Today I'd like to welcome my friend and critique partner Heather Head to my blog! Heather and I met through some little coincidences that more or less amount to "she saw my writing webcomic and we became writer pals." I've beta-read her book and helped her with some aspects of her agent search, and now I'm thrilled to report she's secured representation! I decided to interview her with a hodgepodge of questions about her writing life and her newly agented status as a fun tidbit (and to show my readers how cool she is). And here we go!
JSD: Heather, you've just achieved something many author hopefuls dream of--you've signed with a literary agent! And not just any agent--the legendary Ethan Ellenberg! So first of all, congratulations!
I've got some questions for you that my readers who want to be in your shoes someday may want answered. (And I'm sure it will be entertaining for some other folks too!) So here we go--a host of probing personal questions about writing, querying, and signing.
1. First, the obligatory intro: give us one sentence about who you are, one sentence about what you write, and one sentence about the book that got you signed.
HH: I'm a writer, mom, and entrepreneur who loves good stories. I write many things, but the book that attracted my agent's attention is science fiction. It's set in a world where the dominant species is a sentient plant, and humans are treated as livestock.
JSD: It's a really cool book, you guys!
2. How did you come to the decision to pursue literary agency representation? Did you consider other potential publication paths that wouldn't require getting an agent? Tell us a little about what went into your process.
HH: When you've finally finished that first novel, it is SO tempting to go the self-publish route. You just want people to read it! Many authors have indeed been extremely successful by that route--Cory Doctorow comes to mind in the science fiction realm. So, yes, I did frequently think of doing that. However, I also became aware that if I self-published, I would have to run the whole business myself--promotion, marketing, building relationships with bookstores, editing, type setting, cover art, etc. etc. etc. I had helped a friend self-publish a little book of inspiration several years ago, and it was time-consuming, and we never really saw a lot of traction except among friends (and he already had a platform, so he was ahead of where I'd be starting). So, ultimately, my thinking was that I wanted everything that traditional publishing had to offer, and I decided I was willing to wait. That didn't stop me from holding self-publishing in my back pocket, just in case...
JSD: Yeah, that's sort of what I thought too--I didn't want to have to try to run a business as well as do the creative work of writing a book. I don't think I'd be that successful at it and I wanted a chance at everything mainstream authors get.
3. While you were looking for agents to query, what did you look for in the perfect agent for you? What made you decide for or against querying someone?
HH: The key criteria was reputation. I used Query Tracker to find agents, and then I'd check out their websites and their reputation to make sure they were legit. I tried to query across a range--from top agents to new agents, with the thinking that I didn't want to rule out top agents, but I might have better luck attracting the attention of a new agent. I realize this is counter to many people's advice to start at the top and work your way down. I was lucky that the one who picked me up was absolutely a top choice for me, one of the absolute best in the industry.
That having been said, when he first requested my manuscript, I had an intense moment of imposter syndrome. Even though I had vetted my options carefully, I was suddenly convinced I must have accidentally queried a schmagent--WHAT, someone wants my MANUSCRIPT? Hahahaha. I spent a lot of time reassuring myself (with a lot of help from you!) that he was as legit as his reputation. I can honestly say that I have now read every single word Ethan Ellenberg currently has available online as well as at least 80% of everything everyone has ever said about him in a public space.
It goes without saying that I only queried in my own genre (sci fi). Having said that, however, I originally queried as YA and got no results. Then as MG (I always felt my book was borderline between the two). When Ethan called, he told me that what I have is an adult book, even though the protagonists are children (and even though I'd written it for my own children--but then, they read a lot of adult literature too). Which just goes to show that sometimes you can screw up something as basic as market and still attract an agent.
JSD: Yeah, market can be tricky--and some agents who don't represent all categories will in fact reject you if you submit a book to them that doesn't fit in their categories. They might not even consider that perhaps this is an adult book in YA clothing, or something to that effect--but when they work with multiple categories, they certainly do sometimes do stuff like this. I had a similar situation with mine, but backwards--my agent agreed with me that it was an adult book, but publishers were saying "nope, child protagonist, YA." There are so many mixed messages out there, and they'll frequently present their opinions and interpretations as fact. You just have to be fortunate enough to hit the one that really understands your work.
4. Give us a little summary of what your roller coaster was like from the time you first queried Ethan Ellenberg's agency to the moment you signed the contract!
HH: Ethan Ellenberg is notoriously fast to respond, so it was a FAST roller coaster. I queried on September 7, he requested my manuscript, and a two-week exclusive, on the 12th. That was when the freak-out began, checking that he was legit (lol), checking that he was someone I wanted to work with (lol again), checking that I wasn't dreaming. Then the second-wave freak-out, deciding that there was no way he was going to offer, alternately with deciding exactly how I was going to spend my advance (lolololololololololol, seriously, LOL). I had to go for lots of walks (how I calm myself) and lots of meditation sessions (often while walking). The excitement felt exactly like high anxiety, with my consciousness hovering outside my skin and the inability to think of anything else--it was unpleasant, right when I thought I *ought* to be super happy. Such is the life of a writer.
