the madness of edward bellamy

Okay. So, back when I was an undergraduate, I skipped around from major to major, accumulating enough unused units to do... um... nothing. But I was thinking this morning (by the way, the Creepy Smoking Guy appeared in the dark just precisely as I stepped out of my messy bedroom and into my horrendously messy writing office) about a novel I read, back in the old disorganized (maybe there's a pattern here) undergrad days that had been written in the 1880s.

I am aware that people who study American history have a general disdain for the shallowness and material preoccupations of our peeps during that era, but, for some reason I feel emotionally attached to it -- like maybe I'm reincarnated from that time.

[Side note, again: My Punjabi friend, who does not read this blog -- which justifiably evokes the thought of why I would mention this -- would be proud of me for having performed a puja for Lakshmi yesterday. I was having a really shitty day. We'll see if it pays off. Oh yeah... I was talking about reincarnation. That's why.]

So, anyway, I've even written an historical novel (don't worry, you'll never have to read it) that takes place in California during the 1880s [Make note, apostrophe bitches: it is 1880s -- plural -- NOT 1880's -- possessive. Just having inserted that apostrophe makes me gag.], for which I did a vast amount of most enjoyable research. Yeah, whatever.

But it's also why I inserted Seth's Story within The Marbury Lens.

Where the hell was I?

So, yeah... I read this novel called Looking Backward, by Edward Bellamy, in which the main character (a dude named Julian, from the 1880s) gets hypnotized and wakes up in America in the year 2000. So it was kind of like Bellamy's prediction of what the US would be like... like, now.

Anyway, I still have that book sitting right here in my office, which makes me think of a lot of things I'd really like to say, but you know me... I am always so obtuse, apolitical, and vague... I never name names... and, despite the frequency with which I routinely piss people off, I always -- believe it or not -- go out of my way to try to avoid it.

But Edward Bellamy, since you're either dead or hypnotized, let me just say two things:

1. You rock.

2. I don't know why I brought you up in the first place.

Because I had planned to do the nauseating (sorry about that word, story queen) "Looking Back at 2010" blog post today.

And so I will:

January - In January, while the downstairs of my house was being torn apart by remodelers who took a fucking week longer than they were supposed to take, I went to Arizona with a group of Los Angeles-area authors who ditched me in a part of Phoenix where I nearly lost my life, the cab driver I finally found got lost, and cost me $75 to get back to my hotel. Yeah. Phoenix. Squee! (I can't even describe how much I hate that word, too)

February - Like I will this coming February, in Feb. of 10, I attended the SCIBA Children's Literacy Dinner. Always one of the best book things of the year.

March - In March, I did several high school visits. The best one was at Newbury Park High School in California. The kids were so smart, and I got to sit in on a block-scheduled creative writing class with some really cool and talented kids.

April - Visited my editor and publisher (and Dave Barrett, Ksenia, Rich, and everyone else at the Flatiron) in New York City. Amazing time. And I spoke at the LA Times Festival of Books.

May - We rented a place at the beach for my daughter's birthday.

June - In June, I spoke at ALA in Washington D.C. I also met Ralph Eubanks there (what an honor) and got to hang a bit with Barry Lyga and P.J. Hoover. I also saw Ellen Hopkins' legs. And a whole bunch of other cool stuff.

July - In July, I went to Banff, Canada, for my birthday.

August - Nothing good ever happens in August. Sorry, it's true. Ask anyone.

September - And someone will have to refresh my memory about anything that happened in September. I can't remember that page on the calendar.

October - In October, I spoke at a SCIBA Authors event. I drew cartoons. It was really cool. Ask anyone who saw it.

November - Lots of stuff: I received the Children's Lit Council Award for In the Path of Falling Objects, The Marbury Lens was released, I had a great launch party at Mrs. Nelson's and flew up to San Francisco to have dinner with my editor and Lewis Buzbee and do another launch/reading/party thing there.

December - In December, The Marbury Lens went into its second printing, I was attacked by spiders, I was attacked by the city of San Diego, I got to speak at Mysterious Galaxy's Holiday Book Party, and the Creepy Smoking Guy started showing up every morning outside my window in the dark.

whew.

---

paradoxical tautology number seven

Those of you who do not read this, will.

I was right, wasn't I?

I have written in the past (getting the scoop on all the other, lame bloggers this week) about resolutions and my general disregard for them.

