Specifically on YA reading. Via jmprince and others on my reading list, this Newsweek article on the surge in teen reading.

All sorts of things in there that had me nodding, including this:

Levithan and others cite several reasons for this perfect storm for teen lit, the most obvious two being the increasing sophistication and emotional maturity of teenagers and the accompanying new freedom for writers in the genre to explore virtually any subject. Another is that bookstores and libraries are finally recognizing this niche and separating teen books from children's books.

And this:

Still, most of these books, even the darkest ones, cling to some semblance of hope. And most are smart, well written and do not pander or talk down to their audience. That's a welcome change, because for more than a decade, the common knock on young-adult books has been that there were too many so-called problem novels that self-righteously told kids how to behave in a "just say no" fashion. "A lot of those books were based on fear, they were cautionary and sermonlike. Teen readers rejected them," explains Martin. "Too many books for teens just stated obvious messages, like 'doing drugs is bad.' But now the messages are imbedded into the story. This new crop of writers would rather present drugs as a miserable existence and show what it's like to live through this experience than to preach."

In other words, much of the content that's making adult readers so uneasy? It's not part of the problem with YA--it's part of the whole reason teens are willing to bother with YA literature at all now. Because it's willing to be real, and true, and to show the world instead of delivering lectures about it.

Just back from a week at the first Kindling Words West, where I spent my days walking and writing amid the Georgia O'Keefe cliffs of New Mexico's Ghost Ranch, and the nights talking with other writers who were doing the same. My first day or so there especially, I could barely stand to be indoors amid that landscape, so I would write outside, staring out at those cliffs, listening to the wind and the scuttle of lizards over paper-dry bark, until I hit a need-to-think point, then walk until I hit a need-to-write point, repeat as needed. Later, I also spent stretches writing in my room, or in the dusty old unused building I found with a view out onto an arroyo, windows open, singing along with my mp3 player as I wrote.

Most of all I reconnected with the fact that the act of writing, of striving to tell a story as well as I can, is sacred. The rest--the whole business of marketing and selling and building a career--are important, and I don't take them lightly. But in the end, the writing, the commitment to craft and story and getting better--that's what this is all about, and they matter deeply.

Being in the company of other writers who clearly felt the same way--and who gave each other the time and space to create, yet were there to talk to and support one another when we came up for air out of that creating space--made for a lovely retreat.

I often get asked, "Have you ever written a book from a boy's point of view?" -- because all of my novels (though not all my short stories) so far have had girl protagonists.

I'm never quite sure how to answer that, but I only recently realized that when I do answer, some part of me is apologizing. "No, those just haven't been the stories I've wound up telling so far." "Well, I always do have strong secondary male characters." "No, but it hasn't been deliberate, maybe some day I will, I don't know."

And while it's true that maybe someday I'll write a novel from a boy's POV--because I'd never limit what stories I might decide to tell next week, next year, or next decade; and because the story often knows what it wants better than I do--the apologizing, however subtle, has to stop.

"Yes, I enjoy telling stories from girls' POVs. I find their stories and their viewpoints really interesting and compelling, thanks."

Some of my middle grade reading lately has gotten me to thinking about the question of ... why do we so often write about loss when we write for children? (And not only in stories where the beloved pet dies -- in other ways, as well.)

I do it, too -- I can't think of a book where I haven't done it in one way or another, though in Secret it's pretty subtle and not really the main point -- so I don't think we should stop doing it. But I do find myself wondering: do we write about loss because it's a part of young lives, and so relevant to young readers? Or do we write about loss because it's part of adult lives, and so relevant to us--are we projecting our own concerns onto our readers?

Or is that an impossible distinction to make, because children's lives and adult lives exist in the same larger world, after all, and we can't tease them apart or pretend they exist in isolation from one another?

lnhammer pointed me toward the storyTropes TVTropes entry on the Cozy Catastrophe, an alternative to the "only the mean/tough/etc. survive" end of the world scenario. :-)

I've been thinking for a while about how, just as we can rig the worlds of our stories to make them sympathetic to the ways we think the world does or should work, we can also rig the (fictional) end of the world.

( On rigging the end of the world )

I've been thinking lately (no doubt by way of procrastinating on TE) about what I would do for a sequel to Bones, should I get to write one, and as I tossed possibilities around I had a discussion with lnhammer that went something like this:

lnh: "Are you flinching?"^*

me: "I just don't want to hurt anyone else. I hurt too many people the last book."

lnh: "Wait--a moment ago you were talking about wiping out a whole town, and now you're worried about hurting one character?"

me: "Yes, but that would have been a whole new town. I don't care about anyone there yet. But here now I'm thinking about hurting characters I know."