I kept reminding myself that it was a compliment that someone of his caliber even wanted to look at my work. That, if he rejected it, that would be valuable information about where my work was weakest. That this was a good thing regardless of the outcome. Didn't stop me freaking out.
When he called on the 19th (12 days after I queried), I was on the phone with the utility company. I had spent 45 minutes waiting for a customer service rep, and they had just come on the line, finally, when the call waiting buzzed. I looked at the phone, and there was the name: Ethan Ellenberg Literary Agency. My hands went sweaty. I got back on with the utility company. Being the smooth-under-pressure type that I am, I said, "Um. Uhhhh. Hi I uh I gotta um I'll bye! Ok."
Then I sat back, switched over to the new call, and said, "Hello. This is Heather." Because my heart was totally not racing a mile a minute (<--That's a lie).
We talked for about half an hour and I honestly didn't know at first if he was offering representation or asking for an R&R, because he wanted to talk in detail about my book. About fifteen minutes in, I finally just asked.
He was offering.
Meanwhile, I was IM'ing my husband. "I'm on the phone with Ethan Ellenberg. Omg." Then, "He's making an offer. OMG!!"
Once I got off the phone, I had yet another freak-out over the agency agreement, which he had his office manager send right away.
I always freak out over contracts, and I didn't want to screw it up, so I went back into a crazy research frenzy, reading everything I could about agency agreements and talking to all my friends in the business (like you!).
The final (so far) freak-out happened after I decided to accept the offer. I wanted to call the agency, because I felt like it was the sort of thing one ought to make a call regarding, rather than an email. I thought it would be such a wondrous call, but it was decidedly anti-climactic, and brief. Afterward I started second-guessing myself. WHY NO INSTA-PARTY-ON-THE-PHONE???????? WHY NO HOSTS OF ANGELS SINGING HALLELUJAH?????????? DID I SCREW IT UP?
Lol.
My friend Melissa reminded me that I was not looking for a party-thrower, I wanted a business partner. "It's like a mullet," she said. "Business in the front. Party in the back. I'll be your party." Whew.
I have a business partner. Hallelujah!
JSD: That story about the mullet is hilarious. What an analogy!
Definitely true about the business partner thing though. The busier and more accomplished an agent is, the more likely they'll be less buddy-buddy, I guess. You've got us for your buddies. :)
5. I'd like to provide some encouragement to writers who are still in the trenches. Tell us about one of your darker times if you considered quitting or had doubts, and tell us what you did to come out on the other side.
HH: Remember when I called you up, even though we had never spoken in person? One of my favorite authors, Lev Grossman, had told me about an agent who had a good reputation among the authors he knows. After some research, I decided she was The One. Hehe. I carefully customized my query for her, mentioning that Lev had suggested I speak with her. She rejected me, with a form letter. It was only my fourth or fifth rejection, and I was devastated.
You were very kind to me.
When I encourage another writers, I have to repeat what so many others say: Don't give up. Accept that rejections are part of the journey. After a while, for what it's worth, you almost (ALMOST) don't notice them. And that makes the offer that much sweeter.
Right before I received my offer from Ethan, I took my son to a reading by Kate DiCamillo, one of our favorite MG authors. During the Q&A, she mentioned that Because of Winn Dixie (my favorite, her first) was rejected over 400 times before it was published. I was greatly cheered by that.
Now that I'm on the other side, I want to say that having an agent is wonderful. We've had a couple of meetings, and he's helping me decide what to focus on next, based on his extensive experience in what the market wants. Simultaneously, he's very respectful of my role as the artist, and reminds me that the decisions are all mine. I really appreciate having such a knowledgeable, businesslike partner to ground me. It's both inspiring and motivating--I'm so much more motivated to get that second book finished!
JSD: Yeah, I was actually thinking the other day about how we talked on the phone after that rejection. Interesting how sometimes we need another person's voice when we're down, but not as much when we're up--you told me your good news all by text messages! I think I might be the opposite--I'd rather send text-based messages if something bad happened, but if something good happened I want to tell them with my voice. Takes all kinds!
6. What advice was given to you by other authors that you found valuable? Did you receive any bad advice?
HH: I got SO much good advice. "Keep going" was the big one. I had a lot of help in crafting my query letter. I highly recommend getting lots of help with that. Beyond that, make your book as good as it can be. Read a lot. Write a lot. Start working on your next book. And seek out someone who can help you with the practical parts of the process.
Bad advice? Mostly from people who don't know the industry, telling me I'd be better off self-publishing (which might be true for some people, but it was bad advice for me because it assumed I hadn't already done my homework).
It is true that we all--I and all the many, many folks who helped me--thought we had a children's book on our hands. That's not bad advice so much as something we all missed. I wonder now if I wouldn't have gotten quicker attention to my work if I'd queried under adult. I'm incredibly grateful to Ethan for seeing what my book is and evaluating it on that basis rather than on what I'd queried it as.
