . . . who am I missing? Oh. Right. Me.

Of course, the door into one of the purchasing offices of these megacompanies is not exactly open to everyone. Casey goes into the process in more detail: http://www.nytimes.com/2008/03/09/business/09book.html?em&ex=1205380800&en=60de0f0981c7560d&ei=5087%0A As ever in book publishing, the actual mechanism by which a book becomes a bestseller remains a mystery.

There was an old Sesame Street recording I listened to approximately a thousand times when Zack was little, and on it Oscar the Grouch announces "Look out! I'm gonna SING!" Well, science fiction fans everywhere, to quote Oscar, look out! I'm gonna sing--again.

My wonderful folk trio, Earthwood, is reuniting to play at the debut of OmegaCon in Birmingham, Alabama: http://www.omegacon.us/ We look a little different now than we did back in the day, but we sound the same. Lew Woodward is on your left, Steven Chung is on your right, and in the middle--MOI. Think of me as a thin Miss Piggy.



It's going to be so much fun. Look for us on Friday and Saturday night! And yes, there should be musical samples available soon on YouTube and on my website.

Two weeks ago I took what felt like a huge step, swearing off the internet for a time. I thought I was being a rebel, declaring my independence in order to cosset my poor, overworked muse. But now it seems (not surprisingly) I was just part of a trend. (Couldn't I be cutting-edge just once?) When the idea even makes the New York Times, you know it's already part of the public consciousness. This is from Times columnist Mark Bittman:

"I TOOK a real day off this weekend: computers shut down, cellphone left in my work bag, land-line ringer off. I was fully disconnected for 24 hours.

The reason for this change was a natural and predictable back-breaking straw. Flying home from Europe a few months ago, I swiped a credit card through the slot of the in-seat phone, checked my e-mail and robbed myself of one of my two last sanctuaries.

At that point, the only other place I could escape was in my sleep. Yet I had developed the habit of leaving a laptop next to my bed so I could check my e-mail, last thing and first thing. I had learned how to turn my P.D.A. into a modem, the better to access the Web from my laptop when on a train. Of course I also used that P.D.A. in conventional ways, attending to it when it buzzed me.

In short, my name is Mark, and I’m a techno-addict. But after my airplane experience, I decided to do something about it. Thus began my “secular Sabbath” — a term I found floating around on blogs — a day a week where I would be free of screens, bells and beeps. An old-fashioned day not only of rest but of relief."

So now I find there's something called Internet Addiction. I Googled it, and OMG, there were dozens and dozens of sites. I must not have it, though. It was way too easy for me to cut myself off, so I must have been ready.

And my muse is thriving, thanks. I recommend a virtual vacation to everyone!

Titles can be tricky. Sometimes authors make mistakes, as I did with THE MAQUISARDE, which most people can't pronounce. Sometimes the title itself is so great that it carries the book farther than it might have--THE DA VINCI CODE, perhaps? But here's an oddity, taken from the New York Times:

"The polls are open in the annual balloting for the Diagram Prize, honoring the world’s oddest book title, Agence France-Presse reported. Conducted by The Bookseller, a British trade magazine, the vote at www.thebookseller.com asks participants to choose from six mostly nonfiction titles on the shortlist, culled from titles submitted by publishers, bookstore workers and librarians around the world. The nominees are “I Was Tortured by the Pygmy Love Queen” by Jasper McCutcheon; “How to Write a How to Write Book” by Brian Paddock; “Are Women Human? And Other International Dialogues” by Catharine A. MacKinnon; “Cheese Problems Solved” edited by P. L. H. McSweeney; “If You Want Closure in Your Relationship, Start With Your Legs” by Big Boom; and “People Who Mattered in Southend and Beyond: From King Canute to Doctor Feelgood” by Dee Gordon. The winner is to be announced on March 28. The prize has been offered since 1978, when the winner was 'Proceedings of the Second International Workshop on Nude Mice.'"

I mean, you'd have to put down your $16 for I WAS TORTURED BY THE PYGMY LOVE QUEEN, wouldn't you?
And I wonder why this book is only available in France?

This post may seem like a whine, but it's not. I have a serious concern about craft, and about nurturing the Muse, and I'd love to know what the community thinks about this.

When I was at Clarion, my mentor, teacher, and friend Greg Bear said, "Don't abuse the Muse." That was in 1993, and he was talking about not producing too much, not obsessing, over-writing, beating our artistic impulses into the ground.

I'm finding now that the constant flow of ideas for how to promote, how to write better, how to write this or that form or genre, how to grab public attention--I could go on a rather long while with this list--I'm finding all of this to be overload. I struggle to eliminate the distractions in a way I can't remember struggling with at the beginning of my writing life. I want to be immersed in a book again, the way I was when I wrote my very first novel, and the six or so that came after. I want to feel I can trust myself and my instincts, that I can listen to my own prose, and sense the direction of my own plot.

