Fight for Equality (In a Time of Global Warming)

It's important to look at the variations in our world as being things that not only add color and interest to the universe but create a solid ground whereupon we can journey onward in our fight for equality.

Every day we see our species working toward honoring different perspectives and welcoming variations of all types; however, there's neverending work to be done in this voyage toward acceptance. Ignorance and hate, as looming entities, will always exist--but, if we fight hard, perhaps we can all strive to make the world a more welcoming place for everyone, without discriminating them based upon their backgrounds, cultures, or perspectives. 

I'm an optimistic person, and always strive to see the good, and will continue be an advocate for this notion that great power rests in the existence of variation, variability, and diversity.

~~~

I recently read Francesca Lia Block's Love in the Time of Global Warming, a piece of YA fiction with a wonderfully diverse set of characters on an Odyssey-sized adventure: totally epic in a quiet, literary sort of way. Her voice is unlike any other's, and her careful attention to language makes one wonder if each sentence was cut with a diamond. The story got me thinking not only about the importance of diversity in YA literature but how important it is to fight for equality--of every kind--within our everyday lives. Literature is just one of the many tools that can aid in this fight.

[Header image by Nick]

Banned Books Week 2013: Rainbow Rowell Discusses Censorship & Love with The Toast

Rainbow Rowell, author of Eleanor & Park and Fangirl, discusses censorship and love in a recent interview with The Toast. Unfortunately, I haven't read either books yet, but they're both sitting tall and proud in in my To Be Read Pile, and I hope to give them their rightful attention soon--as I've only heard wonderful things about them. 

It's truly sad that some places around the country feel the need to remove (or rally to remove) books from their shelves and, in the process, potentially deprive a young person of a story that just might change his or her life for the better.

There has also been an abundance of wonderful illustration work surrounding Rowell's story. One of my faves is above--the artist, Henna Lucas, here. 

While Banned Books Week officially runs through the 28th of September, we should celebrate the right to read stories--any and all types--all year round! The American Library Association has a really fantastic interactive timeline listing a few of the most frequently challenged books. Is your fave on the list?

Let's Get Sexual: Sex in YA Lit

As a YA writer, it's always interesting to hear how others deal with sex in their work. Carrie Mesrobian, author of the forthcoming Sex & Violence (Carolrhoda LAB, Oct. 2013), and editor Andrew Karre talked about sex in YA lit at the Children's and Young Adult Literature Conference at The Loft Literary Center in Minneapolis. 

I wasn't in attendance; however, I stumbled across their main points of discussion on Mesrobian's blog (via YA Highway) and they're quite enlightening--especially if you're always thinking about how young adults/new adults view or contemplate sex, both inside and outside the realms of fiction.

Two points (as outlined by Mesrobian) I find particularly enlightening:

1. You can write YA that doesn't have sexual content in it. What you cannot do is write imaginable young adult characters without thinking about them with respect to sex.

6. Adolescence, the notion of childhood innocence, and the concept of privacy are all relatively modern inventions. Reluctance to speak about sex or even expose children or young adults to sex has not always been the norm throughout human history. Also, teenagers have very little privacy in general, less now in the social media age. YA stories that feature long expanses in which characters have uninterrupted romantical sex are in conflict with this reality.

Magical Realities, Perspectives, and the Human Condition: What Does Fantasy Do?

As a person and writer, I've never been able to look at a rock and see just a rock. The rock might grow a pair of legs and walk about the world, wondering why he's been given such a hard exterior in a land full of soft things, or that same rock might sprout a pair of wings and desire a home in the nest of an eagle. Perhaps I'm prone to disregarding the rules and laws of our world because I never quite meshed with my Organic Chemistry and Physics textbooks; or, perhaps, I gravitate toward this magical way of thinking because it is how I come to interact with and wrap my head around the confusing experiences of life.

For me, it's important to embrace this idea of other within literature because it encourages us to stand on our heads and view the world from a different perspective: a fantastical way for us to understand the human condition and experience.

I tell fantastical stories because I don't believe in saying to a character, You have to stop now--you can't go any farther because reality tells you no. I tell fantastical stories because I live for that moment when a character stumbles over that word no and does something special with it. There are many heavy things in this world, and it is my greatest pleasure as a writer to see how a character will interact with that weight: How might he lift it? How might she movie it? How will their directions change once that weight rests in their hands? [These questions might easily be applied to all genres of literature, including realistic--how might they take on different meanings?]

I tell fantastical stories because what if always has and always will intrigue me.

For me, a successful piece of fantastical literature conveys the notion that we don't always have to participate in the traditionally accepted versions of reality in order to understand ourselves and the inherent qualities that make us human. In my eyes, the goal of fantastical literature is to break apart the world we've come to know and, using all those pieces, a combination of recognizable things and never-before-seen things, slowly and carefully snap the universe back together again.

The Difference Between Fantasy Lit and Science Fiction Lit

One of my all-time fave writers is Ursala K Le Guin; I guess you could say she's somewhat of a hero of mine. In a great interview with Bill Moyer on PBS (video below), she talks about what she feels is the main difference between the genres of fantasy and the genres of science fiction. 