JSD: I feel ya on the bad advice. Almost everything useless that's been said to me has been from someone who wasn't at all related to publishing or writing. Usually even if I disagree with or can't use someone's advice from inside the writing world, it seems like their perspective still does something for me. Though I guess I've also had people from inside occasionally tell me it's impossible to get a book deal now (haha) or laughed at me for pursuing mainstream publication because they preferred self-publishing and didn't respect that I didn't. There are some nasty folks on both sides of that fence. As for whether something is a "children's book," I think the real issue is that line is kind of blurring. The publishing industry does squeeze things into tight dichotomies sometimes, but we all know that kids read stuff that's "for" adults all the time, and adults frequently read kids' books. I'm sure Ethan's perspective will probably result in the most appropriate marketing for the book, but I'm also certain kids will read it!
7. Let's talk about rejection. Can you share any thoughts about receiving rejection letters? What about this: if you got a rejection from a partial or full manuscript, was that easier or harder to deal with than getting rejected from a query?
HH: Ethan was the first agent to request my full manuscript. I'd had one partial request. Perhaps because I was querying the wrong market? The rejection on the partial was indeed the hardest, not counting the one where I called you (which was hard only because I'd set up silly expectations and gotten attached to them, and because I wasn't yet accustomed to rejection). With a manuscript rejection, you feel like your actual work has been rejected, rather than just the query which, let's be honest, you're far less attached to than the book itself.
JSD: Yeah. Most people seem to feel the same--that if they looked at the work itself and didn't want it, the rejection feels so much more personal. But sometimes I run into people who are more insulted by "they didn't even give the writing a chance!" but are willing to shrug and say "fair enough" if they did read some of it and didn't dig it. I'm definitely more personally disappointed in someone reading and not liking my work than someone who just didn't feel interested enough to read it, though. And I'm quite familiar with that building up of hopes.
8. Can you tell us what Ethan likes about your book?
HH: In particular, he likes the way I portray communication between two alien consciousnesses, which he thinks is very interesting. He also seems to think that the characters are strong. I don't want to speak for him, but if I understand correctly, he thinks I have an original idea well executed, and that it will be highly sellable. In talking about one of my new ideas, he mentioned that it would be a hard task, but that I seemed to like setting hard tasks for myself. He didn't actually say that he likes that about me, but I like it about me, and I'm glad he sees that in me.
JSD: Yeah, I liked that aspect of the story too. I appreciate that it's fully fleshed out--it's not just "what if sentient plants took over Earth?" but HOW that actually manifests and why they think it's fine to enslave and consume humans. The resulting gray morality is nice too. Too often books about alien invasions paint the invaders as "bad guys" entirely, while yours has a host of different approaches to the two species' relationships. I'm glad your agent appreciates what you can do!
9. What did you do to celebrate getting an agency contract?
HH: I told everyone I could think of privately, went to dinner with my family, and privately (and not-so-privately), internally (and externally), freaked out--I've gotten very good at freaking out. Lots of practice.
JSD: 10. Share some thoughts with us on the next big adventure: SUBMISSION! What are you most nervous about? What are you most excited about?
HH: I'm not even ready to think about it yet. Way too nerve-wracking. One freak-out at a time, please!!!!
JSD: Wait, but you've already thought of how to spend your advance! Hahaha. . . .
Thanks for sharing your thoughts and advice with us, Heather! I hope it's not long before I can buy your book!
HH: Thank you!
You can find Heather online at all these fine places:
Twitter: @HHeadWrites
Facebook: HHeadWrites
Website: HeatherHead.com
Thanks for reading, everyone!
Showing posts with label other writers. Show all posts
Showing posts with label other writers. Show all posts
Monday, October 3, 2016
Monday, August 8, 2016
Abstaining from Pitch Wars
For the first time in three years, I decided to abstain from Pitch Wars this year.
I'm not sure why. Part of it was probably that I felt like I've been ignoring my own writing in favor of paying attention to other media and wallowing in distractions, and part of it was that I feel like I've gotten a little jaded about publishing and whether I really belong giving anyone advice about it. I mean, sure, there are plenty of beginners I know more than enough to help, but the only difference between me and my potential mentees the past few years was that I had an agent and they didn't. Even after securing representation with agents for two different books and selling one of them, I just kinda started doubting my competence. I haven't been actively writing much at all, and my publishing career hasn't gone anywhere since I sold a book in 2013. What I did worked for me, but I don't know if it would work for anyone else, and it wasn't fiction anyway.
But honestly I do think I have good advice on improving manuscripts and providing perspective on agent searches. I just think maybe I've been using the cause to avoid working on my own projects. It's time to get back to it.
I have Bad Fairy 2 to finish up; it's been complete for a long time, but my test readers have all either finished or petered out on reading and dropped off the radar without explanation, and I'm still undecided on how to present the first half of the book since it still feels too much like a sequel in my opinion.
I have Ace of Arts to write. I got really jazzed about this book the other day, wanting to get back into it, but I had just returned from vacation and convinced myself I had some digital housecleaning to finish first. (I did that.) Maybe I should dive back in.
I have a short story I started but stopped writing after a page because I was kinda hating how it was going. I'll want to start that over again and get it busted out.
I don't think I have any short stories out for consideration right now. I had a couple rejections in June and then July was just a mess for me, so I didn't bother addressing it. Need to get some short stories out there to be considered by magazines.
