Last Wednesday's #yalitchat featured an interesting discussion about diversity and authenticity and it was no surprise that this included the call for more LGBTQ characters in YA books. This is not a new topic and we're all pretty much preaching to the choir. However, the most interesting part of the discussion (at least to me) was the fact that people didn't want "token" gay characters, we wanted meaningful characters who also happened to be gay.

Grok the difference? Let me 'splain:



What immediately popped to my mind was a graphic novel in the post-punk series HOPELESS SAVAGES, specifically Vol. 2: GROUND ZERO. (Haven't read them? Click the link!) In the introduction, Andrew Wheeler writes that, while talking with creator Jen Van Meter, said "what I really wanted to see was a gay character who was not only permitted a love life, but permitted a kiss, and not only permitted a kiss, but permitted a love story." And my thought upon reading that was, "Well, sure. Why not?" Maybe I'm naive, but the characters in this series are all so completely and wholly people in their own right, each with a solid back-story full of motivations, dark pasts, passions and dreams that it made total sense that each of them would have a love story. Why not Twitch? Because he was gay? That'd make no sense and I was happy to see it play out on the pages (even though the main love story was Zero's, we got to peek at Mom, Dad, Twitch, and Arsenal getting "pashed damp" over their honeys as well. Heck, it's a family show!) and Twitch indeed reflected on the incredibly touching story of the "one who got away" in a way that all of us who have ever loved and lost could completely understand. Twitch is an artist, a dreamer, a drug addict, a brother, a Mod, a classicist, and gay. Guess which aspects of his character I find the most interesting?

The bottom line is that I don't want to read about a character that's gay and, well, that's it, any more than I want to read a character that's described as any one word (heterosexual, red-headed, Jewish, handi-capable or ADHD) and then left to my own devices to guess what they're like otherwise. That's as sloppy as giving a physical description based on eye/hair color alone. No. Real people are multi-faceted folks and I like to read about the girl who colors in her own canvas shoes with Sharpie markers and dreams of being a concert pianist and the guy who is the sixth of ten children and whose most prized possession is a fossilized turtle skull. Their hair and eye color is possibly the least important part of their character makeup; their race, religion and sexuality is a much larger part of who they are, but it's not *only* who they are. To designate a character's defining quirk as their sexuality alone is ridiculous. Even in John Green's novel, WILL GRAYSON, WILL GRAYSON, which features a gay main character as well as G/Q secondary characters, it is Tiny who is the "biggest and gayest" of Will Grayson's friends--not just gay, because there may be gayer, and not just big, because there may be bigger--but to Will, there's no one "bigger AND gayer" than Tiny Cooper, and that defines the flamboyant football player/actor better than anything else could. We get Tiny from the start because while being a gay male is certainly part of his character, it isn't by far his ONLY defining characteristic. That's what makes him such a character!

What I'd like to see is a gay character who collects stuffed penguins or takes ping pong waaaaay too seriously, draws star charts, or practices yoga in the park as their defining quirk. Being gay is a big part of Who They Are but it's only "part" (as opposed to the "whole picture"). Not every gay character's story is a Coming Out story any more than every latina-American story is an immigration tale; there are a lot of great ones out there, to be sure, but diversity--true diversity--isn't defined by skin color or genital plumbing, but by what music we like, what causes we fight for, our choice of friends, our deepest beliefs. No two people are alike, no matter how much we like to stick them in the same box. The truth is, human beings will always surprise us because the labels we've stuck on them are OUR labels and it's a wake-up call to our central P.C.-processor when they are being true to themselves as opposed to who we thought they were/should be.

It's the exceptions that make us exceptional.

For full disclosure, I have gay characters in all of my published books. In the latest WIP, there is a "coming out" aspect to one person's story, but it's far more about secrets and family dynamics than it is about being gay. And for fully full-on disclosure, I am a rabidly passionate GLBTQ advocate who studied sex and sexuality as part of improving youth self-esteem and body-image. I was raised believing that everyone has the right to be whomever they want to be, have the freedom to believe what they want to believe, and certainly to love whomever they want to love. It flummoxes me that some people feel differently, but hey, that's diversity, too.