According to Le Guin,

"Science Fiction doesn't contradict science, but it goes on and invents just as freely as fantasy does."

"Fantasy makes up its own rules; it's a much older genre; its roots are deeper." The happenings in a story of fantasy don't necessarily have to align with our current understandings of physics--laws of the world.

Isn't this such a wonderful way to look at these two genres? So often time they are lumped together as Science Fiction & Fantasy--with that misleading ampersand that, in my mind, seems to suggest some extremely close correlation. 

Sure, they are similar genres, but each has its unique perspective and ways in which it critiques a universe.

Sparkly, Shiny, Fresh-Smelling New Ideas!

The fantastic thing about writing stories--about stumbling into new worlds--is that you never know when they might pop up. You could be sitting in a classroom listening to your professor ramble on and on, you could be at work pounding away on that computer, or you could even be pleading to the Celeb Gods that they fix crazypants Lindsay Lohan.

But whenever that sparkly, shiny new idea creeps up on you, it's basically mandatory that you show the world how happy you are.

That happiness will ensue for many days, many weeks, perhaps even many months, until suddenly . . . your shiny new world begins to present problems and conflicts and struggles. And then you get sad, because conflict sort of stresses you out:

And you know what you want your characters to say, you know what you want them to achieve and where you want them to go on their journey, but sometimes you just can't reach the carrot:

But then, as you explore this world more and love this world more and meet new faces within this world and hear all the stories this world has to share, then that joy comes back again:

And then you have to edit the sucker . . . . and we all know how that feels:

Keeping it Real in YA Lit

I'm so lucky that I'm a Pacific Northwesterner and had the opportunity to check out Wordstock 2012! Authors, young writers, local publishers, readers, and word-lovers of all types showed up at the Oregon Convention Center this past weekend for an incredible literary celebration. 

I attended several YA panels and discussions, which quickly turned out to be the highlight of the convention. I find it so interesting to hear how other YA writers approach their work, especially when having to deal with subject matter that is tough, honest, and, for lack of a better term, real. 

Young Adults read this category to find themselves within the stories--to get to know a character that may or may not be dealing with similar issues. On the opposite side of the spectrum, adults read in this category to recapture the magic and experience of their earlier years, and for this reason I agree with author Steve Brezenoff, who said something to the extent of . . . . 

YA should be viewed as a perspective, not necessarily a genre and/or demographic. 

This discussion was called The "Adult" in "Young Adult" and featured authors Joelle Anthony, Steve Brezenoff, Kristen-Paige Madonia, and moderator Erica Lorraine Scheidt. The looming question that drifted throughout the room was what exactly is "adult" subject matter? How do we treat these issues that many adults and institutions have deemed "dangerous" or "too adult" for teenagers to explore?

While many had varying opinions, a couple of the authors raised the idea that it seems ridiculous to even classify the things people take issues with in YA fiction (such as sex, drugs, language, sexuality/identity, etc.) as being "adult" at all . . . because "adult" issues are quite different from "teen" issues, and both demographics perceive issues and interact with issues in very different ways. 

Many teens use literature to explore these sensitive issues and, as suggested by David Levithan at the end of the Keeping it Real discussion, "It's not dangerous to write about tough issues; it's dangerous not to write about them." The danger exists in holding back and not writing about something solely out of fear that the issue explored will garner negative criticism; it's important to remember that young readers need to read about issues that affect them and are pertinent to their lives. 

They need to know that their journeys aren't the only ones. So let's keep it real. Always. Aaragorn demands it.

Image created with memegenerator

Character Therapy

I just realized that my characters do the following things a lot:

1. "Grab a shoulder" (I think this is in an effort to console the other individual; however, now that I think about it . . . it might just be a bit creepy. How often does someone grab your shoulder *and squeeze it* when trying to comfort you? Stop it, characters, stop getting so cheeky. I'm not a romance writer--I wouldn't know what to do with you once you got past the shoulder groping stage!)

2. "Sigh" (Quite possibly the lamest character action ever. #BasketCase #GetOverIt)

3. "Roll their eyes" (Stop giving me and your peers attitude, you mean-angsty-McNasty!)

4. "Tense up" (Chillax, dudes!)

5. "Crack a grin" and, on the opposite side of the spectrum, "Crack a frown" (There's a whole bunch of "cracking" going on--y'all's faces are goin' to be in some pieces soon . . . then what are we going to do?)

Basically, I'm going to start requiring all of my potential protagonists/antagonists/super-random-agonists to enroll in Character Therapy before they even consider hopping into my head. I work for a celebrity gossip/entertainment news site and deal with Hollywood's crazy drama all day. So, my lovely and sweet and manic characters, give me a break, would ya? I understand that some of you simply must roll your eyes every so often, but please don't do it every third paragraph. It STRESSES me out.

What are some of the things your characters do too often?

Why Fantasy Is Important--Part I

I primarily write YA urban fantasy and literature with elements of magical realism, and I appreciate characters who journey through life weirder and stranger than most. I like the quirky. I like the magical. I like the bizarre. I guess you can blame it on the fact that I am a ginger.