But it's weird to not be in Pitch Wars. Part of me is glad I'm not, because as usual there have been some hiccups and some nastiness, though there's also tons of excitement. I am kinda sad that I won't have a mentee this year. I loved working with my mentees. Year 1 I mentored Whitney Fletcher, who got an agent immediately through the contest. I had alternates Ryan and Jessica; Ryan's gotten close but his project never hit the right agent, and as far as I know he hasn't tried writing something new, while Jessica got picked up by a small publisher without an agent. Year 2 I mentored Megan Paasch, with whom I don't really chat much anymore, and we never found our match, but my alternate Natalka found representation for a book she wrote after Pitch Wars and that book sold also to a small publisher. And Year 3 my mentee was Lynn Forrest, whose book didn't hit with an agent during the contest but seems to be getting a ton of full manuscript requests these days. I love having a relationship with another writer the way I do during Pitch Wars, and I'm sad I won't have a Year 4 mentee to put in this list.
I hope whoever I would have picked does well. :/
It sounds weird, but the part I really enjoyed besides mentoring an individual was sending feedback to the people I didn't pick. I was a bit overwhelmed the first year, but the second and third years I had a ball picking apart and analyzing query letters and initial chapters. And people were so cool about it, taking my feedback so professionally and in some cases having great discussions with me about their work. I miss that part of it too. But you can't have that without the whole package, and I just couldn't handle the package this year.
I don't know if I'm done with Pitch Wars forever or if it's just this year. Time will tell.
I'm not sure why. Part of it was probably that I felt like I've been ignoring my own writing in favor of paying attention to other media and wallowing in distractions, and part of it was that I feel like I've gotten a little jaded about publishing and whether I really belong giving anyone advice about it. I mean, sure, there are plenty of beginners I know more than enough to help, but the only difference between me and my potential mentees the past few years was that I had an agent and they didn't. Even after securing representation with agents for two different books and selling one of them, I just kinda started doubting my competence. I haven't been actively writing much at all, and my publishing career hasn't gone anywhere since I sold a book in 2013. What I did worked for me, but I don't know if it would work for anyone else, and it wasn't fiction anyway.
But honestly I do think I have good advice on improving manuscripts and providing perspective on agent searches. I just think maybe I've been using the cause to avoid working on my own projects. It's time to get back to it.
I have Bad Fairy 2 to finish up; it's been complete for a long time, but my test readers have all either finished or petered out on reading and dropped off the radar without explanation, and I'm still undecided on how to present the first half of the book since it still feels too much like a sequel in my opinion.
I have Ace of Arts to write. I got really jazzed about this book the other day, wanting to get back into it, but I had just returned from vacation and convinced myself I had some digital housecleaning to finish first. (I did that.) Maybe I should dive back in.
I have a short story I started but stopped writing after a page because I was kinda hating how it was going. I'll want to start that over again and get it busted out.
I don't think I have any short stories out for consideration right now. I had a couple rejections in June and then July was just a mess for me, so I didn't bother addressing it. Need to get some short stories out there to be considered by magazines.
But it's weird to not be in Pitch Wars. Part of me is glad I'm not, because as usual there have been some hiccups and some nastiness, though there's also tons of excitement. I am kinda sad that I won't have a mentee this year. I loved working with my mentees. Year 1 I mentored Whitney Fletcher, who got an agent immediately through the contest. I had alternates Ryan and Jessica; Ryan's gotten close but his project never hit the right agent, and as far as I know he hasn't tried writing something new, while Jessica got picked up by a small publisher without an agent. Year 2 I mentored Megan Paasch, with whom I don't really chat much anymore, and we never found our match, but my alternate Natalka found representation for a book she wrote after Pitch Wars and that book sold also to a small publisher. And Year 3 my mentee was Lynn Forrest, whose book didn't hit with an agent during the contest but seems to be getting a ton of full manuscript requests these days. I love having a relationship with another writer the way I do during Pitch Wars, and I'm sad I won't have a Year 4 mentee to put in this list.
I hope whoever I would have picked does well. :/
It sounds weird, but the part I really enjoyed besides mentoring an individual was sending feedback to the people I didn't pick. I was a bit overwhelmed the first year, but the second and third years I had a ball picking apart and analyzing query letters and initial chapters. And people were so cool about it, taking my feedback so professionally and in some cases having great discussions with me about their work. I miss that part of it too. But you can't have that without the whole package, and I just couldn't handle the package this year.
I don't know if I'm done with Pitch Wars forever or if it's just this year. Time will tell.
Tuesday, June 7, 2016
Can't stop there
I'm (still) in the process of working through edits on my second Bad Fairy book and people are still surprising me with their enthusiasm.
Ever since I started writing and sharing my work, I've received responses here and there that suggest I'm doing something right to build suspense or get people invested. And even though I know what I wrote, it kinda still surprises me.
People are waiting to find out what happens next. Biting their nails over stuff they can't have yet. Wondering what's coming and caring about the characters.
I love this, but I have to admit that for a loooooong time I assumed I was being humored. People manufacture excitement sometimes to make you feel like you've done well if they care about you and want to seem positive, and I guess sometimes I felt like I couldn't possibly have written characters people cared that much about even though I cared about them. For my webcomic I sometimes get comments or private messages suggesting people are eagerly anticipating the next volume to find out where the story's going to go, and I have to admit . . . even now I just kinda look at them and think "really?" Like are you kidding?
