find the hidden ike reilly quote

It is here.

So, as I've been promising, I did this video about Young Adult Fiction about boys, written for boys and by boys... with a bunch of other kind of interrelated stuff thrown in (kind of like special effects for a crappy movie).

And here we are, February 7, the day the video was scheduled to be broadcast.

But it is not uploaded yet.

I'm sure of two things: One, that it will be uploaded sometime today, and, Two, that this (being that it's Monday and all -- and I am just that superstitious) is a telling indication of what the rest of the week is going to be like for me.

Oh. And I am now, officially, in big trouble for running my Young Writers' Group. God knows, nobody should ever do something like encourage kids to write.

And finally, a kind of cosmic, synchronous, coincidence happened. I don't exactly know how to say this -- I will try -- without making some people outraged, offended, and mad at me. That is not my intent.

You can usually tell when I'm trying to piss people off (like yesterday, for example).

And I really do, truly, like and respect the people involved in this thing I'm going to talk about here, too. But, here goes.

Over the last couple days, and continuing through tomorrow, I think, there is a kind of online forum (live) taking place. It's being hyped as a kind of "Ask a YA Author" type thing. And there are 19 authors taking place, to offer their wisdom and input to people who want to ask YA authors anything.

And there are 19 authors participating.

And every one of them is a woman.

Is there something wrong with that?

No.

Do you want me to say it again?

There is nothing wrong with that.

But... there are young people of the male persuasion who happen to dream of one day being a writer (some of them want to write YA, too). There are also adult guys who are working at becoming YA authors.

A hell of a lot of them, in fact.

And the bottom line is that what guys go through, how they have to balance their lives (whether it's dealing with an asshole football coach, their jobs, their spouses and families) is an entirely different set of experiences than what women usually encounter. Everything is different for guys who write -- especially the things they write about, their voice, and the way they connect with audience (which is what this author crap is all about).

I don't know. I just hate seeing stuff like this. I know it's not intentionally condescending and exclusionary. But sometimes the unintentional stuff makes a louder statement than the all-caps "NO BOYS ALLOWED" sign on the lawn of the country club.

Bottom line: YA means both genders.

Or, you should just call it YCL.

That is all.

Where's my goddamned medicine?

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VIDEO UPDATE: The film has been fixed. Look for it on tomorrow's post. Cheers.

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the jack of clubs

So you want to be a writer.

Before you start writing anything, you need to have a website. With a really cool nameplate. And a logo.

You need to have your own logo, or nobody will ever take you or anything you ever write seriously.

Once you have a logo and a website, you should probably get a sidekick.

You don't need to begin the writing process unless you have a sidekick.

Your sidekick could be human, but most people will find it more endearing if your sidekick is a dog or a cat. Your dog would curl up around your feet while you gaze at your website and logo, and your cat would do something adorable like put its paws on your keyboard, which is a definite YouTube moment.

If your sidekick is something low-maintenance and inanimate, like, say, the Jack of Clubs or a cigar box stuffed with newspaper clippings about beheadings, people might think you're insane.

Well, actually, my cigar box ran out of room, so I'm looking for a new sidekick.

Okay.

If you have a website, logo, and sidekick, you're on your way to an exciting life as a writer.

But you're still not ready yet.

You need "issues."

Drug dependency is so played out. So is alcoholism. It's okay to have a family that hates you because you live on the couch, you're nearing middle age, and all you have is a website, a logo, and a mysterious cigar box, but you can do better than that.

Bedwetting.

Okay. So, you've got a website, a logo, a sidekick, videos of your cat on YouTube, you still live with your mom and you're thirty-five years old, and you pee in the bed (or couch) nightly.

Sounds like you're almost ready to start writing.

There's just one more thing...

I always forget that one thing...

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lifeguard -- the magical quote roulette

Okay. Well, the discussions the last couple of days have been really great. I do have the best people commenting on this blog lately.

But I'm only going to say one preparatory comment about the upcoming video on Monday. It has to do with book covers and studies that show why boys choose to read what they read. My filmmaker friend, David, asked me yesterday, oh, did you see blogger XX's post?

Me: No.

Because I thought you must have tipped her off about what you said about YA book covers. It seems like every one she showed was exactly what you described.

Me: I didn't tip her off at all. That's just how it is on any YA book blog.

Oh.

So, that's it.

It's Saturday. I have a lot of work to do. So I thought I'd just play the game called Magical Quote Roulette (which I just made up because I didn't know what I wanted to blog about today).

