Tag Archives: Erin Bellavia

Fiction is a Series of Choices: Interview with Seanan McGuire

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Absolute BlankBy Erin Bellavia (Billiard)

Seanan McGuire (pronounced SHAWN-in) is a literary force to be reckoned with.

She is the author of the October Daye urban fantasies, the InCryptid urban fantasies, and several other works both stand-alone and in trilogies or duologies. The ninth October Daye book, A Red-Rose Chain, comes out next month. She also writes under the pseudonym “Mira Grant.” (For details on her work as Mira, check out MiraGrant.com.)

You’d think that would be enough to keep her busy, and you’d be right, if we were talking about an ordinary human. In her spare time, Seanan records CDs of her original filk music (see her Albums page for details). She is also a cartoonist, and draws an irregularly posted autobiographical web comic, “With Friends Like These…”. Somehow, she also manages to post to her blog, Tumblr, and Twitter regularly, watch a sickening amount of television, maintain her website, and go to pretty much any movie with the words “blood,” “night,” “terror” or “attack” in the title. Most people believe she doesn’t sleep. We think there might be some kind of demonic bargain going on.

Seanan was the winner of the 2010 John W. Campbell Award for Best New Writer, and her novel Feed (as Mira Grant) was named as one of Publishers Weekly’s Best Books of 2010. In 2013 she became the first person ever to appear five times on the same Hugo Ballot.

We talked to Seanan about gender, being a “social justice warrior,” navigating social media, and the soon-to-be released A Red-Rose Chain.

Background Photo: seananmcguire.com

Background Photo: seananmcguire.com

Toasted Cheese: You have a name that, to many, appears to be of ambiguous gender. On your Tumblr, you recently posted a link to this article, and responded to a reader’s question about it (here). Can you tell us a bit more about any gender bias you’ve dealt with (directly or indirectly) in terms of publishing/readership?

Seanan McGuire: For the most part, my readers are awesome, and they aren’t weighted one direction or another (so it’s not “only women read me” or “only men read me,” or anything like this). I think I receive a lot more rape threats than male authors. They seem genuinely stunned, when I talk to them about it, to discover that this is just how life is for me, and for most of the other female authors I know. I wish it would stop.

TC: You seem to endeavor to make sure your characters represent a variety of racial and gender identities. We (and many others) see this as a positive. This question comes in two parts:

  1. Is this something that comes naturally to you, or have you had to consciously work at it?
  2. Have you dealt with any pushback, either from publishers or fans, because of it?

SM: I honestly just want the characters I write about to reflect the diversity that I see in my friends and in the world around me. I also grew up white and cisgendered in America, so I do have to make an effort not to default to “white, cis, American.” That can be an effort. It’s worth it.

I’ve received a few inquiries to the effect of “why did character X have to be gay?” or “why did character Y have to be Indian?” I try not to be cranky about those. I do wonder if the people who ask me those questions go up to people on the street and ask “why did you have to be ______?” Fiction is a series of choices. Reality is a series of coincidences. If our choices are not as varied and diverse as those coincidences, we’re doing something wrong.

TC: You blog and tweet a lot about social justice issues (like racial and gender inequality, the representation of women in the media, etc.), and as we previously noted, these issues certainly enter into your work. Because of that, you and a number of other current science fiction and fantasy authors have been the target of complaints by other authors and fans claiming that these “social justice warrior” (SJW) issues are “ruining” SFF. What is your response/reaction to those complaints?

SM: I feel like a lot of those people have not read much science fiction, which has always been about “SJW issues.” Science fiction is about politics and society and pushing the envelope. Anyone who’s read Tiptree or Heinlein or Piper or King can see that. I think that there’s a tendency to paint the work of our childhood in rose tones, thinking it was always perfectly suited to us—I find it when I go back to watch old horror movies, and am just stunned by all the slut-shaming. I wonder if some of these people wouldn’t be equally stunned if they went back and read the authors they say they admire.

TC: We recently wrote an article about the negotiation of social media for writers… you weren’t able to participate at the time, but since you’re an author we always think of when we think of authors on social media, we’d like to ask for your response to a few of those questions! So… how has your relationship with the internet/social media changed since being published?

SM: I spend a lot less time reading web comics, and a lot more time trading Disney pins. Really, it hasn’t changed that much.

TC: How would you describe your relationship with your fans online?

SM: A lot of them are super-sweet, and so excited to talk to me. I do worry about hurting someone’s feelings without meaning to, since I’m a little odd sometimes, so I try to be ultra careful.

TC: What are three things you wish fans wouldn’t do when interacting with you online?

SM: Ask me questions about pub dates that I haven’t announced; ask me for spoilers; yell at me because a book is not available in their region. I am incredibly accessible and up-front. The flip side of this is that if I haven’t said something, I probably can’t, and I get really uncomfortable when pressured.

TC: Let’s talk about Toby! The Winter Long, Book 8 in the series, was kind of a game-changer. With A Red-Rose Chain coming next month, what should readers expect from Toby & Co. moving forward?

SM: A book annually, as long as DAW lets me. More seriously, I don’t do spoilers. They, too, make me super uncomfortable.

(At least four more books after A Red-Rose Chain are confirmed at this time. Be sure to check out the review in our next issue for more!)

TC: Many readers of this series enjoy the way you’ve built the faerie world Toby inhabits. We know that you studied folklore, but how much of Toby’s Faerie is your creation, as opposed to already-existing folklore?

SM: It’s sort of “chicken and the egg.” Most of Toby’s Faerie is based on folklore, but then spun, hard, in my own direction.

(You can find out more about Seanan and Toby’s version of Faerie on Seanan’s blog, where she answers reader questions about Toby’s world in the lead-up to the release of each book. You’ll see several posts at the link, but if you want to dig even deeper, check out the Toby Daye tag!)

TC: And let’s go out on a light note… we know you’re a big fan of lots of different kinds of media. Give our fans a recommendation of one of your favorite:

Books
All-time favorite: It by Stephen King.
Recent favorite: The Girl with All the Gifts by M.K. Carey.

Movies
Slither, written and directed by James Gunn.

TV shows
Most likely to re-watch: Leverage or The West Wing.

Musicians/Bands
I spent literally a decade following the Counting Crows around the West Coast. I am a fan forever.

Seanan’s Links:

Writing Diverse Characters

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A Pen In Each Hand

By Billiard

Create a character with a distinctly different gender/ethnicity/sexuality than yourself.

Looking for resources to help you write authentic characters?

Negotiating Social Media for Writers: A Conversation With Jim C. Hines, Mary Robinette Kowal & Kameron Hurley

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Absolute BlankBy Erin Bellavia (Billiard)

“The Internet, like the steam engine, is a technological breakthrough that changed the world.” —Peter Singer

The internet can be both a blessing and a curse, giving us a wealth of information at our fingertips, and allowing us to make connections across continents and around the world. For published authors, the internet has become a place to research quickly and easily as well as interact with fans and colleagues instantaneously. Blogs, Facebook, Twitter, and Tumblr all create spaces that allow for different levels and types of interaction.