At which point lnhammer, in his wisdom, simply gave me a long look.

Because of course, fictionally killing a town of people you don't know is nothing beside hurting one character you care about--that hopefully the reader will care about.

The easiest thing I did, in writing Bones, was to wipe most of the planet out in a catastrophic magical war. Apocalyptic horrors are easy. It's the small personal horrors--a baby set out on a hillside, a mother abandoning her daughter, a single plant attacking a single named character--that are hard.

^*lnhammer also told me to stop flinching when I wanted to save W.

I'm almost halfway through the second book in Elizabeth Knox's Dreamhunter duet, Dreamquake. Wow. I don't think I've been this blown away by someone's worldbuilding and inventiveness since I first read Garth Nix's Sabriel, and the book has the characters and the texture and depth to back it up.

And I found myself thinking today that, you know, this isn't a book you could just dash off in six months. (Though for all I know the author did--I'm really only guessing she didn't.) My blog reading these days seems full of advice from writers who talk about how being a professional means dashing off a book in six months or so. I know that's partly the distortion of what I remember from said reading--but even so, it's good to be reminded of the wondrous things that result from giving a book the time and space to take on layers and texture and depth, too.

Mind you (in the interests of full disclosure), I've written books in less than six months (and--once in a fit of insanity and deadline pressure--in six weeks), but it's been some time now. And when I worry that everything I'm working on now is taking too much time, I need to remind myself that there are books out there like this one, and that not all books want to be fast books, and that indeed, I wouldn't want to be a reader in a world where they all were.

I didn't want to step away from this draft when it was done. I wanted to just go back to page 1 and start the third draft of TE right away. I know well enough how much work I still have to do, after all. I didn't want to waste any more time.

But I made myself step away. "A week," I told myself. "At the least, you have to take a week off. Find other stories to work on in the meantime."

So I did. And late last night, it began happening.

Things began going clickety click.

Oh, if I add this at the beginning, we'll have a sense of overarching tension.

Oh, if I let this happen here, I can get rid of these tedious chapters in which the characters talk and talk, trying to figure out how to make that thing happen.

Maybe somehow I can explain this back here ...

Maybe I can move that there ...

Maybe I no longer need this after all ...

Right. If I keep up this not-writing a bit longer, I might actually get some serious work done. :-)

One of the useful things about writing short fiction is, it reminds me in a sort of snapshot form what my writing process is like.

I turned in a short story a few days ago--and looking back, it took me five drafts:

Draft 1: Write the wrong story. But sort of kind of get a feel for what the right story is about. (The exploratory draft.)
Draft 2: Write the right story. But with all the wrong words, muddled arcs, and not enough sensory vividness.
Draft 3: Get something approaching the right words. Only with lots of the wrong words still mixed in.
Draft 4: More right words. Not so many wrong words. Much tighter.
Draft 5: Polish until my teeth hurt.

Or something like that. This is pretty much a minimum, for me--that story went unusually smoothly. Any one of these draft stages can get repeated multiple times.

But it's good for me to remember this. Because today I finished the second draft of TE, and it really is a merry muddle.

But instead of despairing, I look at the above and think, no, draft two is right on target for what a draft two generally is, given my writing process.

And for about the millionth time, I take that leap of faith: There is a book here. I'll get there yet.

Writing lesson of the day: If you're already going to burn your character alive, there's no need to do any other awful things to them. No matter how realistic and well-thought-out those things are. Burning them alive is sufficient. Truly.

Especially in a short story.

I thought I'd already learned this lesson with Bones, of course, where my editor explained that given all my protagonist already had to go through, there was no need to make her suicidal, too. The story, he assured me, already had tension enough.

A little of this sort of thing goes a long, long way.

Lesson for characters in contemporary fantasy novels #318: As soon as things go weird, turn off your cell phone to save the battery. You're going to need it later.

Useful things about running #287: Even when the running is feeling slow and awkward and nowhere close to flying, your brain will use it to do story work. Heck, your brain will do just about anything to distract you from the fact that you have another 20 minutes of this to go.

=-=-=-=-=

Been working on both TE and a short story this month. Interesting to try to work on more than one project at a time, something I'm not always good at. But in some ways useful--when I jam up on one project, I can switch to the other instead of bemoaning my lack of productivity.