Those characters that move me, the ones that live closest to my heart, are the ones that I believed in, cried for, wanted to follow through hundreds of pages, the ones I most admired for their tough choices and stuck to their personal beliefs even in the face of overwhelming odds. Those were the characters (and authors) that most inspired me. Oh, yeah, and some of them are gay.

Whoa.

Okay, that last post wasn't meant to be quite so predictive...(hence why my husband hates watching TV and movies with me; I write my theories on a napkin and flip it over til the end), but that final episode: *Wow!*

Here's an interview with Cumberbach that gave a nice peek into his experience of the character:



This is all about acting, but it sounds an awful lot like writing, too.

Ganked from www.weldowen.com, this little bit of hilarity regarding the birthing process of a book, from idea to published manuscript, (in infographics form!):



Maybe it should be titled, "Expect the Unexpected" but that's already been used...

How close is this to reality? I suspect it's true enough for hand grenades. ;-)

Big thanks to pantsroles for the link!

Yesterday I had the pleasure of doing a teen writing workshop at Lilly Library where I described writing as the "Mad Gift." This is because to be a writer is to be slightly insane, listening to the whisperings of imaginary people in "what if?" worlds that don't exist and devote a substantial amount of our precious mortal time on Earth to writing things down in the greater hopes of sharing them with the world, but most often to simply be allowed to get some sleep. Like much of life, writing is not so much a choice or an occupation, but more like a vocation thrust upon you with a geas from an unknown entity who says, "Here. I give you this. Now go do something about it." Or being hit with a particularly large bat up the head.

We write because we can't NOT write.

I don't know about yours, but my Muse is fickle as the weather in New England; one moment sunny and trilling and free and the next petulant and moody and prone to bite. She is stubborn, recalcitrant and goes into fits and rages at ridiculous times (I often imagine her laughing as she hits me with a bout of inspiration in the middle of a shower or driving in a storm). She is also benevolent and kind when pacified by peaceful thoughts, regular exercise, and creative conversation. She can be hilarious in the wee hours and sparkling when inspired. I accept my lot as her plaything, a puppet on dancing strings, and only hope that I'm lucky enough/gracious enough/smart enough/present enough to be there when the bolt strikes.

And when I'm not, I have to keep writing, anyway.

Writing is like reading: transporting and prone to time-travel. Hours pass unnoticed when I'm at the keys and I have to remember to do things like eat or pick up the kids from school. I accept this and I'm (usually) grateful. I feel it missing if I haven't been writing for too long a stretch of time. And then I wait and a beg and I try to outsmart the fact that I haven't had a new idea or I'm stuck in the Great Swampy Middle and am starting to resemble a hobo in my frizzy hair and sweatshirt, muttering to myself aloud.

This is acceptable if, and only if, you are an artist, right?

Writing is an addiction, with all the highs and lows, and I hit all the verbs in the process: I laugh, I sweat, I rail, I rage, I cry, I get bored, hungry, tired, scared, hopeful, angsty, euphoric and then do it all again the next day. And the next. And the next. Until I hit the magic words "The End"...and then start all over again. I can't help it!

If writers described their symptoms to a doctor, she'd pronounce us insane with a nice rubber room to sleep in or a prescription of pills with very long names. But the hapless world allows us to roam freely amongst them, never realizing that we're watching, listening, waiting, dreaming, imagining, scheming... and writing them all down.

BWAHAHAHAHA!