Here's how it goes: I wrote four THINGS in the past year. I'm not saying what they are, but they're long and have lots of things called "words" in them. I'm going to randomly select a passage from each one and paste them below, which makes you an advance reader before advance readers get to read them.

Here you go. Spin the wheel:

1.
You cuss like that regular?

When I’m choking I do

You done run all the way from Oconee School, and ain’t got nothing but a gun

Maybe

And pissed-in britches


2.
She walked on my left side, never said anything about that habit. We headed north, away from the pier, the black, sawtoothed water of the Puget Sound pushing me toward her whenever I had to escape the occasional wash of the sea.

3.
And with just one glance, I thought I had him sized up pretty good. He stood there, sucking in his stomach with his hands on his hips. He was one of those edgy grownups who’d played football in high school and bragged to his friends about how he goes to the gym every morning, and he probably did part-time coaching for a youth program just so he could yell at kids and tell them what pieces of shit they were.

You see guys like that everywhere in California.

I kept my head down.

The walk seemed to take forever.

How far away did I park my goddamned truck?

But I knew he was going to say something to me.

“How’s it going?”

I stopped.

Shit.


4.
I said a silent prayer.

Actually, silent is probably the only type of prayer a guy should attempt when his head’s in a toilet.

And, in my prayer, I made sure to include specific thanks for the fact that the school year hadn’t started yet; so the porcelain was impeccably white – as soothing to the eye as freshly fallen snow – and the water smelled like lemons and a heated swimming pool in summertime, all rolled into one.

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in which i decry drug use

So yesterday we filmed the majority of my upcoming video post about Boys and YA.

Save me, oh gods of film editing.

Actually, it went pretty well because the cameraman listened to me whenever I said cut.

Anyway, the film will be uploaded and linked here on Monday, February 7.

As I mentioned a week or so ago, this came about after I posted a response to a YA book blogger's video plea for "Warning Labels" on Young Adult literature. I didn't actually nail down a definitive answer as to how I feel about that (which is oh-so douchebaggy of me), because as an author as well as a parent of two teens of diverse genders, I can empathize with the easy-way-out attraction of warning labels, even if my kids choose to read whatever they want for themselves.

And I'm totally okay with that.

So, I thought the whole video-exchange thing was cool, and suggested we do something similar on the topic of boy-oriented YA that is written by guys (which most so-called YA bloggers either do not read, or they don't know exists).

And that's the gist of the origin of the upcoming video, in which I discuss certain things I would prefer to erase from the universe (and if you've been a reader of this blog for any time, you can probably guess them). And I call out President Obama, too, for just flat out getting it wrong on something I feel very strongly about (even though I love President Obama -- as is clearly demonstrated by my offer to him in the video Hint: it involves going out and getting tattooed together -- squee!!!).

I thoroughly hate myself.

About a year ago, I wrote a series of posts I called the why chromosome, about why we seem to have collectively bought into this absolute lie that boys do not like to read, they suck at reading, that reading is a feminine pursuit, and that boys can't write, either. So I introduce some stats from a couple of the academic studies about boys and literacy that I cited in those posts.

Sometimes I am convinced there is an anti-male brainwashing agenda taking place while we sit and do nothing. Every day, they shove down our throats their mantra, a myth about the XY crew which they base on the following intertwined diagnoses:

1. When we're young, we boys can neither read nor write, and...

2. When we get older, we require prescription medications to make our penises function properly.

Double-you.

Tee.

Eff.

Who the fuck believes this shit?

I don't know what universe the insane assholes behind all that crap came from.

Hmmm... maybe I really am an alien, but, holy shit... pass me my book and keep your damned drugs away from my penis.

In any event, I wrap up the video by naming a selection of very-recent works of Young Adult fiction written by guys, aimed at issues that are essentially boy-oriented, and targeted to all kinds of different boy readers.

What could be better than shit like that?

Gets real.

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me and the kids

One of the few things that I really, truly look forward to every week is sitting down and listening to the Young Writers' Group I coach every Wednesday afternoon.

On Twitter, they have a thing called #WriterWednesday, where people list the writers they follow, or something like that, but the real Writer Wednesday is here with these kids.

They are simultaneously funny, smart, way more observant than I am, and they treat each other with respect and kindness. They really help each other to develop their skills as writers, and especially to cultivate a level of comfort with creativity and feedback (which is something I'll be talking about on the upcoming Boys and YA video next week).

So, yesterday the topic of character names came up. One of the boys mentioned how he'd changed the name of a character in his project because he knew a girl with the same name, and it felt like the character name came with all this real-world baggage.

I remember how I used to worry about stuff like that, too. A long time ago.