I will tell you a true New Year's Resolution (hereafter, NYR) story, though, starring the great big giant ME.

Sometime in the last decade of the previous century (I can't remember the exact year), I actually made -- and kept -- a NYR. The resolution was to start eating meat. Previously, I had given it up, and the thought of returning to the unrestrained depravity of atavistic carnivorous gratification sickened me.

But being a vegetarian is hard work for a man, for it requires monumental devotion. So I figured the easiest way to get myself off the hook was to just make a NYR to start eating meat. And I did.

Poof.

Just like that.

At first, I will admit, it was really gross and disgusting. Seriously. Like smoking cigarettes, which is why I sometimes consider making the "start smoking promise" my next NYR. But I got used to it.

So, if anyone ever says they don't know anyone who's ever succeeded at a NYR, point them to this blog.

And they will either read it or they won't.

And now I will continue to ramble:

Yesterday, I was thinking about how many people I know (I don't know very many people at all) who've said things like Oh... writing a book must be really hard [Side Note: I wonder why it is that every time I paraphrase what the great big giant EVERYONE remarks to the great big giant ME, I always make "them" sound dumb? Oh... wait... I almost forgot: it's because I'm an ass.]

No.

Writing a book isn't that hard.

You know what is really hard?

Writing your second book. And then -- good God! -- your fourth or fifth.

It isn't like childbirth, which, I'm told, gets easier and easier -- so that by the time your cranking out your "Lords a'Leaping" round of squealers, they're pretty much shooting out like there's a potato cannon down there or something [completely offensive remark to all women, for which I am totally disgusted in myself].

No. Writing books gets harder and harder.

I've written a lot of them.

Ouch.

And then there was another thing... well, to be honest, a couple of them, that I wanted to ramble on about today in a completely disjointed way, but I'm sitting here -- it is 5:00 A.M. -- and I can see the "Creepy Smoking Guy" sitting, alone, up in the hills behind my house, in the absolute dark, just watching me through the big windows on my office.

Yes, as well as historically successfully fulfilling a NYR, I also have a "Creepy Smoking Guy" that materializes out of the darkness from time to time.

When I don't see him, it's because he isn't there yet.

---

2011

Okay.

A couple thoughts about next year. First, I like the number. 2011. Don't ask why, I just do.

This is the time of year when you'll see a lot of "Best Of" blogs, "Predictions," and stuff like that.

First, my thoughts on Best Ofs (By the way, and there are those of you who may argue the point. Save your collective and grammatically-flawed breath. As much as I despise the use of exclamation marks, I have an equal, if not stronger disdain for the use of apostrophes when constructing a plural. Quit doing that, everyone. It is wrong).

Does the right-justification of this text make your brain itch?

It's supposed to.

Where was I? Oh yeah... Best Ofs... Well, I already wrote a post about my ten favorite albums of 2010. I love music, and, snobbily enough, I am not stuck in the past and adhere to the philosophy that anything that came out after The Summer of Love is derivative crap.

So I feel okay in listing my ten favorite albums of 2010 (a number that makes me uncomfortable).

I can't list my ten favorite books, though. I know some writers do that stuff. I just can't.

I also can't list my ten favorite movies for a whole lot of reasons. First, I don't really ever go to movies; and, second, I... um... don't really like movies.

I know.

Gasp.

I mean, in general I don't. Some movies I like. Some movies I can watch all the way through.

But not most.

Just admitting that on a blog is akin to admitting you have tasted human flesh, I think. Which, by the way, does NOT taste like chicken. Especially because I'd kind of (and when I say "kind of," believe me, that's exactly what I mean... kind of) like to see a The Marbury Lens movie.

But that's another thing entirely.

So, that leaves me with Predictions.

I'm kind of torn about making predictions, too, because half of me is totally unrealistic and "hopeful," (I know... not only is this a disgusting trait, but it yawns the doorway wide to crushing disappointment) and the other half is completely pessimistic and stuck in worst-case land, which should be part of Disneyland -- they'd have really long lines and right when you get seated in your ride-mobile, you'd realize you've sat down in someone else's vomit and then the ride breaks down for the rest of the day.

That's my pessimistic outlook side for 2011. I think it's the dominant side of my brain.

But, hopeful, or pessimistic, or just plain neutral, I do have a new book coming out in 2011.

It's called Stick.