But why do I like those things? Even more specifically, why do I like reading and writing about those elements in literature? Why do I write about magic and other fantastical things that most would agree could never happen or exist in our world? Why do I write period?

WHY DO YOU WRITE?

I can't remember who said it or when I heard it, but not long ago I heard someone ask, "What's the point of fantasy? It's not real." It may have been a random dude taking his first steps into the fantasy section of the bookstore. It may have been the person at the bus stop who only reads the daily paper. It may have been my father, who only reads Grisham, true crime, and the occasional cozy mystery. It may have been my mother, who enjoys romance novels. It may have been the residents at the physics camp I worked at this summer--the students who analyzed, calculated, and measured every move Tom Cruise made in the new Mission Impossible movie, so that they could simply prove the impossible nature of his fantastic feats. I quote: "That's so ridiculous! He so would've died there. That's impossible" Well, no duh. Just take a look at the title.

What's the point of fantasy? is such an important question, one I feel all writers in this genre should attempt to answer--not only in an effort to better understand the genre as a whole but to better understand their writing, their process, and what they hope to achieve with their fantastical narratives.

If someone's giving characters magic or powers or placing them in mystical new realms simply for the sake of placing them there, if that magic doesn't work to further characterize that individual and help them grow or reach conclusions about their own story, then why not make them "normal," why not strip them of those powers that confuse them or hurt them or make them miserable?

If the story isn't enhanced by the magic (I use magic as an umbrella term for unordinary elements), then it really doesn't need to be there, right? The magic in fantasy exists to teach, to misuse, to learn from, to change, to transform, to lead, to destroy, to rebuild--to be something that is so alive the readers can taste it, hear it, see it, be amazed by it.

Fantasy is such a powerful genre because it has the power to pull us out of our daily world. With fantasy, the possibilities are LITERALLY limitless. While I was surrounded by so many mathematical and science-oriented minds this summer, it really got me thinking about fantasy and how some individuals are more apt to explore it and be fascinated by it.

Suspend your disbelief for a moment, I wanted to say to those children who calculated the velocity of Tom Cruise as his car crashed and crunched into the concrete. Turn off your calculative brain and experience the impossible. Let your mind wander; let your body go to a place where calculations don't matter. Try and let yourself be awed by the extraordinary.

I don't think I've fully answered this question yet, but I look forward to exploring it more and more as I continue my journey as a reader and writer. If you're out there and you're a writer of fantasy (or any other genre), why is it that you write? I'd love to make new blogging friends. Don't be afraid to comment.

I write fantasy because I like seeing what the world looks like upside down. And I like standing on my head.

Image by Nick

We Have Dreams; Dreams Have Us

It's so hard to wait. Waiting for things is no fun whatsoever--especially for a writer who, more than anything else, wants to see his words out in the world (and, even before that, loved by an agent and, sometime after that, loved by an editor).

I'm querying one of my projects right now and, at times, it can be discouraging. Am I good enough? Will they like the story well enough to take a chance with me? All these questions rumble through a writer's head . . . .

However, I'm reminded of something a professor at my university recently said to me:

"We all have dreams but dreams also have us."

As long as we have our dreams, there to guide us, lift us, push us, always there to make sure we see the possibilities and the magic in the world, then they will one day--one can only hope--embrace us just as we have embraced them.

Image: "The Dream" by Franz Marc

Characters Succeed When...

People [and Characters] Succeed When They're Given Equal Parts Of CHALLENGE and SUPPORT

Immediately after a teacher at my university said this amazeballs quote, I scribbled it down in my journal quicker than a Snooki on the hunt for an 18 oz. can of spray-on bronzer. *Fist pump, fist pump, fist pump* If you've never watched an episode of Jersey Shore . . . well, then you're missing out on life. Big time.

I got to thinkin' afterwards how wonderfully that statement applies to the life of a writer, and even more specifically the characters we write about. Besides hard work, determination, and the ability to craft intelligible prose, there really are two essential ingredients needed when attempting to cook up an awesome story: CHALLENGE and SUPPORT, the holy duo that makes characters of all shapes and sizes truly dynamic individuals.

None of us like the word "challenge." We don't like to be challenged, and most of us don't find joy in dishing out challenge to our characters, those fantastic creatures frolicking in our head that seem to do no wrong (even when they do). Many of us grow so attached to our characters that when it does come time to take them to that dangerous point in their lives -- or, heaven forbid, kill them off -- we start pulling out our hair and feel chunks of our soul begin to disintegrate. Rather than pushing a character into an uncomfortable situation, we'd rather be hogtied, thrown in a dark corner, and punished with a Backstreet Boys CD on endless loop.

But the truth of the matter is . . . at the end of the day, our characters NEED challenges in order to succeed with their mission, whatever that might be. They'll always have our support, we're their number one cheering section, but unless we give them something to fight for -- something to struggle against or with -- they'll never be able to grow. And if our characters don't do any growing, like The Situation's muscles after being deprived of their Muscle Milk, then our stories won't be nearly as interesting.

In what other ways might this quote apply to our lives as writers? Take those words, put them in your mouth, swish 'em around a bit, and see how they might relate to your personal writing journey.

~Cheers!