I am not sure why I think that way. I like to think I'm a decent writer; if I didn't think so, I wouldn't have tried submitting my work to agents or publishers or magazines, and I wouldn't spend so damn much time with fictional people. So how come when people tell me they're really excited about seeing more, I sort of don't believe them?
So anyway. Y'all who follow me around these here Internet parts know I'm pretty obsessed with a cartoon these days, and one of the ways I make excuses to watch the episodes again is tuning in to reaction videos from viewers on YouTube. Yes, I watch people watch television. Last night I was enjoying the video reactions of a guy who hit one of the plotty episodes and when the credits rolled he yelled "No, you can't end it there! Come on!" The enthusiasm and frustration was so much fun for me as a person who knows what comes next (and who knows how long he'll have to wait for the answers he wants at that point), and I realized something weird. That reaction I had of "heheheeee, you'll seeeeee" was actually very similar to how I feel when people are reading something I wrote and I know they probably aren't ready for what's coming.
And I got to thinking . . . how come I can accept that people are legitimately enthused about someone else's work, but I don't have the same level of confidence in their investment in mine? Maybe because I think other people's fiction is just so good and I can't imagine that mine ever has a similar impact? Maybe because I had a similar reaction when I enjoyed their work so seeing it mirrored by someone else feels authentic? Maybe because I can imagine anything I want about these characters and their past and their future and that's as "real" as it can be, so it doesn't feel like it's the same level of real for the rest of the world? Maybe because nothing I ever write will impress me the way fiction impresses me when it comes out of someone else's very different thought process?
Through other people's fiction (including, yes, this cartoon), I'm learning a lot about subtlety and developing investment in characters and trusting my audience and using perspective to keep readers' attention. But I'm also trying to imagine other people feeling about my stuff the way I have felt about others' work and reminding myself that there are many reasons I need to keep the story going. . . .
Ever since I started writing and sharing my work, I've received responses here and there that suggest I'm doing something right to build suspense or get people invested. And even though I know what I wrote, it kinda still surprises me.
People are waiting to find out what happens next. Biting their nails over stuff they can't have yet. Wondering what's coming and caring about the characters.
I love this, but I have to admit that for a loooooong time I assumed I was being humored. People manufacture excitement sometimes to make you feel like you've done well if they care about you and want to seem positive, and I guess sometimes I felt like I couldn't possibly have written characters people cared that much about even though I cared about them. For my webcomic I sometimes get comments or private messages suggesting people are eagerly anticipating the next volume to find out where the story's going to go, and I have to admit . . . even now I just kinda look at them and think "really?" Like are you kidding?
I am not sure why I think that way. I like to think I'm a decent writer; if I didn't think so, I wouldn't have tried submitting my work to agents or publishers or magazines, and I wouldn't spend so damn much time with fictional people. So how come when people tell me they're really excited about seeing more, I sort of don't believe them?
So anyway. Y'all who follow me around these here Internet parts know I'm pretty obsessed with a cartoon these days, and one of the ways I make excuses to watch the episodes again is tuning in to reaction videos from viewers on YouTube. Yes, I watch people watch television. Last night I was enjoying the video reactions of a guy who hit one of the plotty episodes and when the credits rolled he yelled "No, you can't end it there! Come on!" The enthusiasm and frustration was so much fun for me as a person who knows what comes next (and who knows how long he'll have to wait for the answers he wants at that point), and I realized something weird. That reaction I had of "heheheeee, you'll seeeeee" was actually very similar to how I feel when people are reading something I wrote and I know they probably aren't ready for what's coming.
And I got to thinking . . . how come I can accept that people are legitimately enthused about someone else's work, but I don't have the same level of confidence in their investment in mine? Maybe because I think other people's fiction is just so good and I can't imagine that mine ever has a similar impact? Maybe because I had a similar reaction when I enjoyed their work so seeing it mirrored by someone else feels authentic? Maybe because I can imagine anything I want about these characters and their past and their future and that's as "real" as it can be, so it doesn't feel like it's the same level of real for the rest of the world? Maybe because nothing I ever write will impress me the way fiction impresses me when it comes out of someone else's very different thought process?
Through other people's fiction (including, yes, this cartoon), I'm learning a lot about subtlety and developing investment in characters and trusting my audience and using perspective to keep readers' attention. But I'm also trying to imagine other people feeling about my stuff the way I have felt about others' work and reminding myself that there are many reasons I need to keep the story going. . . .
Monday, May 16, 2016
Things you do
I recently finished reading Fledgling by Octavia E. Butler. She's historically one of the writers I've always enjoyed. I was just kinda meh on this one.
There was lots of good to say about it, though the main reason I didn't find it that enjoyable was a pretty solid emotional disconnect throughout. Things happened that should have been really heart-rending and I just didn't really feel it. I don't know how a first-person story was this shallow of feeling. Concept-wise, it was pretty good, though I felt like a lot of questions it asked just drifted away as the main conflict eclipsed everything else. But one thing about it sort of creeped me out, and I was surprised to realize Ms. Butler employs a variant of the same thing in several of her books. It's a Thing She Does.