We wondered how blogs and social media affect the writing and personal lives of working authors, so we contacted Jim C. Hines, Mary Robinette Kowal, and Kameron Hurley, all authors with a prominent online presence, and asked them to talk to us about their lives on the internet.

Negotiating Social Media for Writers

Background Image: Peter Kirkeskov Rasmussen/Flickr (CC-by-nc-sa)

Toasted Cheese: Thinking back to before you were published, can you think of any online behaviors that may have helped your career?

Jim C. Hines: Back in the wee days of the internet, when we hand-coded our “online journals” into Geocities while adding starry backgrounds and moving dragon gifs, I mostly used my web presence to connect with a handful of other struggling writers. It was a great way to share encouragement and to feel like I wasn’t alone in the struggle. Back then, the internet was pretty much worthless as a tool for self-promotion, at least for most of us, but it did help me build those human connections. That’s one of the things I try to focus on today, fifteen years later. Promotion and sales are nice, but those connections are the best part of being online.

Mary Robinette Kowal: Most of the online behaviors were mirrors of things that I do in real life. Celebrating other people’s successes, being interested in what people are working on, and generally trying to be helpful while trying to avoid being pushy.

Kameron Hurley: Writing well and passionately, certainly. Engaging with people. And not being a jerk, generally. That doesn’t mean not disagreeing with people—I disagree with people all the time—but I disagree with ideas and statements and world views. I try not to condemn people as human beings because we disagree about something. Writers have professional disagreements all the time. What I learned is that there’s a core group of people in the business with you now who will be there in twenty years, so try not to burn any bridges or start any feuds unless you’re really, really sure of what you’re doing. You’re going to see these people at all your professional events.

Writing is a business, and you have to treat it like any other business.

TC: What online media (social and otherwise) do you use most? For what? How do you use different media in different ways?)

JCH: I’ve got a blog I use for longer essays and things that require a bit more complex thought. And also the occasional Lego picture. Twitter is great for joking and chatting with folks, like the world’s biggest social bar. I’ve also started doing a little more long-form stuff on Twitter, posting things in five or ten parts. Facebook is good for posting photos and sometimes links back to longer pieces or conversations, along with shorter excerpts and jokes and such. Facebook is also nice for getting input or feedback. It’s easier to tap into the internet hivemind over there.

MRK: Twitter is where I hang out the most. I like the conversational aspect of it. It’s fantastic for research, because most of the people on there are really, let’s be honest, looking for a way to procrastinate. So queries like, “Anyone know where I can find the telegraph code for Atlanta in 1907?” get answered in five minutes flat.

KH: I spend most of my online life on Twitter, and I write all of my long form content on a blog that I own and manage at kameronhurley.com. I strongly recommend that if folks are going to write content, that they host it all on their own websites. Platforms grow, change, and dissolve, but you can maintain your website and its content presumably forever.

I cross-post all of my content to Facebook, Google Plus, Twitter, and Tumblr, and I recently started an Instagram account. Tumblr and Instagram I created primarily because I knew there was a huge potential audience who used those platforms that I was completely missing. The average age of someone using Twitter is 34. If you want to find younger readers, you need to be where they are, so I do make an effort. That said, I don’t like them as much, so I keep my involvement there very low maintenance. It’s all on autopilot, set to post across platform when I click “publish” on my blog.

But Twitter is the biggest cocktail party, and certainly the platform that’s been best for me to connect with colleagues and fans. I’ve virtually “met” a ton of people who I later hung out with at conventions or appearances. I like the immediacy and low time investment of the form.

I’d pick one or two social platforms you like and put your time into those. Don’t try to fracture your time too much, or you’ll burn out really quickly. Social media moves so fast that keeping up is a full time job in and of itself.

TC: How has your relationship with the internet/social media changed since being published?

JCH: It’s gotten… bigger, really. More people, more followers, more interactions, more content… it takes significantly more time than it used to. There are a lot more options out there now. It also feels a lot more tense sometimes. I think there are a lot of important conversations and discussions happening right now, but there are also days I just want to post funny animal pictures, you know?

MRK: I talk a lot less about my personal life than I did. I used to blog about lunches and company. When 100 people follow you and they are mostly folks you know in real life, then it’s just chatting with your friends. But with 14,000 followers, it now it feels like I’m invading the privacy of my guests if I trot them out for public view.

KH: I spend more time thinking about what I’m saying instead of just blasting out angry rants. Overall, I think this is actually a good thing—as a writer, I should pay special attention to the words I’m using, and writing publicly now, with more people listening, means I’m more aware of the impact of my words, and I take greater responsibility for them. Do I really mean what I’m saying in exactly this way? Am I needlessly attacking someone? Am I being gauche to shock and hurt people? What am I trying to accomplish with a rant?

TC: Has your pre-publication online life ever “come back to haunt you”?

JCH: Not yet! My post-publication online life, on the other hand…

MRK: Not yet!

KH: Strangely enough, not that I know of. But then, my colleagues are forgiving.

TC: How do you use blogging and social media for promotion? How much self-promotion is expected of you?

JCH: I’ll announce when new books come out and things like that, but self-promotion is very much secondary. People know I’m an author. There’s links and info about my books on my sites. If readers want to check those things out, they can. They don’t need me shoving it in their face every other post.

As for how much is expected of me? I haven’t had much outside pressure from my agent or publisher or anything like that. I’ve talked to authors who feel like they’re supposed to be online and actively promoting themselves on ALL THE SITES, but that hasn’t been my experience, nor is it something I’d be comfortable trying to do. I don’t want to be a salesman. I want to talk about cool SF/F stuff with my fellow geeks, and maybe sometimes rant about stuff that pisses me off.

MRK: I do. I think the thing most people miss with social media is that the emphasis is on social. Which means that you have to be engaged in the community for it to work. Sometimes I describe social media as a high school cafeteria. You can wander through, overhearing snippets of conversations, and occasionally stop to join in them. If you need everyone to know about a thing, you stand up on the table and shout about it. If you’ve been engaging and part of the community, then everyone will help spread the word. If not…you’re just the obnoxious person who stood on the table and shouted.

KH: No one really expects authors to promote themselves; they hope for it, sometimes they ask and prod about it, but writing and promotion are very different skills, and the reality is that many of the world’s best writers are very poor promoters. The best advice I ever got on promotion was from fellow science fiction writer Tobias Buckell, who told me to only do the things I enjoyed doing when it came to promo. I don’t like doing readings, so I stopped doing them, and I doubled down on what I’m good at, which is blogging. I can write essays pretty quickly. Now I do fairly extensive blog tours during the release weeks of my books.

What you find is that media works like a sieve—you do a ton of blog posts for small blogs, and folks one tier up see that. So you do some for mid-sized blogs. Then you get invited to podcasts, you get invited to radio shows, then mid-sized publications quote you, then larger publications come knocking. It’s about projecting your presence across a number of different media during a short, intense, promotion window. Think of yourself like a puffer fish, always putting out content that makes you look like a bigger deal than you are. Sounds like a trick, right? And it is. People think I’m far more financially successful than I am when it comes to writing fiction, but that, in turn, has led to me being more successful because I’ve been invited to more projects and gotten more gigs. You project success and importance and speak loudly and smartly, and you’re funny and delightful, and then people start asking you to do more work. If you can do the work well, and on time, then congrats—you’ve faked your way to success!