I've considered, actually, withdrawing from the internet conversation for a while. Have any of you felt this way? Ten years ago this was a much simpler dialogue. There were a few e-mails which kept good friends in touch, and occasionally brought compliments from fans. There were bookstore appearances which were fun and seemed to sell books. Promotion meant printing postcards and mailing them, and sending off a few press releases. Conventions were the same--well, actually, conventions still are. I love them, and love seeing everyone face to face. But I was better, then, at signing off the internet and soaking in the work-in-progress to my heart's content. I didn't worry constantly about whether said work would fit the market, or garner good reviews, or follow the formula of the Breakout Novel. I had pictures in my mind, and themes in my heart, and I wrote them.

I have a new work in progress which I love, and have high hopes for. Maybe while I'm writing it I should just withdraw for a while. Would anyone be mad? Or maybe a better question would be, Would anyone notice?

Input on this would be welcome. But I think I'm going to have to edit out the rest.

In Ann Arbor, where the national headquarters for Borders is, they're trying something new. According to USA Today:

"Borders, the nation's second-largest bookstore chain, hopes to reverse years of sluggish sales by reinventing itself as a hub for knowledge, entertainment and digital downloading. Exhibit A is the new store that will open to the public here Thursday — the first of 14 that Borders plans to unveil this year. Borders' plans underscore the anxiety in the bookstore industry, which has been hurt by the growing footprint of online-only sellers.

Can it work? CEO George Jones thinks so.

'We had to build something that would cause the consumer to drive five or 10 minutes past the competitor's store to come here,' says Jones, who joined the company 1½ years ago from Saks."

Faithful readers will remember that I scoffed eighteen months ago when the struggling book behemoth hired a CEO from the fashion world. Maybe I'll have to suck that back--ooh, nasty taste, retracted words--but I don't think so.

AOL quoted this article extensively, with the headline "No One Reads Anymore." And on NPR this morning I heard a study that estimates a growing percentage of the public who never--and they mean NEVER--reads a book, fiction or nonfiction. As I recall, the number has grown substantially in the past forty years, and was over twenty per cent in a study completed in 2002. If that's true, does selling people digital downloads make any difference?

I have said before, and I must say it again, I don't think Borders needs gimmicks. They need BOOKSELLERS. Barnes & Noble, big box behemoth that they are, too, has booksellers. And they have Community Relations Managers who actually talk to the community. Borders has clerks--and stationery, and candy, and a sort of lame coffee shop--but it can be damned hard to find a particular book at Borders.

Yes, there are exceptions. As my dad (a physician) used to say, everybody hates doctors except their own. And there's a really cool woman at my local Borders who cares about our genre, actually reads it, and is willing to stick her neck out to keep my books in stock. Bless her. But ol' George Jones should go out and hire more like her.

Okay, I'm not at all sure I'm using the verb "to pimp" correctly. David Shuster and I are a little confused on that point. But it's true that HarperCollins is offering free--as in absolutely, without reservation, free--books on its website, beginning Monday. They'll start with this Coelho book, and offer another one every month for the rest of the year.



The idea, evidently, is to entice readers by giving them a sample. “'It’s like taking the shrink wrap off a book,' said Jane Friedman, chief executive of HarperCollins Publishers Worldwide. 'The best way to sell books is to have the consumer be able to read some of that content.'”

Well, yes. But my goodness, the whole book? I wonder how that will work out? And will the author get bupkus for downloaded copies?

In connection with this article, AOL did one of their unofficial surveys about reading habits, and of those responding, 95% said they still prefer to read paper books, page by page. So . . . maybe HarperCollins is right. If readers try Coelho's work and love it, maybe they'll hie themselves out and buy an actual copy. It will be interesting to watch.

Writers aren't the only ones who care about Amazon.com reviews, it turns out. Both Yale and Cornell Universities have done studies of the effectiveness of star-assignment by readers on Amazon.com, as reported this morning on NPR: http://www.npr.org/templates/player/mediaPlayer.html?action=1&t=1&islist=false&id=18873262&m=18873226

It's a short report, worth listening to. What caught my attention and dragged me away from the coffeepot to lean closer to my radio was hearing Harriet Klausner, intrepid #1 book reviewer for Amazon.com, mentioned by name. She's read over 15,000 books, and reviewed them--all, I'm sorry to say, positively. Even the #2 reviewer says she only reviews books she likes because if she doesn't like it, she puts it down. (Sound familiar to anyone?)

The long and the short of it, according to the studies, is that one-star reviews really hurt, but short, positive reviews like "I read this on the train, and liked it" boost sales. So, can an author hope that the long, torturous deconstructions some readers post don't affect the buyers' decisions?

What fascinates me about all this is that Amazon.com has become such a behemoth in the book business that universities want to study it. Brokers have dissed the company's stock from its inception, citing all sorts of problems with its business model, but it has that cache' of branding--and it has, no matter what your objections to its size or its practices, the most comprehensive listing of books I've found anywhere. Sometimes a book I can't find after the most assiduous searches through the library catalog will turn up on Amazon. A writer has to love it. (And yes, I bought some stock, against the conventional wisdom. I wish I'd bought ten times as much.)