In the book, the main character is a sort of vampire who depends on human blood to survive. Unlike the usual vampire legends, humans cannot be turned into vampires, but they do get sort of hypnotized into being fed from, like many vampire books. The humans actually develop a dependence on the vampires alarmingly quickly, and it's not just mental--it's physical, in that the vampire venom causes them to produce too many red blood cells or something, and they'll die if they don't get their blood drained regularly. The vampires also love and depend on the humans, but their situation isn't quite the same--if one of their humans dies, they can get more. If a human's vampire dies, they're screwed, and they have to find another vampire to take them in, and the transition is painful. So there's definitely this feeling like the vampires are sort of keeping the humans as pets, even though most of the good guys at least seem to be respectful to their humans.
Making humans dependent on a non-human creature through a sexually charged, seductive, permanent, not-entirely-consensual process is something Ms. Butler has done in four different works of hers that I've read.
One was a short story where these bug alien things needed to lay their eggs in humans, and the main character's central conflict was deciding whether to let an alien do it to them. (At the end, they did.)
One is a novel where an alien microorganism forces humans to infect other humans, who then--willingly or not--give birth to mutant children. Once infected, they are overtaken with desires that force them to have sex with other infected people.
And one is a novel where aliens come to Earth and attempt to absorb humanity into their race. Humans encounter the aliens' mating groups (which come in three sexes--a he, a she, and an it, all of which are needed to mate), and are bonded with these aliens and made to desire them.
So, I'm kind of sensing a pattern here. It's not like the other patterns--the ones where the protagonists of Ms. Butler's stories are usually black and usually exist as outsiders in their communities somehow. I've got to admit it's kind of disturbing how this one very specific element keeps popping up in her work.
I think if you're a writer with multiple works, something like this is inevitable. The easy patterns will be identified first--you write a certain gender more often, you set your work in space, your protagonists always have a dog--but the more thematic elements underlying your work might be a little less obvious and may contain messages you as a writer aren't aware of. (Though I do think Ms. Butler was aware of this one. She wrote human/non-human symbiosis in so many ways that I'm sure there was something she was trying to say. Though the fact that so many of the "victims" of it were not initially asked if they wanted to participate and their drive to submit is often at odds with their intellectual opinion of what they're doing.)
I wonder which Things I Do might be identified by readers if I get to publish multiple novels? I imagine it will be noticed that I write mostly female characters who are cerebral and tend to avoid traditional relationships, but other than that I think many of my characters are not like each other and not like me. I've also noticed I write a lot of major characters who can fly (though one of them only did it in a dream-fantasyland thing). I guess only time will tell!
There was lots of good to say about it, though the main reason I didn't find it that enjoyable was a pretty solid emotional disconnect throughout. Things happened that should have been really heart-rending and I just didn't really feel it. I don't know how a first-person story was this shallow of feeling. Concept-wise, it was pretty good, though I felt like a lot of questions it asked just drifted away as the main conflict eclipsed everything else. But one thing about it sort of creeped me out, and I was surprised to realize Ms. Butler employs a variant of the same thing in several of her books. It's a Thing She Does.
In the book, the main character is a sort of vampire who depends on human blood to survive. Unlike the usual vampire legends, humans cannot be turned into vampires, but they do get sort of hypnotized into being fed from, like many vampire books. The humans actually develop a dependence on the vampires alarmingly quickly, and it's not just mental--it's physical, in that the vampire venom causes them to produce too many red blood cells or something, and they'll die if they don't get their blood drained regularly. The vampires also love and depend on the humans, but their situation isn't quite the same--if one of their humans dies, they can get more. If a human's vampire dies, they're screwed, and they have to find another vampire to take them in, and the transition is painful. So there's definitely this feeling like the vampires are sort of keeping the humans as pets, even though most of the good guys at least seem to be respectful to their humans.
Making humans dependent on a non-human creature through a sexually charged, seductive, permanent, not-entirely-consensual process is something Ms. Butler has done in four different works of hers that I've read.
One was a short story where these bug alien things needed to lay their eggs in humans, and the main character's central conflict was deciding whether to let an alien do it to them. (At the end, they did.)
One is a novel where an alien microorganism forces humans to infect other humans, who then--willingly or not--give birth to mutant children. Once infected, they are overtaken with desires that force them to have sex with other infected people.
And one is a novel where aliens come to Earth and attempt to absorb humanity into their race. Humans encounter the aliens' mating groups (which come in three sexes--a he, a she, and an it, all of which are needed to mate), and are bonded with these aliens and made to desire them.
So, I'm kind of sensing a pattern here. It's not like the other patterns--the ones where the protagonists of Ms. Butler's stories are usually black and usually exist as outsiders in their communities somehow. I've got to admit it's kind of disturbing how this one very specific element keeps popping up in her work.
I think if you're a writer with multiple works, something like this is inevitable. The easy patterns will be identified first--you write a certain gender more often, you set your work in space, your protagonists always have a dog--but the more thematic elements underlying your work might be a little less obvious and may contain messages you as a writer aren't aware of. (Though I do think Ms. Butler was aware of this one. She wrote human/non-human symbiosis in so many ways that I'm sure there was something she was trying to say. Though the fact that so many of the "victims" of it were not initially asked if they wanted to participate and their drive to submit is often at odds with their intellectual opinion of what they're doing.)