Which is what a lot of us do, really. A lot of promotion is pretending to be the person you want to be, even during the times you’re really not feeling it.

TC: How would you describe your relationship with your fans online?

JCH: Pretty darn good. One fan just send me a gift certificate for gourmet bacon. My fans and readers and community of online geeks are awesome.

MRK: They are lovely, lovely people.

KH: That’s a good question. I think you’d have to ask them! Fun, overall, for me. Fans are delightful and encouraging, and one of the best parts of the jobs. I’m on Twitter to have fun, interesting conversations. Most of the folks who follow me are there for that reason, too.

TC: Of course, one drawback of the internet is the anonymous hate and trolling that sometimes goes along with having an online presence. Can you describe a time when you had to deal with hate and/or trolling?

JCH: Eh. I don’t get too much trolling, and the hate is significantly milder than I’ve seen other people get. (Which I’m sure has absolutely nothing to do with me being male and white and straight. /sarcasm) I have no problem with people arguing with me online. When people get abusive or cross the line into just being dicks, I generally just block them and get on with my life.

MRK: Yesterday. So, I decided that it would be a nice thing to offer to help people who couldn’t afford a supporting membership for the Hugo awards, by doing a drawing to give some away. This led to cries of “Vote buying!” even though I wasn’t up for an award. My feed became infested with people associated with GamerGate. So I did something I call “politeness trolling.” Which is that someone says something hateful to me, and I answer them with a request for clarification, often accompanied by an apology. More often than not, this actually leads to an interesting conversation.

And the ones that are just trolling me? Heh. I grew up in the South where we’re taught to say, “That’s nice,” instead of “Fuck you.” I can bless someone’s heart all day.

KH: I used to get death threats and such in the beginning (back in 2004), when I had comments turned on for my blog. I got rid of comments, have my assistant screen my email, and block people ruthlessly on Twitter now. I’ve made it so I’m able to live pretty troll-free. Twitter’s mute function is fabulous. I’m also very careful never to wade into comment sections that I know aren’t going to be useful conversations—you get very good at figuring out when someone’s discussing your work and when someone just wants to start a pile on, or poke at you to see if you’ll have some public meltdown. Inciting author meltdowns is a sport, for some people.

I see so many people giving over their platforms to trolls these days—retweeting hateful statements, getting into arguments with people who are clearly just there to argue—and I can’t imagine it’s very satisfying to anyone but the troll. You have to get that trolls are sadists. They want you to waste your time arguing with them. They want to discourage you from creating work. They want you to be upset and be fearful. The best thing you can do in the face of evil is to do the work that evil doesn’t want you to do, because it’s the work that helps create a world that has no place for them.

TC: It’s fun to watch popular authors interact with fans online, and while I’m sure the majority of interactions are positive, what are three things you wish fans wouldn’t do when interacting with you online?

JCH: Stop adding me to Facebook groups without asking! Don’t tag authors when posting nasty reviews of their books. And for Cthulhu’s sake, if you think the proper way to argue with a woman is to call her a bitch or a c**t, or to post threats of rape or violence, do civilization a favor and get the hell off the internet.

MRK: 1. Apologize for bothering me; 2. Offer me unsolicited advice on writing; 3. Complain about the pricing of my books.

KH: I occasionally get folks who tweet at me like twenty or thirty times a day, without really adding to a conversation, just sort of being like, “I’m here! I’m here!” It’s lovely that they are there, but the reality is that if something feels like spam, I need to mute it for my own sanity. I do sometimes get folks who try and make “ironic” sexist or racist jokes, which always falls flat with me. I mute those immediately, even knowing they meant no harm. When you’re surrounded in real hate all day, even the ironic stuff gets to you.

Overall, though, my fans are great. They are funny and smart and supportive. I even had one bring me a bottle of scotch to a signing, raising the bar for all future fan interactions (TAKE NOTE FANS).

TC: Can you offer any advice to those hoping to be published, regarding their internet/social media presence?

JCH: Be yourself. Have fun. Don’t try to do everything, because you’ll burn yourself out fast. Figure out what you’re comfortable with and do that.

MRK: Don’t stress about it too hard. The social in social media means that you really should be engaging in ways that are comfortable to you. Anything that you have to work at, or hate doing, is going to show as a lack of sincerity. And at the end of the day, your job is to write. So do that first.

KH: Do what you love. Avoid the stuff you don’t like doing. But know the difference between “I don’t like this” and “this is too hard to learn.” Sometimes, if you take the time to learn a new platform, you’ll end up liking it, but you don’t know if you don’t try.

And don’t be a jerk. For the love of all things… don’t be a jerk. Be the best possible version of you. Treat people kindly and humanely. These aren’t pixels, they’re people. And when you are burned out (and you WILL be burned out, at one time or another), it’s OK to take a break from the internet and promotion and all the rest.

I’ve gotten to the point now where I schedule six weeks a year that are just to promote whatever novel I have coming out, and I don’t expect to do any writing in that time. Then I go dark for a month or two, and really pull back on my social presence after that while I work on the next book. Don’t try and be “on” all the time. Break it up into manageable chunks of time.

But most of all, I want to remind folks that the work comes first. Write great books. THEN figure out how to tell people about them. Walk before you run.

pencil

Jim C. Hines‘s first novel was Goblin Quest, the humorous tale of a nearsighted goblin runt and his pet fire-spider. Actor and author Wil Wheaton described the book as “too f***ing cool for words,” which is pretty much the Best Blurb Ever. After finishing the goblin trilogy, he went on to write the Princess series of fairy tale retellings, and is currently working on the Magic ex Libris books, a modern-day fantasy series about a magic-wielding librarian, a dryad, a secret society founded by Johannes Gutenberg, a flaming spider, and an enchanted convertible. He’s also the author of the Fable Legends tie-in Blood of Heroes. His short fiction has appeared in more than 50 magazines and anthologies.

Jim is an active blogger about topics ranging from sexism and harassment to zombie-themed Christmas carols, and won the Hugo Award for Best Fan Writer in 2012. He has an undergraduate degree in psychology and a Masters in English, and lives with his wife and two children in mid-Michigan.

Mary Robinette Kowal is a Hugo-award winning author, voice actor, and professional puppeteer. Her debut novel Shades of Milk and Honey (Tor, 2010) was nominated for the 2010 Nebula Award for Best Novel. In 2008 she won the Campbell Award for Best New Writer, while two of her short fiction works have been nominated for the Hugo Award for Best Short Story: “Evil Robot Monkey” in 2009 and “For Want of a Nail” in 2011, which won the Hugo that year. Her stories have appeared in Strange Horizons, Asimov’s, and several Year’s Best anthologies, as well as in her collection Scenting the Dark and Other Stories from Subterranean Press. Mary lives in Chicago with her husband Rob and over a dozen manual typewriters. Sometimes she even writes on them.