Here's to hoping that the Mad Gift never leaves you. ;-)

I love Sherlock Holmes. I'm a huge fan. Graduating from Nancy Drew and the Hardy Boys to Baker Street felt like growing up. Sherlock Holmes was a man who possessed a dizzying mind, an almost cruel intellect, and was unabashedly outrageous in his improvisation and resourcefulness in his relentless pursuit of the truth at the core of whatever mystery lit him up. His life as seen through the eyes of the more empathetic Dr. Watson, a good man of morals and ethics and heart even after returning injured from the horrors of war, was one of astonishing adventure and perplexing character. I was as astounded as Dr. Watson was of his new roommate. The stories were elegant and exotic and glorious. I read them over and over (the telltale sign of a really good book)!


Okay, I admit, I missed the deerstalker hat and was thrilled when they wrote it in!

I've seen plays and TV shows, and although a big fan of anything Robert Downey Jr. since Less Than Zero, I didn't really think the steampunk-ish romp that had much to do with Sherlock Holmes outside the characters' names. (Honestly, when I first heard the casting, I thought Jude Law would be Sherlock and Downey as Moriarty. Ah well.) So when I heard about the BBC production, I was skeptical, but boyishly bright-eyed Benedict Cumberbatch does an amazing job with his rail-thin loping walk, his thin musician hands and his resonant voice with a sparkling script that somehow manages to blend the original text and intent with modern day things like blogs, texts and modern science. I was astounded at how well they'd brought the stories fast-forward and at the first episode, I was hooked!

This current Sunday Night obsession (sorry, Once Upon A Time) made me think back on my love of this character and the last two episodes of this second season really hit the reason why: as brilliant and observant and decisive and instinctive as Sherlock Holmes may be, he is deeply flawed in the most obvious ways possible. While the heavier addictions in the stories has been softened to a nicotine habit, the real deficit is Sherlock's inability to connect with people. While he understands what motivates people emotionally as the cause and effect of human psychology behind most crimes, he himself is moved by very little outside the thrill of the chase; malaise is his greatest enemy (aside from one "consultant criminal") and he is almost unable to see people as other than means to an end. It is perhaps the most interesting part of John Watson's character why he stays by Holmes, as if to protect the man from himself despite himself, and the most interesting parts of watching the show as Sherlock railroads Molly or bosses his landlady or finds himself livid at Miss Adler or completely undone by his irrational fear of the Hound. Lately, those flaws have been gaining ground over cold intellect and we're getting to see Sherlock Holmes undone, repentant, and (in his scathing words) "sentimental."

And I *love* it!

I've always loved the tragic hero best, the one that struggles to overcome adversity and, in the face of total loss, sticks to their gins/principles/ethics/honor and fulfills their mission even at the cost of their life. Central to being tragic (or caring about the character at all) is being flawed, deeply flawed, and that those flaws are the root and center of the conflicts that most often are the worst things that we can do to ourselves. The things that make the readers think, "If only they wouldn't *do* that then everything would work out fine!" But then again, they wouldn't (and couldn't) be the characters that they are.) George's curiosity or Winnie the Pooh's all-consuming love of honey is like Katniss' distrust of emotion and Harry Potter's inability to be truthful with Dumbledore, even when asked (but then again, he hasn't had much reason to trust adults in the past). There are reasons for the flaws, some origin point for a lust for shiny objects or a fear of snakes that often spell the character's doom just as effectively as an outside flaw: Who would Elric be without the sword? Who is Frodo without the One Ring?

I wonder if emotions will be this Sherlock's undoing or, as I hope with many the tragic, flawed characters I've come to adore, it will make him stronger than ever to triumph in the end? I'll be tuning in to find out every Sunday at 9pm to find out!