I wonder which Things I Do might be identified by readers if I get to publish multiple novels? I imagine it will be noticed that I write mostly female characters who are cerebral and tend to avoid traditional relationships, but other than that I think many of my characters are not like each other and not like me. I've also noticed I write a lot of major characters who can fly (though one of them only did it in a dream-fantasyland thing). I guess only time will tell!
Tuesday, April 19, 2016
Part of our world
This past weekend I was asked to be on a podcast that's a little outside my usual scene.
I go to an art club called Drink and Draw every month, and many of the people there are more "serious" artists than I am (or at least more talented). Anyway, my friend Eric is the club's host, and he usually picks me up on his way there so we talk about stuff. This time, we ended up talking about the comic book The Nameless City by Faith Erin Hicks, which I hadn't read.
It turned out that Eric had seen a Twitter discussion about whether The Nameless City was appropriative, because it has a cast and setting clearly based on ancient China, but it's written by a white woman. An Asian artist on Twitter was saying books like this and television shows like Avatar: The Last Airbender (which clearly influenced Hicks) are disappointing in a way because it feels like mainstream culture is capitalizing on "diversity" while still not making way for people to make art about themselves.
This is a good point, and Eric and I had a spirited discussion about it. He invited me to come on his podcast the next day to talk about the same thing with his friend Robbie (who I also know but he's mainly just an acquaintance of mine--we hang out with the same people and he's been in my house but we don't really talk much). Of course, first I had to read the book. So I read it at Drink and Draw before doing my art. ;)
The podcast episode I was on is here: Handsome Boys #142.
A review I did of the book is here: The Nameless City by Faith Erin Hicks (review).
Here's the thing: We all know we would like more diversity of all kinds in fiction, and we all know the only way it can happen is if people make it on purpose. The problems are many, though, and one of the most insidious is that mainstream audiences often think a piece of media is not "for them" if it primarily contains people who are not like them. When we "mark" a piece of media, usually the people who are described by that mark will flock to read it, but it will remain less circulated, undervalued, probably written off as niche, and rarely reaching the broader world. But if the mainstream media actively solicits media featuring characters, settings, and messages less commonly featured, will that help?
Some say it's really not going to help that much if the creators filtering the message into the mainstream are not telling their own stories. If they're telling underrepresented populations' stories through their own lenses, does it really serve the purpose of bringing those stories to light, or is it just people from the mainstream culture wanting to pat themselves on the back for being so inclusive now that diversity is a buzzword?
So what do the underrepresented populations in question have to say about this? Well, as usual, it's a mixed bag. Some want to know why mainstream authors with plenty of connections want to hijack their narratives and give them to the outside world so they can gawk. Some want to know why they're not being solicited to contribute work if it's their perspective that's supposedly so valuable. And some believe one of the things that actually does help pave the road for that to happen is getting mainstream audiences to understand that work about "the other" can be for them.
Avatar: The Last Airbender managed to get a cartoon onto mainstream television that did not contain a single solitary white person, and it's definitely got a large cast, too. The names and concepts definitely have Asian inspiration of various sorts, but it is still Fantasy Asia, so the creators get a bit of a pass if something isn't "accurate." And its creators are two white guys. They have a ton of Asian consultants and people working on the show, but it's still a mainstream Nickelodeon show by Mike and Bryan. Perhaps this sends a message to big media companies that audiences can and do accept and enjoy these stories. Will this prompt them to actively solicit shows with actual Asian creators at the helm? Too early to tell.
But it's clear from most of the dialogue that underrepresented people do not want to build a fence and say "you should not write about us." There's a very good reason why those folks are wary of mainstream creators (why do they want to do it? what are they going to screw up?), and they also have good reason to expect well-meaning mainstream creators to do their research extensively. That research can include bringing in test audiences from the population they're trying to portray, including creators from that background as co-creators or permanent contributors, and consuming media and commentary by those populations.
I want men to be able to write about women, for instance--and I want men who are making creative works about women to help combat the notion that works about us are marked for only our consumption, irrelevant to people who aren't women--but I'm not going to appreciate it if the way the male creator makes his woman character feel "authentic" is to graft in his assumptions about what women think about. I have seen a male author praised extensively for wow it's so hard to believe a man wrote this book about a woman, it feels so feminine but I was shocked that the supposed authenticity was literally her worrying about being fat and being obsessed with shoes. I also once read a very popular male author's book that was from a teenage girl's point of view and I cringed every time he tried to make her say/do something that reminded us of her gender ("ugh why do boys make us watch their movies? we're not interested lol because ladies!"). I would ask these men to read books that are by women, to try to understand why we write what we write, and then don't appoint yourself to tell a Feminine Story About Being Female. You don't need to tell that story, but yes, please, put female characters in your book.
