I’m alive! I promise!
August 31st, 2006Yeah, I’m still alive. Bitch | Lab left me a comment yesterday and I thought maybe I ought to update and let you all know how I’m doing. 
What’s amazing to me is I still get new comments on old posts…well, constantly. Several a week. Cool.
First off, I adopted a new ferret from the Denver Dumb Friends League because my remaining one was so lonely after Susie died, to the point of getting sick from stress. They get along well and Heidi seems to be doing much better. So. That’s Kuma. Yeah, he’s pretty cute. He plays fetch and climbs up tall things which he then cannot get down from (also, I think he’s afraid of heights, which begs the question…WHY?), and also he is extremely snuggly. So. Yay.
I’ve been writing a lot, honestly. I finished a magical realism/fantasy/weird novella (although it still needs revision. a lot of it.), and sent off a short science fiction story to a major magazine in hopes of publication the other day. I helped teach a writing workshop for young authors. I’ve been spending a lot of my free time here, posting thought-provoking discussions of body hair on fantasy worlds. So, you know, the same topics as here, really. I’m co-co-editing (two co-editors, so…yeah, nevermind) a book of fantasy and science fiction writing by young authors, which is pretty much taking up most of my time, but I’ll be done soon. I wrote some articles on SF writing/worldbuilding and basic proofreading for Creative Writing Solutions, which might get posted eventually someday if Tony ever gets around to it. *cough* Considering that the RPG module I created to add on to their creative writing cirriculum still isn’t available after over a year, that might be awhile. 
If you want to keep up with what I’ve been doing, there’s always the LiveJournal. (If I know you and you want to read my fiction rough drafts there, let me know and I’ll friend you. Feminist SF!) I’ve posted some of my poetry and such at Perpetually Untitled, having come to the conclusion once again (as I do sometimes before deciding I want to try submitting to literary journals again) that my poetry is unpublishable in the current writing market, which is a shame because I think some of it is fairly decent. I blame editors’ bad taste and the fact that most published writing has been declining in intelligence for awhile now for no damn good reason. SF is possibly, but maybe not, an exception. Anyway, I’m gonna be posting my writing articles there, too.
Oh, and, hey, if y’all want to help me out, mind enlightening me as to what you think would make a good, feminist fantasy novel aimed at teen girls? Are there certain things you notice in YA fiction that you like/hate? Something you’d like to see in more YA writing? Is there some random object/character/plot point you’d like me to somehow incoporate into my plot, just for fun?
September 3rd, 2006 at 8:14 am
I’m glad you’re still around. Sounds like you have got your hands full — and thanks for the clue to the LJ. Didn’t know.
September 5th, 2006 at 5:39 pm
Well, I used to work at a children’s bookstore and I sold a lot of books to teenagers, and especially to teen girls. Most of them were sadly and scarily very far from being feminist works of fiction. I watched way too many 16-year-old girls walk away with yet another copy of one of those tacky Gossip Girl novels, and it never failed to make me cringe. I realise we all need brain candy, but I’m convinced those books are influential in eroding girls’ self esteem.
The things I’d most like to see in a novel geared towards teen girls:
-queer issues dealt with in a realistic and sensitive way.
-real girls with real bodies who are comfortable in their own skin.
-frank but not gross-out discussion of sexuality.
-real characters rather than high school stereotypes.
-ethnically diverse protagonists and characters.
-books that refrain from condescension in the narrative voice.
-varied and interesting vocabulary - but not really wordy prose. Not all teenage girls are voracious readers, and very dense writing tends to turn them off.
Hope that helps.
September 9th, 2006 at 12:34 am
This is more intertextual than advice-oriented, but I’d recommend seeing yourself in dialogue with folks like Sheri Tepper (particularly her True Game series and her Mavin Manyshaped series but also her more political SF/fantasy like *Beauty* and *The Gate to Women’s Country*), Charles DeLint, Guy Gavriel Kay, and Neil Gaiman (who write female characters well although Kay is a bit stereotyped when it comes to characterization period and DeLint’s plots can seem formulaic after enough novels and there are only rare moments in *Sandman* that match what Gaiman achieved in the movie *Mirrormask* when it comes to writing for women and girls), not to mention your favorite feminist fantasy writers. By “in dialogue,” I mean do purposeful re-visions of specific things you like and dislike about their work as well as the way they approach the genre in general. (Certainly you can see in the Harry Potter series evidence that JK Rowling has read a lot of fantasy and set about re-envisioning her influences.) Scholars analyzing feminist revisionary myth-making are a good resource for seeing multiple ways of doing this, including more subtle ones.
I suggest focusing more on the “fantasy” than the “teen” aspect of the novel b/c I was a teen fantasy reader (albeit before publishers really got good at target-marketing “YA”s) and never limited myself to things obviously “aimed at” teens. Actually, I consciously avoided most “YA” series.
September 9th, 2006 at 9:31 am
Nome: Definitely good advice. I try to always address issues of race and sexuality/sexual orientation anyway (although admittedly it’s harder to work with ethnic diversity when you have humans AND elves and such running around — for some reason I find it easier to deal with this issue with alien species). I was also discussing with a friend how I hate condescending books, so I won’t do that either.
Constructivist: Yeah, I always tended to avoid “young adult” writing as a teen because most of it was poorly written or boring or condescending. But some writing aimed at teens was really good (Pullman’s “His Dark Materials” trilogy being pretty much the only example I can think of and the kind of thing I’d like to write). The thing is, I think most of my writing is too dense, disturbing, or mature (too much violence or sex) to be accessible to younger readers. (Not to mention the kind of language all my characters use. Yikes.) Teens, maybe. High-school age kids could read it. Younger? I probably wouldn’t want them reading it, but if they did, they wouldn’t get it anyway. So there really is in my mind a need to make a distinction between my writing aimed at adults rather than children/teens, because that affects pretty much everything about my approach. I didn’t mean that it was “aimed at teens” so much from the marketing approach you seem to interpret (which is a fair assumption on your part), but because I really do think there are unique issues which need to be stressed differently for younger readers who may not have thought about them or may not have the background of an adult reader. There’s also a certain approach to take if you want to subtly introduce young readers to things like feminism which will be slightly different with different audiences. Just my thoughts.
Ironically enough, Sheri S. Tepper is my favorite author.
I also wrote a 4000 word essay on the use of myth in feminist science fiction in high school (the research was fun, the essay wasn’t). So, yeah, that’s something I’m definitely interested in anyway.
September 12th, 2006 at 3:40 am
It’s good to hear that you’ve been so busy with writing. I hope you make it in print! The only thing I think you have to do to appeal to a particular age group is to write with an honest voice. What made Catcher in the Rye last? Why do people still listen to the music of the Velvet Underground. It’s all about honesty. Don’t worry about anything else.
September 13th, 2006 at 3:26 pm
I adore Phillip Pullman’s His Dark Materials trilogy. He came to my town when I was 11 and signed my books. He was a very kind and perceptive man and his writing has had a lot of influence in my life. I wrote my final essay for my BA on His Dark Materials - it helped me graduate, and got me the best grade of my university career.
He’s also one of the few YA authors I can think of who addresses queer issues in a completely seamless and fascinating way. Remember his androgynous male angels in the Amber Spyglass?
I agree that it can make it harder to incorporate ethnic diversity when you’re dealing with a fantasy novel, but as you said there are some tremendous possibilities when you’re writing about alien cultures and places in which two species, say elves and humans, have to coexist.
Thanks again for a thought-provoking post.
Feel free to visit my site too if you have the time / inclination. It’s just a personal blog, but I do have my political moments from time to time.