Kameron Hurley is the author of the novels God’s War, Infidel, and Rapture—a science-fantasy noir series which earned her the Sydney J. Bounds Award for Best Newcomer and the Kitschy Award for Best Debut Novel. She has won the Hugo Award (twice), and been a finalist for the Nebula Award, the Clarke Award, the Locus Award, and the BSFA Award for Best Novel. Her most recent novel is the subversive epic fantasy The Mirror Empire. The sequel, Empire Ascendant, will be out in October 2015. She writes regularly for Locus Magazine and publishes personal essays at kameronhurley.com.

Find the Right Social Media for You

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A Pen In Each Hand

By Billiard

In “Negotiating Social Media for Writers,” we asked Jim C. Hines, Mary Robinette Kowal and Kameron Hurley their advice to writers regarding their internet/social media presence, and this is what they said:

JCH: Be yourself. Have fun. Don’t try to do everything, because you’ll burn yourself out fast. Figure out what you’re comfortable with and do that.

MRK: Don’t stress about it too hard. The social in social media means that you really should be engaging in ways that are comfortable to you. Anything that you have to work at, or hate doing, is going to show as a lack of sincerity. And at the end of the day, your job is to write. So do that first.

KH: Do what you love. Avoid the stuff you don’t like doing. But know the difference between “I don’t like this” and “this is too hard to learn.” Sometimes, if you take the time to learn a new platform, you’ll end up liking it, but you don’t know if you don’t try.

Experiment with various social media platforms and find one or two that you’re comfortable with. It’s easy to tell when someone views social media as a chore so focus your attention on platforms you enjoy using. Many allow you to cross-post so you can maintain a presence at places you aren’t active.

Tell the Stories You Have to Tell: Interview with Tanya Huff

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Absolute Blank

By Erin Bellavia (Billiard)

Canadian fantasy author Tanya Huff was born in Nova Scotia, but spent much of her childhood in Kingston, Ontario. She eventually moved to Toronto, and later, to “the middle of nowhere,” Ontario. Her first novel, Child of the Grove was published in 1988.

Blood TiesHuff’s “Blood Books” (a series of novels pairing human detective Vicki Nelson with vampire and novelist Henry Fitzroy) were adapted as the series Blood Ties for CBC Television. The series also aired in the US on Lifetime.

The third book in her current series (commonly referred to as the “Gale Girls” series) was recently completed. The second book, The Wild Ways, was released in November 2011.

Earlier this month, Huff’s 2012 novel The Silvered won the 2013 Aurora Award. (The Aurora Awards honor science fiction and fantasy works by Canadian authors.)

We here at Toasted Cheese were happy to have Tanya Huff share her experience and insight with us. (And be warned… a couple of her responses had the interviewer all choked up!)

Tell the Stories You Have to Tell

Toasted Cheese: When did you first know that writing was what you wanted to do?

Tanya Huff: The late George Carlin used to answer the question “Did you always know you wanted to be a comedian?” with “Not in the womb, but right after that.” I have a letter that my grandmother, who was taking care of me, wrote to my father while he was out to sea, when I was three. In it, she tells him a story I told her of a spider who lived at the bottom of the garden. (He made a web and ate a fly and then he fell asleep and his web got broken. —come on, I was three!) I also illustrated it. Badly.

The year I turned ten, one of my cousins had spinal surgery and had to spend the entire summer in bed. I spent a good portion of my summer telling her stories—and acting them out with our Barbie dolls.

The thing is, I have always been a storyteller but I had no idea you could make a career of it. My family is not exactly… bookish.

TC: How long have you been writing professionally? Did you do anything else before you started writing?

Child of the GroveTH: I sold two pieces of poetry when I was ten—but I don’t think you could call that writing professionally. In 1985 I sold a story to George Scithers at Amazing and then in early 1986 I sold Child of the Grove to Sheila Gilbert at DAW. I went on to sell another four stories to George and another twenty-eight books to Sheila.

Before that I spent a year studying forestry at Lakehead University, took a class C posting with the Naval Reserve (which I’d been in for two years at that point), spent six months in LA where if I’d had any idea of the way things worked, I’d be a television writer today, six months working for a security company, four months working maintenance for the YWCA in Toronto, three months in a coffee factory, then off to Ryerson Polytechnic for a degree in Radio and Television Arts paid for by working at Mr. Gameway’s Ark and selling sunglasses from a pushcart at Yonge and Bloor but graduated the year the CBC had massive layoff so went to work managing Gypsy Bazaar—the first of the flea markets as stores—and, finally, left them to work at Bakka Books for eight years where I was when I wrote the first four of my novels.

TC: We all know that the work of writing often involves just doing the work, regardless of whether or not the muse is in the building. That said, what inspires you?

TH: Hmmm, good question. People, definitely. Everyone has a story and a lot of those stories are distinctly stranger than fiction. And other people’s writing. When I finish a book that really touches me—emotionally, or intellectually—it gets me all fired up to go and write.

TC: Do you have any specific habits or rituals that help you get “in the zone”?

TH: Hot beverages are important. *g* It used to always be tea—plain black tea with milk—but in the last few years I’ve started drinking more coffee and green tea so just generally, the making of a hot drink. Boiling the water. Pouring into the pot. Waiting. Pouring it into the cup. Carrying it into my office. It’s one of the reasons I don’t work on a laptop—I’ve drowned any number of keyboards over the years.

TC: I know that music is important to you. Do you listen to music when you write? How does music inform your characters and their stories?

The Wild WaysTH: The only time I’ve ever listened to music while writing was during The Wild Ways when I had Cape Breton fiddle music on fairly constantly. Usually, I relate to music the way I relate to short stories, each piece is complete in and of itself and isn’t meant to be a creative layer in a larger whole. I listen when I’m running, and in the truck, and doing housework, and it often inspires creativity the way any other piece of another person’s writing may, but when I’m actually working and being creative myself, I prefer silence. Now, if things aren’t going particularly well, then I’ll throw on some music and play spider solitaire for a while until something breaks loose but, generally, if I’m at my desk, it’s quiet.

TC: Where is your favorite place to write?

TH: I have an office with a desk and my desktop and a whole lot of research books and, if I’m home, that’s where I am between one and six in the afternoon. I’ve never understood how people can write in coffee shops—I’d be too busy people watching. That said, I really like to write on trains. I don’t know what it is, but I can sometimes produce an entire day’s word count during the two-and-a-half hours it takes to get into Toronto.

TC: I know that this is like asking someone to choose their favorite child, but do you have a favorite of the books (or series) you’ve written?

TH: It is kind of a favorite child question… Unlike a number of writers, I still like everything I’ve ever written. There’s a few structural things I’d like to fix in some of the early stuff—although I think the Quarters books are some of my best writing, particularly The Quartered Sea—but for me, it’s all about the storytelling and I enjoy the stories I tell. I even still like the Ravensloft book I wrote for hire. Now, I can say that Valor’s Choice was the most fun I ever had writing a book. Fitting space marines and evolved dinosaurs into Rorke’s Drift was joy from start to finish.