And here's the little three-sentence description of the book (that tells next-to-nothing about the actual story) from my website:

Stark McClellan (“Stick”) hears the world in a different way. He is surrounded by cruelty and ugliness, but holds on to a powerful sense of wonder, faith, and love for his best friend, Emily, and the most important person in Stick’s world -- his older brother, Bosten, who happens to be gay.

When the boys’ father throws Bosten out of their home, Stick steals a car and takes off on a three-state odyssey to find and rescue him.

---

the bad words

As a writer (oh... doesn't that sound exceedingly snobby?), I don't believe there are such things as "bad words."

To be honest, if you've read this blog (and certainly if you've read my most recently published book), you likely have noticed that I pretty much use just about every "bad word" in the lexicon of profanity.

Except for one or two that I just don't like.

But, most words, I like very much.

In a follow-up to yesterday's post, I thought I'd compile a list of nine words/terms that I do not like much at all. In fact, I hate them. I would have made a rounded "ten" with the addition of the word crossover, which, to me, means a really ugly car or something that would be naturally selected out of the gene pool in the next breeding frenzy, but I decided to sit on the fence about that word for the time being.

Also... yeah... I caught a lot of grief for making fun of Steampunks yesterday. Um... so what can I do? Eh.

Anyway, here they are, in two sections:

PART ONE -- WORDS THAT ARE MADE UP:

DYSTOPIAN (This is a made-up, trendy word. Like "fajita," which is also a word I hate.)

FAJITA (Do you even have fajitas on the East Coast, or, like Machiattos, do they only exist in California?)

MACCHIATO (I know. This really isn't a made-up word, but I still hate it. This foul blasphemization of coffee is actually Italian, for "Douchebag," which happens to be one of my favorite words.)

STEAMPUNK (The only thing worse than saying you're writing a "Steampunk" novel is saying you're writing an "Edgy Steampunk" novel [see below] while enjoying a Macchiato. Shut up and stand still, so I can punch you in the neck.)

PART TWO -- WORDS THAT ARE NOT MADE UP:

EDGY (This word is meaningless and criminally overused. Please do not call yourself edgy. Ever.)

FAERIE ("Fairy" is okay. Just not "Faerie." Ewww... I want to punch myself in the face just for having typed it.)

FALLEN ANGEL (No. Just, no. Never.)

ANY NAMES OF PEOPLE OR PLACES THAT SOUND ICELANDIC BUT WERE MADE UP BY FANTASY WRITERS FROM THE MIDWEST ('Nuff said.)

SCROTUM (I have blogged about this word before. Nobody should ever use it, no matter how genteel or anatomically precise you're trying to be. The word should be abolished, to be replaced by the much more lyrical "Ballsack.")

Now, and this shall be the winter break writing assignment for my young writers' group: go write a story that uses all of the above.

---

trendies

I read this piece in the New York Times where they posed a question to a number of YA novelists and other thinker-types, asking for their theories behind the recent popularity in dystopian fiction for young adult readers.

So, I'm going to pretend the New York Times asked me, which in my fantasy-pretend-universe will allow me to exceed the apparently miserly word-count they limited their respondents to. I'm also going to pretend to be obtuse, snobby, and evasive in my response, as well.

Heck. It's my pretend-iverse, after all.

Ah, trends.

Don't you love them?

Trends are terrific and useful things for people whose impulse to sell vastly overshadows their creative capacities. (See? I told you I'd be snobby. Now for the obtuse and evasive bits...)

The truth is that dystopian fiction (and, by that, I imagine we're talking about works which establish a kind of nightmare-world that is generally believable) has been around forever. As long as novels (and even epic poetry) have been written. There's nothing new about dystopian literature at all, and certainly nothing new about its popularity among readers.

So go away with your stupid hipster, scenester questions, dumb New York Times.

(Snobby bit #2)

The thing that concerns me is that the moment people start talking (in all caps) about TRENDS or A SCENE, then there's all this polluted kind of acceptance about necessary ingredients that identify a work as part of this great new giant TREND or SCENE. Then things start to get watered down, neutered, and just not very interesting.

And the door is suddenly open for an awful lot of not-too-clever poseurs who latch on to their coveted list of magical and necessary ingredients and proclaim themselves to be "in the scene."

(Warning: Extreme snobbiness is about to ensue. Stop reading now if you are sensitive.)