The other day I was in the dentist's chair for some emergency work (don't ask) and while a trip to the dentist isn't what I'd consider a relaxing affair, the thing I found most disturbing as I lay taut in the recliner with tools and tubes and fingers sticking out of my mouth wasn't the high-pitched whine of grinding bone or the sudden spritz of water in my face, but the conversation taking place over my head between the hygienist and the assistant. They were talking about wanting a total face lift and what it felt like the last time one of them had Botox. I looked again. These were both ladies in their thirties, both pretty and fair; one with a happy, round face and funky glasses and the other with delicate features and a chirping voice like a bird. What I really wanted to do was start ranting about body image and self-esteem and manipulative media but since I was otherwise choking, I wished I could do the next best thing and shove a copy of UGLIES into their hands.



It's not for me to say whether or not someone can feel better about themselves by "having something done"--it's not my opinion that matters, it's wholly theirs--but the assumption that there is already something wrong with you and that if you could just have it "fixed" then everything in life would be better is advertising psychology 101 run amok. Scott Westerfeld did an *amazing* job of shining a light on that cultural baseline that lurks inside the hearts of many a girl (and guy), but as we're coming up on our yearly celebration of Moms, I think about how much our bodies and psyches change after spawning small people who look vaguely like our genetic heritage and the pressure to somehow rewind things to the way they were "before" (or "better") can be a subtle sort of...well, not evil, but close.

So in anticipation of Mother's Day, I gave myself the gift of peace of mind, a little proactive defiance, perhaps nipping a little bit of cultural self-hatred in the bud. I showed my own budding little girl this video from Dove's Real Beauty Campaign, which simply shows-not-tells that the ads we see on billboards and magazines and TV aren't something we have to compare ourselves to, because they're often less real than what Mommy writes for a living.

She got it. So I'll give it to you. Go share this with a friend. (Sadly, this video can't be embedded, so please click & pass it on!)

I just found out that LUMINOUS is a Top 40 Pick for the Pennsylvania School Librarians Association! It's one of the fiction titles that state librarians want to suggest to their teen readers and, really, what could be higher praise? A full fiction list is here and I'm gobsmacked to be in such esteemed company. (These are really amazing titles and authors!)

All of which is to say: Thank you, Pennsylvania!!!

Last night was a total comedy of errors.

The only thing worse than being told the night before that your daughter has a performance at school tomorrow night is to find that she needs to wear a white top and black bottoms, discover that she has no black pants that fit, drag both kids out at 7pm to buy a pair of pants, call around to ask someone if they can pick up your daughter so your son will keep his first appointment, cancel your son's second appointment, get home late and pop the kids into bed, receive a call from the school the next day at 2:50pm that your daughter is curled up on the floor with a headache, have daughter insist she still wants to go to the friend's house, agree, drive an hour to get to the school early, eating dinner with son in the car en route, sit for an hour in the assembly clapping for other peoples' children, try to ignore squirming son screaming that he wants to play Angry Birds right NOW! just in time for daughter to sneak up and say she feels really sick and wants to leave. Leave (but not before she throws up (twice) and then drive the hour home...without ever seeing the kid's performance).

Yes, that's real life. It really happened. However, there's no point including such malarky in a book because basically, it's so unbelievable, only a sitcom would run it.

When I do workshops or attend writer's conferences, especially critique feedback, I hear a lot of "But that really happened!" and "That character's based on a real person!" and I don't doubt that it's true, but the problem is, it's too true to be believed and therefore, it reads like a lie.

Ever hear that clichés are clichés because they have a grain of truth in them? Well, that tiny little grain of truth that makes it resonate with the reader is also the bit that we can choke on if we don't have enough of sugar coating to swallow it. Only Non-Fiction writers have the audacity to write the unbelievable truth and get away with it (or not)*; fiction writers have to invent half-truths even--or especially when--they deal with the truth.

And speculative fiction writers have to write things that are totally unbelievable in a believable way.

Whoa.