TC: How about of the ones you haven’t written? (That is, that have been written by someone else… not imaginary ones. *g*)

TH: I adore everything Terry Pratchett has ever written. When there’s a hole in my life for whatever reason, I turn to Pratchett. He sees people, with all their complexities and stupidities and courage and cowardice and potential in a way that no other writer I know does.

I love Charles de Lint’s work and I think he knows secret things the rest of us only suspect exist.

TC: Earlier this year, Stephen King wrote about first lines for The Atlantic. Do you have a favorite opening line from any of your books or stories? How much thought do you put into those first words your reader will see? Are there any opening lines by other authors that you admire?

TH: Sitting here, without getting up and checking, I have no memory of what any of my first lines are. And I just sent my latest book of three days ago. This is not to say I don’t work at getting the first lines right, but once they’re written they’re part of the story and while I remember the story, I don’t remember the words that make it up.

So, let’s take a look at a few…

The Future Falls: 3rd Gale girl book, just turned in… She lay stretched out under a beach umbrella, long silver braid coiled on top of her head, the fingers of one hand wrapped around a Pina Colada—made with real island rum and fresh coconut milk—the fingers of the other drumming against the broad teak arm of the lounge chair. Hmmm, really needs the next line to make it work. She’d been watching a beach volleyball game and she hadn’t appreciated having her view of half naked, athletic young men bounding about on the sand interrupted by the Sight of a falling rock.

We’ve set up the Gale’s appreciation of handsome young men, given enough information that readers of the first two books can identify the character but—hopefully—intrigued new readers, and set up the entire A plot. Not too bad.

The SilveredThe Silvered: 2012’s hardcover release… Senses nearly overpowered by the scent of sweat and gunpowder and cheap pipe tobacco, Tomas followed his nose through the 1st Aydori Volunteers, searching for his greatcoat. Okay, that introduces a main character, lets you know he’s probably not human, sets the tech level as post-gunpowder, and suggests there’s going to be a military element. Decent set up.

Blood Price: 1991, the first of the Vicki Nelson/Henry Fitzroy books… Ian shoved his hands deep in his pockets and scowled down the length of the empty subway platform. Well, that pretty much establishes something’s definitely going to happen and that we probably shouldn’t get too attached to Ian given the lack of information about him.

Now, my absolute favorite line in any book ever is from The Voyage of the Dawn Treader by C. S. Lewis: There was a boy called Eustace Clarence Scrubb, and he almost deserved it. Although honesty forces me to admit that I remember it as: Once there was a boy called Eustace Clarence Scrubb…

TC: What was your favorite book as a child or teen (or both, if you like…)?

TH: As a child, I lived in the Narnia books. I’ve been trying to get through that wardrobe since I was seven. As a teen it was Andre Norton and Anne McCaffrey and Zenna Henderson and Robert Heinlein topping the list, but I read everything I could get my hands on so it was harder to have a favorite. Although, I did stand in line for two hours to have Anne McCaffrey sign Dragon Singer so…

TC: Earlier this year on your blog, you discussed an issue with some staffers at a bookstore chain warning readers away from your books due to LGBT content. Was it resolved to your satisfaction? Had you experienced any similar problems previously?

TH: Once I mentioned it in the blog, I was contacted by people from the chain who took it completely seriously and assured me this was an individual not a company policy and it was dealt with. I was impressed by their response and, as I said at the time, well aware that in other stores in the same chain my books have likely been recommended because of their LGBT content.

I’ve never, to my knowledge, had a previous problem with that sort of thing. My editor has never wanted me to change a character’s orientation. The Smoke books, which have a gay protagonist, did have an interesting drop in numbers from book one to book two, but that could have been because of the realization they weren’t continuations of the Blood books not because the gay was front and center instead of safely in the background. I do have to say though, people who love the Smoke books, really love the Smoke books.

TC: Can you tell us anything about any new projects that you’re working on?

The Enchantment EmporiumTH: As I mentioned earlier, I’ve just handed in The Future Falls, the third Gale Girls book (after The Enchantment Emporium and The Wild Ways). It tried to kill me—never write a book based on a clever idea you and your editor kicked around during a phone call. Or maybe you can. I need a little more mulling it over time. I’m now about to start on a new Torin Kerr book. I can’t call it a new Valor book because if you’ve read Truth of Valor you know there’s been some changes but I’m really looking forward to getting back into that ‘verse.

TC: Finally, any words of wisdom for our readers?

TH: Tell the stories you have to tell. Write a book, write a story, write a poem, write a song, bake cupcakes, bake cookies, bake pie, build a house, dance, sew, paint, draw, rebuild a car, garden, knit, quilt, carve, program a computer, raise a child, make a home, sit around a campfire and start with, “Once upon a time…”

It’s not how the story is told, it’s the telling.

Catch up with Tanya Huff online:
Tanya Huff’s LiveJournal
Tanya Huff’s Twitter

Final Poll Results

Opening Lines

Posted on by

A Pen In Each Hand

By Billiard

In October’s AB article, Tanya Huff takes a look at a few of her opening lines. Taking a cue from Tanya, choose a few of your works-in-progress and look at the first (or first couple) lines. Imagine you’re a reader who has just picked up this book or story and is deciding whether to keep reading. What information does that first line convey? Does it tell that potential reader enough for them to be drawn further into the story? After reading just the first line, what kind of a story do you think a reader will expect?

Alternatively (or in addition), choose a few of your favorite books and analyze their opening lines. You might want to choose a few from the same author or the same genre. How compelling are these opening lines? What kind of information do these first lines convey? How good a job do they do of introducing their respective stories?

We’re NOT Bored: Interview with Debbie Ridpath Ohi

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Absolute Blank

By Erin Bellavia (Billiard)

Debbie Ridpath Ohi with I'm Bored book

Debbie Ridpath Ohi is a Toronto-based writer and illustrator. Her illustrations appear in I’m Bored, a picture book written by Michael Ian Black that’s being published by Simon and Schuster this fall. I’m Bored recently received a starred review from Publisher’s Weekly. Debbie also has an illustrated short story included in TOMO, a Japan teen fiction anthology (Stone Bridge Press, March 2012) whose proceeds will benefit young people affected by the 2011 Great East Japan Earthquake.

Author of The Writer’s Online Marketplace (Writer’s Digest Books, 2001), Debbie’s nonfiction, fiction and poetry has also appeared in numerous print and online venues including Magic Tails (co-written short story with Michelle Sagara West, DAW Books 2005), Cottage Life, Applied Arts, Harp Column, Writer’s Digest and others.

Debbie was the creator and editor of Inkspot and Inklings, one of the very first websites and electronic newsletters for writers.

Debbie’s current projects include her own picture books, a teen novel that was nominated for the 2011 Sue Alexander Award, a compilation of her comics for writers, and a nonfiction book about board gaming.