I know it's just me. I know I am weak and shallow. I am a bad person. But I want to punch everyone in the world in the face who says something like, "Oh! I am currently writing a Steampunk novel!"

Go away.

Just write a novel.

Make it good.

Then let the hipster, trend-identifier police tell you if you're in the club or not.

I know some people are going to say The Marbury Lens is a dystopian novel. Okay. Whatever. There are also going to be people who say that the guy who wrote The Marbury Lens is an ass. Okay, too.

I am hip to that scene.

---

waking up this way

Okay. So I've been asked a couple times now to read forthcoming YA novels for the purpose of writing a "blurb" -- an author's endorsement of a particular work -- for them.

I know.

Me.

It kind of trips me out that anyone would care whether or not Andrew Smith thinks a book is worth reading. But... eh... whatever.

So, okay, a couple weeks ago I got my hands on an electronic copy of a book called Open Wounds by Joe Lunievicz. The novel is being published by a small publisher (WestSide) that specializes in YA titles, and is due to be released, I believe, in April, 2011.

One of the things that got me interested in the book right away was that it's boy-oriented historical fiction. Okay. I like YA historical fiction a lot, and I'm not trying to ruffle anyone's feathers here, but I think the genre is woefully underrepresented when it comes to shelf space in bookstores. What is out there, too, also tends to be primarily aimed at girls.

So, naturally, I really got into the idea of reading this book about a kid growing up in 1930s and 40s New York. (Side note: That's really all I knew about the book ahead of time. I purposely did not read the synopsis because I like to discover the elements of plot as I go through a book.)

I finished reading the book a couple days ago. And it was the first book (besides my own when I'm working on them) that I'd ever endured reading in its entirety on my computer screen. That, in itself, is testimony to how the book affected me, because I can not put up with reading novels on anything but paper. (It's also why it took me so long to read the book -- I just don't see how editors and agents and people like that can STAND reading entire manuscripts on a display screen of any size, color, or configuration. Sorry. I just can't do it.)

My take?

The world needs more books like Joe Lunievicz’s Open Wounds.

Open Wounds tells this soaring, huge, sweeping tale of Cid Wymann, a Jewish kid from a poor neighborhood, as he grows up in 1930s and 40s New York.

I loved reading Open Wounds.

It’s one of those books that effortlessly pulls you into Cid’s world and makes you want to live there. Open Wounds is dripping with everything that made me love reading when I was a boy: action, compassion, extreme adversity, and heroism.

The setting of the book (Great Depression and War-era New York) is as real and multi-dimensional as the compelling voices embodied in the story’s fascinating characters: Cid, the fighter; Tomik and Siggy, his boyhood friends who at times lose Cid’s trust and must act to regain it; Lefty, the battle-scarred cousin who selflessly devotes himself to Cid; and Nikolai, the funny (the first time Cid meets him, Nikolai vomits on the kid), disturbing, and deeply wounded man who becomes Cid’s mentor and teacher.

I'm not going to say anything about the plotting or conflict in the story. I just loved reading this book, and can't wait to see a real, cover-to-cover, paper version of the novel next year.

So I guess that kind of counts as reading my first book of 2011. I can only hope that the rest of the 2011 novels I read end up being equally enjoyable.

I don't know Joe, his agent, or anyone at WestSide, but this really is one hell of a good book.

---

quiet day

I had planned on taking the day off, leaving little more than the message that I would return soon with ample stuff to say, but I needed to provide a chilling follow-up to yesterday's spider drama.

So, this morning, Jew that I am, I was sitting by the fire, coffee in hand, while my wife and children were cooing over the vast assortment of expensive gifts I foisted off on them [it always goes this way], and, as expected, they gave me the one Dad-marked package.

Naturally, I don't even have to say what's in it. Underwear. Of course.

Oh. And a spider. Not just any spider, but the evil twin of the one who passed away in bed with me on solstice night.

No, Anne, there will be no photographs. No spider nor underwear pictures. Because this one only lasted about three seconds on the couch beside me before being wadded up in cast-off underwear wrappings and deposited in our roaring, Jewish, Christmas morning fire.

There's more than a little bit of me in all the protagonists of my novels. Like Troy Stotts, the constantly questioning kid in Ghost Medicine, I'm always seeing the non-coincidental connections in things, the ripples that weave the strings of one day to those preceding and following it.

This is my week for exceedingly large, quick-on-their-feet spiders who want to cozy up next to me.

Hmmm...

---