Maybe that's why so many people want to write fantasy: you get to make up totally bizarre names that you'd never hear in the real world.

I explained that the bottom line is you'll never be able to write for any length of time and NOT have a character name that isn't attached in some way to a real flesh-and-bone person that you've known in your life.

Unless you're a hermit.

Which I'd really like to be.

The catch is to not have characters that ARE real people (or, to make them just different enough that only you will know for sure who they are).

My bad guys in my books... they all are really people that I knew.

That's right, assholes.

Come and get me.

Other than that, there are so many characters in my books whose names I've "borrowed" from people I know that it would be pointless to list them all. In fact, sometimes, I'll write a scene, give a character a name that just doesn't sound right to me, then I'll change it to the name of one of the first people I talk to that day.

That happens in my writing process a lot of times.

I know people who use baby name books or websites for their character names, and I'm sure that works. But most of my real-world names have come from the real-world people I talk to every day.

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buried in ice

Among the many good things I can think of when it comes to February is that spring begins next month.

Along with that, there are a couple of really cool events coming up toward the end of the month.

On Saturday, February 26, I will be speaking at and attending the SCIBA (Southern California Independent Booksellers Association) Children's Literacy Dinner at the Westin in Pasadena. This is one of my favorite book events, because it's really relaxed and comfortable, you get a lot of books, and there are some very cool authors present for speaking and signing.

You should go.

This year's event features Cecil Castellucci as emcee, and along with myself as one of the speakers, there will be authors Judy Blundell, Brandon Mull, and Dr. Cuthbert Soup.

Afterward, I will be signing copies of The Marbury Lens.

I'll be speaking about my upcoming novel, Stick, which will be published by Feiwel and Friends in fall 2011. I don't think there will be any ARCs available until next month, and I have no idea what the final cover design looks like, either.

But I will be showing the live-action trailer produced for the novel for the first time anywhere. After the event, the trailer will be viewable on a number of websites (I'll provide links here).

The following morning, I'll be heading out to Chino, California, for the Family Festival of Books. The event is located at Brinderson Hall in the Chino Fairgrounds. I'll be meeting readers and signing my books at 12:00 noon.

You should go there, too.

I hope to see lots of you at one or both of these February happenings.

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yes this is a fine promotion

So, more about this whole Boys and YA thing I started talking about yesterday.

I was really surprised by the comments received. I thought that people would, like, not care, or get pissed off and insist I'm insane and out-of-touch for even bringing the issue up.

Which I may be.

Again, thank you all for contributing to this discussion.

My video about Boys and YA will be broadcast next week, beginning on February 7, and it will only briefly touch on some of the things I mentioned yesterday. Most of it is going to be different, and for fans of empirical data-based findings, I will offer some of that as well.

Along with an actual animation sequence hand-drawn by me (one simply must showcase one's diverse talents when one is unemployed).

Yes. Exciting.

Or something.

So, I've had this bit of a writer's quandary in the past couple weeks, and I've heard very differing responses about it from my friends. I don't see any reason not to tell the story here.

After all, what's the worst thing that could happen to me that doesn't already happen on a daily basis?

So, I was contracted to write this short story for a YA anthology that's going to come out in 2012. I was excited to say yes to the offer, especially because there are some really huge authors on the list of contributors.

Well, I mean, they're actually mostly regular-sized people.

Well, Michael Grant does have really big feet.

Anyway, so I wrote this story that fit the bill on the contract (but, of course, it was weird and kind of twisted), called Once there were Birds, and then, I was, like, damn. This is too good to be a short story buried in a forest of huge people (okay, some of them are kind of chubby), so I decided not to end it at the required short-story cutoff length and turn it into a novel.

And give the book a different short story of mine.

Does that make me a bad unemployed person?

Well, I'm actually good at being unemployed, but, I mean, is there anything ethically wrong with not selling that work as a shortie?

I started the thing maybe a year ago, but stopped when I got involved in writing a different novel. So I pulled up the file when I decided to agree to sub the story for the book. And, after looking through it, tweaking a few things, I thought there was no way I was going to feel good about wrapping it up and packing it off in 10,000 words.

10,000 words is about 1/8 or so of a novel (short novel for me... for some people it could be about 1/5). Anyway, it was hard to just give this thing up at that point, and I figure I can always write a bang-up short story for the book in plenty of time to beat my deadline.

So this is my quandary. I could take the easy way out and let the thing go, but that's kind of hard for me to do.

And, at the same time, let me say how much I so totally despise myself for getting into another novel just a week or so after finishing off the last one.

I don't know... maybe I'll just cut and quit.

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