As if that wasn’t enough, Debbie is also a talented musician and songwriter. In her spare time, she writes songs for and performs with Urban Tapestry, a filk music trio. (What’s filk? Click here.) Their songs have aired on national radio and are available on CD and in digital format.

We here at Toasted Cheese were very excited to talk to Debbie about her writing, illustrating, and experiences in the publishing industry.

Toasted Cheese: When did you first know that you wanted to be a writer?

Debbie Ridpath Ohi: I always wanted to be a writer. I wrote my first chapter book when I was in second grade. It had illustrations and was written in pencil, and I was so very proud of the fact that I used the word “horrendous,” which I had carefully looked up in Roget’s thesaurus before including it in my story. Unfortunately, I misspelled it, so the teacher wasn’t nearly as impressed as I had hoped she would be.

TC: How did you make the decision to take the leap from having a regular full-time job into freelance writing?

Life in a Nutshell: I'm Bored Process

DRO: With the help of my husband. Jeff was my boyfriend back then, when I was a programmer/analyst at the head office of a big Canadian bank. I used to wake up around 5 AM every morning, get dressed up in my business suit and head to the office, briefcase in hand. As time passed, I would stay longer and longer at the office. Then I began working weekends.

I loved programming, but I felt like I was working on a very small cog of a huge machine (in terms of our programming projects) … a stark contrast to the creativity involved in programming assignments in school. I also wasn’t used to all the corporate bureaucracy, with intimidating stacks of forms and memos and meetings involved in what seemed like every small decision.

Anyway, Jeff was full witness to my gradual progression from optimistic enthusiasm to frustration to misery. One day, he offered to support me so I could find a happier path.

After some intense discussions with Jeff, I resigned from my position and embraced the freelance life.

In addition to freelance writing, I also earned money in a number of different jobs along the way, including working in a public library and in a children’s bookstore.

TC: Your writing career began in nonfiction. Was it difficult to transition into writing fiction?

DRO: My first writing sale was actually in fiction: a short story for Hobnob magazine (now defunct). I was paid US$10 and won their Reader’s Choice Award; I never cashed the cheque because I wanted to keep it.

I’ve always been writing fiction, though I haven’t yet sold any novels. But I will! 🙂

TC: You obviously keep very busy. What tips do you have for managing time effectively and finding balance in your life?

DRO: Hoo boy, I could write a whole book on this topic. Someday, that is, since I haven’t yet completely succeeded in the life balance part.

My main piece of advice, though, is this: Be conscious about how you spend your time. Don’t just be a passive participant, letting other people and external circumstances dictate how you live your life. Learn how to say no.

TC: When did you start working as an illustrator? How did that begin?

I'm Bored DRO: I’ve been doodling for ages, and from time to time people would pay me to do small one-off projects, like a birthday or housewarming card. After joining Flickr, I began posting some of my doodles and drawings that I did purely for the fun of it. Sometimes people who liked the art I posted would contact me for small custom projects. I also had a few online comics going, some of which attracted a lot of readers. My Waiting For Frodo comic, for example, even had fans at Weta Digital!

However, my career in children’s book illustration didn’t start until the summer of 2010, when my friend Beckett Gladney convinced me to enter the SCBWI Summer Conference Illustration Portfolio Showcase. I was thrilled to win one of the SCBWI Illustration Mentorship Program awards, and learned so much from my mentors as well as my fellow mentees (see our blog). But that’s not all…

One of the judges was Justin Chanda, who is the publisher of three flagship imprints at Simon & Schuster: S&S Books For Young Readers, Atheneum, and McElderry Books. When he saw my illustrations, he immediately thought I’d be the right illustrator for Michael Ian Black’s I’m Bored (yay!).

You can read the full story here.

TC: What was it like collaborating on a picture book? What can you tell us about that process?

DRO: Working with Justin Chanda and Laurent Linn on I’m Bored was amaaaazing. Justin was editor on the project, and Laurent was my art director. I learned so much during the process, not just about illustration but also storytelling.

As a newbie illustrator, I had expected to be told pretty much exactly what I was supposed to draw, and have little input. Instead, Justin and Laurent were interested in my input throughout, and strongly encouraged me to be creative as I interpreted Michael Ian Black’s wonderful story.

I loved the back-and-forth in the discussions we had in person and on the phone. I was incredibly nervous at that first meeting but I remember that after only a few minutes, I was drawn into the conversation so deeply that I forgot about feeling self-conscious and focused instead on the book, and what we could do to make the book as strong as possible.

And as I write that, I realized that this was one of the turning points for me in the collaboration process: when I began to think in terms of what everyone was doing rather than only my part.

You can read my blog posts about collaboration and other aspects of working with Simon & Schuster Books For Young Readers here.

TC: You are obviously incredibly successful at using the internet/social media to market yourself and connect with other writers. Do you have any advice for our readers about using the internet as a tool in this way?

DRO: Thank you for the kind words about my social media skills. I’ve worked hard at them and made many mistakes along the way.

My main piece of advice for writers wanting to use social media and the Internet to market themselves and connect with other writers:

If most of your posts have to do with self-promotion or trying to sell something, it’s unlikely you’ll attract many new readers.

Instead, offer something to people they can’t easily get elsewhere, that makes them want to come back. Once they feel they know you, then (and not before) they will be more likely to be interested in your projects.

In my opinion, the value of social media is much more about making connections with other people than in self-promotion.

TC: Who are some authors/illustrators you admire? Who would you say has influenced you?

DRO: My biggest influence and author/illustrator I admire the most: my sister, Ruth Ohi.

Watching my sister work over the years on over 50 children’s picture books, I have learned a great deal about the craft and business. She has also inspired me with her focus and productivity, especially how she managed her work time when her children were very young.

Ruth continues to support and encourage me. There were times during I’m Bored when I got discouraged about my illustrations (“OH MY GOD I SUCK WHAT IF THEY HATE WHAT I’M DOING AND FIRE ME” etc.); my sister talked me off the ledge. 🙂

Thank you, Sis!

TC: Do you have a favorite project, past or current, so far?

DRO: I’m Bored.

I had so much fun working on this. I am totally serious.

I also learned a ton about the craft and business of making a picture book.

TC: Earlier this year, you announced that you signed two book contracts with Simon & Schuster; one to illustrate another picture book, and another to write and illustrate a picture book of your own. Can you give us any update on those projects?

DRO: I’m in the very early stages of creating the picture book that I am writing and illustrating with Simon & Schuster Books For Young Readers. So far, I have had two phone meetings with my editor, Justin Chanda. I would say that right now I’m working on the pre-pre-1st draft. 🙂

As for the other picture book, Simon & Schuster is still looking for the right project for me to illustrate. Fingers crossed!

I’m blogging about the process of creating picture books with Simon & Schuster, for those interested.
Toasted Cheese comic

Debbie Ridpath Ohi writes and illustrates for young people. She is the illustrator of I’M BORED by Michael Ian Black (Simon & Schuster Books For Young Readers, Sept/2012) and her work also appears in the teen fiction anthology, TOMO (Stone Bridge Press, Mar/2012). Represented by Ginger Knowlton, Curtis Brown Ltd. URL: DebbieOhi.com. Twitter: @inkyelbows.