Fiction is not about being strictly true-to-life, fiction is when we get to live the lies we wish were true. When I was struggling to make one of my MCs believable in that first scene where she was facing some pretty surreal and bizarre stuff, the feedback I got was that it didn't sound realistic. Excuse me? "Realistic"?! NONE of this stuff was realistic! It's fantasy for heaven's sakes! But that's when Better-Than-Boyfriend (a.k.a. the karate instructor) said something brilliant: people don't want to imagine how a person would really react in a tough situation, what people want to imagine how they wish they would react. We'd like to imagine that we got to throw that knock-out punch, made it in just under the wire, delivered that last parting shot, or said the perfect thing that made the love of our life finally get what we'd been trying to tell them all along.

Do those things ever happen in real life? Sure. But we all know when it doesn't and that's when we, as authors, have to lie in order to deliver the truth: no one said life was fair, that's why we read books.

* I actually went to high school with this guy. True story.

It's May Day! Or should I say "M'aidez"?

I had to explain to my kids that a pilot going down for a crash landing isn't talking about the first of May, but screaming "Help Me!" in French, which is all too appropriate as I struggle with the demons in my WIP with the help of willing crit partners who are armed, ready, and able to hold me up, dust me off & throw me back to the wolves on the page. Thank goodness for them!


Curse you, Red Baron! Thank goodness for Charles Schultz!

If you are fortunate enough to have critique partners, I hereby declare it to be Critique Partners Appreciation Day -- send a little something, even just an e-card will do, to tell them how much you appreciate all that they do for you because, frankly, without them we'd be lost in the mire of our own blackest imaginings, doomed to mutter to the voices in our heads in lonely corners wearing stylish white coats whose sleeves buckle up snug in the back. I seriously could never have survived my first years of attempting to become a writer without them and, now that I have things like "deadlines" and "contracts", I need their savvy little synapses more than ever.

Thank you, Crit Partners!!!



P.S. If you do not yet have a critique partner, get them. If you ask "Where can I get some?" I would join an organization like SCBWI, RWA, SFWA, Verla Kay Blueboards or any other relevant place where people like you can find other people like you and start working together to pull each other higher. Seriously, it's the very best thing you can do for yourself and your writing!

I have been very lax in sharing doses of steampunk lately. I'll admit, being brain-deep in mythic fantasy, I have to sometimes set aside the glamor of brass, cogs and gears for the other "glamour" of lily pads, inkwells, and straight razors (don't ask...more to come soon!) but everyone needs to stop for a breath of fresh air, a chance to recharge, and clear the mind of myopic cobwebs. And for me, that's snuggling down with a warm scone and a steamy cup of punk!

I know "steampunk" is all the rage and yet manages to still defy description. I can say a lot about what I think is steampunk-y, but it's a very subjective "I know it when I see/read it" sort of thing. But the one thing I can say that I like most about the genre is that it is so accessible; open to interpretation and cultural spin-offs, drama or humor or adventure or romance, even making room for paranormal tropes and magic--like the little black dress, steampunk goes with everything!

This popped to mind when I recently stumbled across a bunch of brilliant "steampunk sculptures" by an artist that struck me as having very French-like black humor, sporting brown leather and thick goggles and a touch of Burton-esque, child-like macabre. I have no other way to describe Belgian artist, Stephane Halleux's work, but it's close enough for grenades.

My favorites may have to be his "Beauty Machine" and his little bat-winged "Homme Volant":





Both awesome pieces, and many more, can be found on his Portfolio page at www.stephanehalleux.com.
Be warned: you may want to set aside time to gawk!

These reminded me of something from Nightmare Before Christmas meets The City of Lost Children sprinkled with a liberal smattering of Jean-Pierre Jeunet and Despicable Me. (And if that doesn't turn your brain over in butter, I don't know what will!) It was just the right thing for my palette cleanser, a blending of whimsy and eerie mecha that was impishly delightful. I've decided Inq would have one in her collection...if she had any place to put it! I could imagine epic stop-motion stories of adventure and excitement in a dark world on the edge of science and monsters. Inspired, I feel ready to tackle the rest of Book Two! Huzzah!

Go take a peek and come tell me what you think.

Enjoy!