At least, that's now it's working this week.

( Thoughts on a multiple messy drafts sort of writing process )

Justine Larbalestier and Sartorias are saying interesting things today about dark fiction for teens, and about folks who complain teen writers are being edgy for its own sake and because they can be, rather than for any deeper purpose.

In the comments to sartorias post, the issue was brought up that the world is so dark already, and that maybe not everyone is comfortable with the idea of adding to the darkness without good reason.

Which got me to thinking about some of the reasons that I do write dark stories--especially given that I'm also perfectly capable of writing funny ones. And that's not because the world's darkness needs to be increased, but because the world already has dark places--and fiction can show us how to navigate them, literally or figuratively. I don't think books should ever be only or even primarily about their messages; but I do think a book can provide hope that there are ways through the dark, something that at 15 (or 35 or 65 for that matter) isn't always easy to believe.

Writing about darkness is, in many ways, really writing about light--specifically, about the light that shines through the dark, and about the things that survive when most things seem lost.

(Not that I think about this consciously while writing, especially in earlier drafts--while writing it's mostly all about "what does the story want to be told well?" The patterns and reasons often only become clear afterwards.)

Daylight Saving Time saves, well, nothing.

And in fact, energy costs go up, on account of all that extra AC use.

Which I suspect Arizonans could have told you back in 1968, when we opted out of the whole business because, well, the Arizona summer nights are lovely--but only once the sun goes down so that you can actually get to the night part.

Daylight savings time also means I can't call my relatives in the evening, or do any business with the east coast much into the afternoon, but I suspect all the states who decoded to keep it weren't quite thinking of that aspect of it, somehow. :-)

=-=-=-=-=

Off to catsit some kittens and then write. Some days it feels like I'm telling my characters, "You just talk among yourselves until I figure this story out."

And they do, they talk and talk and talk, not caring that all their lovely chatter will be gone in another draft or three. :-)

In some ways, the whole preliminary exploratory draft of TE was about simply figuring out that my protagonist had run away from something she shouldn't have run from. So much is changing in the second draft, right down to the specifics of why the protagonist is running.

And yet other bits of the story keep finding their way from that exploratory draft back into the first real draft of the story, too, in unexpected ways.

Some bits are getting tossed for good, though (or at least until they find another story), and some of those I'm a little sorry to lose--like this one:

"Is she your girlfriend?"

"Not anymore," he said.

"Did you know--" my voice trailed off.

"That she was making plans to kidnap you to some realm of the gods? That she even could do such a thing? That by telling her I'd met you I was helping her find you? Oh, yeah, sure, I knew all of that, and I still offered to take her to the movies Friday nights."

None of that fits for the story I'm now writing, at all--M isn't even the sort of character who could have a boyfriend anymore, and there really is no realm of the gods anymore, either, and there only sort of ever was.

But the ghost of the old story still haunts the new one. Some part of me never fully forgets that M and A had a thing going at one point, and even though that doesn't even make sense now, it will still probably affect the story I'm actually writing in subtle ways.

I wonder whether all the stories we write are quietly haunted by--and quietly influenced by--all the stories we decide not to write.

So in some ways, copyedits are all about the question, "Will the reader care?"

(Well, they're also about the question "How did I manage fool not only myself but also a major publisher into believing I can write?" But I'm doing my best to ignore that one.)

I chose the words I chose for a reason. But the copyeditor is making all her changes--the ones that go beyond catching typos and such--for a reason, too. Hers has to do with grammar and usage and house style.

Mine has to do with all sorts of things. But for each phrase I see changed in copyedits that I instinctively want to change back, I have to ask myself: is it going to sound any different to the reader?

If it isn't--if I decide the subtle distinctions I was writing to actually won't come through to anyone but me anyway--then I go with the change. Or if I think one version is as good as another, ditto.

It's like some writers talking about the distinction between "gray" and "grey," and how they're really two different colors. I think they are, too--but I've come to realize that to most readers, they really are the same. And more, the two distinct colors I hear behind the words? Other writers who make a distinction hear different colors there.

So I'll be consistent, and go with one or the other--because the distinction I was making only really had meaning to me, and there's no way to convey it to anyone else anyway.

I don't hesitate to stet things, both for rhythm and flow and for clarity, if I feel I need to. And I read everything with a critical eye. But I do try to change back as little as I can.

Copyedits are all about the fact that the book isn't just about the writer.