I'm BoredFor longer bios, see: Press Bios: Debbie Ridpath Ohi

WHERE YOU CAN FIND DEBBIE:

About I’M BORED:
Author: Michael Ian Black
Illustrator: Debbie Ridpath Ohi
Publisher: Simon & Schuster Books For Young Readers
Ages: 3-8
ISBN 978-1-4424-1403-7

Final Poll Results

Writing for Young Readers

Posted on by

A Pen In Each Hand

By Billiard

Write a story suited for young readers. If you draw, try some illustrations too. If picture books aren’t your style, try something for a middle-grade or YA audience.

Haven’t got a great idea for a book for young readers? That’s okay—start with some brainstorming. Jot down some ideas for things you think might be interesting. If you have (or know any) kids, talk to them about what they like. Or maybe think about things that interested you when you were young. Make a list, then do some freewriting to get the creative juices flowing!

Agents to Zombies: Author Mira Grant from A-Z

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Absolute Blank

By Erin Bellavia (Billiard)

Mira Grant is the author of the Newsflesh Trilogy—a story of a post-zombie-apocalypse America that, among other things, explores the effects of “The Rising” (the moment that people started rising from the dead in search of tasty, tasty brains) on politics and media. Deadline, the second book in the trilogy, will be released on May 31.

As Seanan McGuire, she has published four books in the October Daye urban fantasy series. Seanan was the winner of the 2010 John W. Campbell Award for Best New Writer, and her novel Feed (the first book of the Newsflesh Trilogy) was named as one of Publishers Weekly’s Best Books of 2010.

I interviewed Mira using the the A-Z interview, the brainchild of my husband, Rand Bellavia. Here is his explanation of how it works: “The structure of these interviews is simple: I email the interviewee 26 words/phrases, each beginning with a different letter of the English alphabet. Then it’s up to them. The interviewee is free to respond to each item as completely or as curtly as they wish.”

So I made my list, sent it off to Mira, and watched her go.

A is for Agent

I probably tell the story of how I hooked up with my agent a little more often than is strictly necessary, partially because I’m still a little amazed that I have her, and partially because she’s so perfect for me, and I sort of want to say, “See? You can get the right agent for you, if you keep looking, and don’t settle for someone who can’t handle your particular variety of crazy.” She’s my personal superhero. She rooms with me at conventions and doesn’t kill me when I leave my laptop slide show running all night. She understands my passion for My Little Ponies, the color orange, and Monster High dolls. Basically, she proves that sometimes when you’re very, very good, the Great Pumpkin gives you what you ask for.

B is for Buffy

“Buffy the Vampire Slayer wasn’t my first fandom—that dubious honor goes to either Doctor Who or My Little Pony, depending on how you want to measure things—but it was the fandom that saw me through my teenage years and into my twenties. It was the fandom I grew up during, and that means that it will always, always be precious to me, no matter how much I may sometimes want to shake the show until its metaphorical teeth rattle. Buffy changed the game. It really did. For better or for worse, the landscape we’re playing in today, as authors and as readers and as people who enjoy this genre… it’s not the landscape we had before Buffy came along. My favorite characters are Anya and Faith; I am a shameless line-quoter and soundtrack singer; and I once flew to New Jersey just to sing Buffy Summers in a cabaret performance of “Once More With Feeling.” So yeah, this show kinda means a lot to me.

C is for Candy Corn

I took an experimental psych class in college. And one of the assignments was to basically self-condition. To create a passion or a phobia centering on something small, so that we could see how malleable the human brain really is. I chose candy corn, which I’d always been fairly neutral about, and spent three weeks convincing myself that it was the best! Thing!! EVER!!! It worked, maybe a little too well, since I remain passionately fond of the stuff… but only when it’s fresh. Fresh candy corn is the ambrosia of the gods. Stale candy corn is a punishment upon the wicked. People who say that they’ve just been re-selling the same three hundred pounds since candy corn was invented (you know who you are) have clearly never had the fresh stuff.

Oh, and here’s a fun candy corn fact for you: did you know that it’s seasonal not because of any specific ingredients, but because the original process of making it was so involved that it took weeks, and required that the molds be sufficiently cool to set? So they couldn’t make it in the middle of the summer, even if they wanted to. The candy wouldn’t harden properly.

D is for Dialogue

Writing dialogue is so much easier now that everyone has a cell phone. I just hold it up to my ear while I argue with myself, and everyone assumes that there’s another person on the other end, rather than it being just me, solo, running “lines” to make sure that everything sounds natural. It makes a nice change from the days where people would assume that I was crazy and cross the street to get away from me.

E is for Elvis

I loved Lilo and Stitch. Did you love Lilo and Stitch? Great movie. It was the last movie I saw with my grandmother before she died. This exhausts my knowledge of Elvis and his ways. Elvira, I can talk about for days. Elvis, not so much.

F is for Feed

This is what the cats want me to do for them.

More seriously, when I started writing Feed, it was a standalone novel called Newsflesh, and it was pretty much an accident. I sat down one day, and fifty pages of zombie science fiction adventure just fell out of me. I could tell just by looking at it that the rest wasn’t going to be nearly that simple… and that I wanted to find out just how hard it could be. It turned out to be harder, and easier, and more rewarding than I had ever dared to dream that it might be. I mean, everyone wants to write the book that moves them to tears, right? With Feed, I actually got to do that. Parts of it still make me cry, and I’ve read them and lived with them and agonized over them longer than anybody else.

G is for George Romero

The father of the modern zombie. I hope he’s proud of what he’s managed to do, and not just faintly puzzled and appalled.

H is for Habits

I am a creature of habit. Sometimes this is a good thing, like when my rigid adherence to word counts means I don’t miss my deadlines. Sometimes this is a bad thing, like when my rigid adherence to the to-do list causes me to neglect the twenty new things that have cropped up over the course of an evening. I have a planner that basically contains my entire brain, because without it, the bad habits would overwhelm the good, and I’d wind up sitting in my back room watching carefully hoarded episodes of So You Think You Can Dance? and iCarly for the rest of time, rather than actually finishing any of the books that I currently have approaching due.

I is for Influences

My influences are many and varied and faintly insane. I mean, you’ve got the literary, like Stephen King and Shakespeare and Tanya Huff and Diane Duane. But you’ve also got Wes Craven and Chris Claremont and everyone who wrote for Warren Comics during the Creepy and Eerie era, and the writers for the old 1980s horror television, like Monsters and Tales from the Darkside. Peter S. Beagle, Walt Disney, the Brothers Grimm, Sir Child, whoever wrote the scripts for the My Little Pony cartoons, the Counting Crows, Amethyst: Princess of Gemworld, Joss Whedon and Stan Lee… I’m like a weird human magpie that just sort of grabs things, mashes them together, and then attacks them with cookie cutters until they start looking like the literary equivalent of food. I’ve give up trying to make any sort of sense of them. You should probably do the same.

J is for James Gunn

He needs to call me.

K is for King, Stephen

The only two authors I wasn’t allowed to read when I was a kid were Stephen King and Robert Heinlein—Heinlein because Mom had heard that he was dirty, and King because she’d heard that he was scary. Naturally, I became obsessed with reading them, and managed to sneak a few of their books. I got a good King for my age—Cujo—and a bad Heinlein; I don’t even remember what it was. I decided that I had to be allowed to read Stephen King or I would actually die. I started to pester my mother, and believe me, I was a Grade-A pesterer when I wanted to be. I cajoled, I whined, I begged, and when all that failed, I wrote a twelve-page essay explaining why, after reading Lovecraft and Poe and Barker, King really wasn’t that big of a deal. Mom finally gave in, probably to avoid more footnotes. I was nine. Stephen King has been my favorite author ever since. I read him when I want to be comforted by the way he uses words. I recently reread IT for the first time in over a year, and it’s amazing how good that was for my mental stability.

L is for Lycanthropy

I am, like, the queen of accidentally stumbling over new projects when I’m not looking for them. One of those projects is a series of young adult novels about a teenage werecoyote named Clady Porter, who likes to watch horror movies, but never wanted to actually live in one. The first book is called Lycanthropy and Other Personal Issues, and it’s about her first year in the lycanthrope world. She’s probably one of the heroines I have the most sheer fun writing, because she’s a lot like I was in high school. Plus, you know, periodically shape-shifting into a predatory canine and eating the neighbor’s poodle. I really hope I get to publish these someday. I want to spend a lot more time with Clady.

M is for Music

Music is a hugely important part of my life, both creating it and listening to it. My favorite “retail therapy” involves crawling for hours and hours through the used CD racks at my local Rasputin Records. I even love the recording process. When I’m really stressed out, I start work on a new album. It’s very immediate and visceral for me, in a way that writing isn’t. You finish your part of a song, step back, and wait to see what the next person is going to do. It’s an amazing process. I’ve been listening to a lot of country recently, for reasons that are unknown even to me, and the new Christian Kane album is essentially auditory perfection.

N is for Nextwave

I randomly quote Tabitha Smith in conversation with people who do not even read comics. I have no shame over this fact. Tick tick tick boom.

O is for October Daye

Toby is my imaginary friend. Rosemary and Rue was the first book I really finished, and the process of writing it is what taught me how to write—it’s what taught me that I could write, that there was no length so impossible to overcome that it meant I should just throw my hands up and admit defeat. I’ve lived with Toby for literally over a decade. I know her so well I could never put all the little details into a book. And that’s why she’s so real to me. It can make reviews a little uncomfortable sometimes, because not everyone likes her, and it’s sort of “Oh, yeah? Well, I don’t like your talking banana!” Yes, my brain is a little odd at times.

P is for Poetry

There’s this old poetry exercise, where you ask for three words and then you use them to write a poem. For several years, I was doing a modified version of this exercise, called Iron Poet, where I would take three words and an optional poetic style from anyone who wanted to play, and I would write them a poem. I got some really good pieces out of that game. I also got some total crap. I miss having the time to play Iron Poet. I hope I can do it again someday.

Q is for Quidditch

The scoring system of this game makes absolutely no sense, and I’ve played Dragon Poker.

R is for Research

Research is like ice cream. There is no such thing as too much, and if you try to swallow it all at once, you’re probably going to give yourself a stomachache. Learning good research habits is almost as important to a writer’s career as learning good editing habits. Probably a little less painful, too.

S is for Seanan McGuire

Seanan is my good twin, which means she gets to wear fluffy orange and pink dresses and prance around declaring herself the Princess of Halloweentown, while I have to spend all my time bribing the monster under the bed to not eat the cats. Whatever. Who wants to be a stupid ol’ princess, anyway? I just wish she’d share the tiaras…

T is for Twilight

There’s this big hill near my house, covered in trees and scrub grass and little winding dog trails, and the absolute best time to climb it is when the sun’s going down, because the grass turns this sort of dusty gold, and the crows are all crying to each other, and the eagles come home to roost, and sometimes you’ll even see a coyote. Man, twilight on that hill is just plain magical.

U is for Unilateral nuclear disarmament

If we can take the toys away from absolutely everybody, I’m all for it. If we can’t, then I have no idea, and will let people who studied this sort of thing in college deal with it. I studied fairy tales. Ask me about unilateral magic lamp disarmament, and I’m there.

V is for Veronica Mars

Veronica Mars was one of the best things on television. There were a few bad episodes, and the show as a whole never found a mystery to rival the question of who killed Lily Kane, but it was an incredible ensemble, the writing was amazing, and I still miss it. Veronica + Logan forever, yo.

W is for the West Wing

When I started really working on Feed, I watched all seven seasons of The West Wing in like, three months. I was doing almost a full season a week. It was a hugely intense experience, and I will love this show forever. No one does political dialog like Aaron Sorkin when he’s bringing his ‘A’ game.

X is for X-Men

Someday, I am going to write for the X-Men. And on that day, I will have fulfilled every goal I set for myself when I was eight years old, and I will finally be able to return to my home dimension. Also, Emma Frost is totally the perfect woman for Scott Summers.

Y is for YA

I love love love what’s going on in young adult literature right now. There’s so much story, and so much risk, because it’s basically this wide-open field where no one says “you can’t do that, it’s a cliche” or “you shouldn’t do that, you’ll never do it as well as so-and-so did.” You know what? Who cares. We’re doing it. And so everything is amped-up and awesome and totally exciting, and it’s just incredible. I want to be writing YA so bad. I’m going to be writing YA eventually, just as soon as we can find the right excuse to set me loose on a whole new series. And it’s going to be awesome.

Z is for Zombies

Zombies are love.

Seanan’s LiveJournal
Seanan’s Twitter
Mira’s Twitter

Final Poll Results

I is for Influences

Posted on by

A Pen In Each Hand

By Billiard

Mira Grant says:

My influences are many and varied and faintly insane. I mean, you’ve got the literary, like Stephen King and Shakespeare and Tanya Huff and Diane Duane. But you’ve also got Wes Craven and Chris Claremont and everyone who wrote for Warren Comics during the Creepy and Eerie era, and the writers for the old 1980s horror television, like Monsters and Tales from the Darkside. Peter S. Beagle, Walt Disney, the Brothers Grimm, Sir Child, whoever wrote the scripts for the My Little Pony cartoons, the Counting Crows, Amethyst: Princess of Gemworld, Joss Whedon and Stan Lee… I’m like a weird human magpie that just sort of grabs things, mashes them together, and then attacks them with cookie cutters until they start looking like the literary equivalent of food.

Taking a cue from Mira, this month’s exercise is to look beyond the literary for your cultural influences. Think about your past and present favorite movies, TV shows, music, etc. Pick out a few of the recurring elements (the more disparate the better!), mash them together, and try using the mash-up as the core of your next project.