In the comments of sartorias's bittercon post about elves in fiction, the whole issue of good and evil races came up.

I've always had trouble with the notion of good and evil races in fiction (though I note that Tolkien's orcs are actually a little more complex than their descendants, and his elves a lot more so), for many reasons. The implications for human race politics are bad enough, of course. But more than that, psuedo-orcs and other evil races ... rig the morality of the entire fictional world.

( This became clear to me during a roleplaying game )

Dear Character We're Never Going to Meet On Stage: It's not even your fault. That's the worst part, isn't it?

Dear Protagonist Whom of Course I Trust and Respect: Do you really think it's a good idea to get a thousand-year-old sorcerer hyped on sugar and caffeine?

Dear Story: Will you please stop handing out superpowers? It's not like they're free, you know.

=-=-=-=-=

The book is being very--non-linear--about getting written this week. Much back and forth, much of each new thing that happens (and each stray realization, too) altering the things both before and after it.

There's a story in there somewhere. Halfway through the second draft, you'd think I'd be more confident about finding it. :-)

One day, I'll actually meet up with the text of the first draft again, I just know it.

Writing thought of the day: you don't need to wallow in and dissect your characters' emotions to the finest level of detail, and you especially don't need to do it over and over again. Beyond a certain point, I start caring about those emotions less, not more, the more the protagonist thinks about them.

Let the story breathe a little. Open things out. Let the text breathe a little, and let the characters' emotions come through in ways that give the reader a chance to feel things for themselves.

A light touch goes further than a heavy one, for emotions as much as for description.

The protagonist of my current reading-in-progress finally did stop whining and wallowing in his emotions around page 100, when he was attacked by bandits (yaaay, bandits). The next 100 pages seem to be dedicated to everyone else worrying about his emotions instead. Because, apparently, the reader cannot be allowed for a moment to forget that he has them.

=-=-=-=-=

Yesterday's run was one of those where my lungs, rather than my legs, were the speed-limiting factor--it varies day by day which it is that tells me when to slow down. I blame the rain and all the molds and blooms the rain encourages. And, okay, also the fact that I haven't run in a week.

Even so, the guy running in front of me on the indoor track kept looking back, as if to see if I was catching up. Sometimes, when I was getting close, he'd speed up a little.

To which I say, hah! You can still beat this overweight asthmatic runner in a race, dude, but now, you're gonna have to work for it. :-)

As I work on the new (or not-so-new, given how much time I've already put into it) book, I'm enjoying its contrasts to Bones of Faerie, in a "it's good to get out and meet new people even though I of course still love the old ones to pieces" sort of way.

Somehow I wound up with a missing mother again for the new book (and she's so deeply a part of the story's conception that there's no getting around it--why do we writers do these things?), but the reasons and their consequences are very different.

The father in this book is actually sane, which is a really nice change--it's something of a relief to deal with someone less intense, a character who is flawed but who loves and cares about his daughter and doesn't have to go all dysfunctional on me in order to show it. Dealing with psychotic characters is exhausting, even when they aren't real. (Every time I edit L's final confrontation with her father, I feel out of breath at the end, like I've been running the entire length of the chapter.)

I'm still getting to know my current protagonist (even after an entire exploratory draft and half a first draft, yes), but I do know that she doesn't take herself quite as seriously as my former protagonist, though she doesn't exactly take things lightly, either.

I can reference the whole wide contemporary world in the new book, which makes things both easier and harder.

There may be another angsty shapeshifting boy--unlike the missing mother, I can't really claim that was an accident.

This book is set before the end of the world, rather than after it. If I'm lucky, I may even get to stop the world from ending, this time around. Maybe.

I'm still going through my Iceland notebooks and pulling trip reports together (more than a half year after my visit--I know!), and I stumbled upon this phrase:

"Entering prophecy airspace."

This makes me laugh. :-)

But when you have a character whose magic is attached to the land (as more and more, I find myself thinking all magic must be, one way or another), you have to (okay, I have to) ask yourself just where that land begins. Is it enough to come within sight of it? Or does the character have to set foot on that ground first?

When I fly into Tucson, I feel a certain pull when I can see the mountains and the desert floor through the airplane window. That pull grows stronger when we touch down--and even stronger when I deplane, gather my luggage, and take my first breath of desert air.

I was wondering about a character with prophetic dreams when I was in Iceland (and still am wondering about her) ... but looking at my notes now, I also wonder where magic's airspace in general begins.