From a practical standpoint, I think it's very important for mainstream audiences to start seeing people who are different from them in their everyday media. Without having to deliberately seek it out. Because people who aren't like you are part of your world. Most media does not currently reflect that. We also need both "issue books" and "incidentally representative books." The Nameless City was not about what it is to be any of the Asian populations it included, though it gave its own culture to the fantasy world (as it should). So it's a nice thing if people from all backgrounds can go into a bookstore and see this and think "hmm that looks interesting" rather than thinking "welp, Asians on the front, must be some kind of niche media."
I remember working at a bookstore and having a woman pestering me to make recommendations for "good books" and rejecting all the suggestions before I could even finish a sentence, and one of those attempts was me saying "You might like Life of Pi. It's about a boy from India--" "NO." She immediately wasn't interested as soon as I said "India." We also had an "African-American Fiction" section when I first started at the store. Many black readers would come in asking for the section, and other readers were scandalized by its existence--I heard black readers say it was gross to segregate it from the "regular" fiction, and I also heard non-black readers snot about it wanting to know where the white fiction was. (Clue phone: Pretty much the entire rest of the store.) Later it was integrated (along with several other categories) into one big mega-fiction section. Some people said that was the right choice. Some people were frustrated that they could no longer easily browse a section that was for them, and interpreted it as an attempt to take the entire thing away. Both sides are kind of right, but I think I'm personally more invested in my background and other people's backgrounds all being presented as "for" anyone to be exposed to.
And here's something interesting.
Wait, what's that? Is it a children's book with a same-sex couple on the front? Yeah it is.
This book is coming out later this year. It's explicitly described in the book summary as a love story--depicted in the comfortable fairy-tale style children are used to seeing in all their other storybooks. There is no sticker on it proclaiming "LOOK, IT'S LESBIANS!!" or anything, but even though some people might interpret the red character as a boy because of how she's dressed, a basic glance at the information will make it clear that their names are both feminine-coded names (Sapphire and Ruby) and they both use "she" pronouns. They're in a clear casually intimate pose on the front cover. This is not being designated as a Special Interest book. It's just going to be released as a storybook. For the regular storybooks section.
Recently in an interview, creator Rebecca Sugar said this about children's media:
Rebecca's romantic partner (and major contributor to her show) is Ian Jones-Quartey, who is a black man, and most of the voice cast and many of the writers are also people of color. But this is not written as a niche show.I don't know if Rebecca Sugar herself identifies as any stripe of queer--I've never seen her say so, and she's partnered with a man, though I know better than to say that means we know anything. [Edit: In July 2016, a few months after this post, Rebecca did later come out as queer--specifically as bisexual. And in 2018, she also came out as nonbinary, using she/they pronouns.] And ethnicity-wise she looks white, but she has demonstrated over and over that she believes racial diversity and queer representation belong in mainstream media, even for--ESPECIALLY for--children. Because, as she said above in the quote, we should all grow up knowing we can have that. That we're people. That we don't have to wait until our minds have formed around us being "other" before we're gently coaxed "back" into society. In the interview, she also said some vague things about how she never watched Disney movies thinking that could be her, though I don't know in what ways she was unable to relate. But I can certainly say I would have grown up feeling more like the world wasn't someone else's place I was just trying to live in if the media I consumed in my youth had hinted that people like me were real.
Now I've heard tell that Seanan McGuire has written a book with an asexual protagonist. (The book also contains a trans man who is, I believe, a romantic interest.) The author is bisexual (and as far as I know not asexual-spectrum), and this is one of the only novels out there that has not just an asexual character tucked in someone's pocket somewhere but an asexual protagonist. This is also not a book about the character realizing she's asexual, nor have I heard that it heavily features that revelation. It just is. As it should be. The question is, did she do it right?
I'll have to see, by reading it. And even though I'm an asexual woman, obviously I'm not the decision-maker on whether Seanan McGuire has written an asexual character "wrong." I would certainly be able to read it and say "I wish that hadn't been there" or "I wish that had been phrased differently" or "just once I'd like to see an asexual character who isn't also XYZ." (I withhold judgment until I read it, obviously.) But I must admit that as an asexual woman knowing a bisexual author has included a character of my incredibly underrepresented background, my first thought was "ohhhhh jeez I hope it isn't terrible." I feel bad that this was my first thought, because though I'm passably familiar with Seanan McGuire, I've never read any of her long fiction. I have no reason not to trust her, and I trust her more than I'd trust a straight person to write aces. And yet that was my knee-jerk reaction. Because I'm used to mainstream fiction taking people I can relate to and framing them as broken, as cold or confused, as villainous, or as needing to learn more about being human. And it isn't just hurtful to see yourself represented poorly in a story. It's hurtful to know this is a mainstream presentation and other people are going to be even more likely to think about me that way. I've been taught to expect this when non-asexual people try to show the world who I am.
Right now we don't have enough characters like us in the media to risk getting a large percentage of them wrong. Just like a straight white male character being an utter douchebag in a movie will not make people think differently about straight white men, there does need to be room for non-majority characters to not be perfect people, but since people are establishing lasting impressions of us based on how media portrays us, we need to ask creators to be sensitive to this when they plan their presentation. If you have no exposure to a group but you see them on TV, you generalize--even if someone else has chosen how that group is portrayed without being part of it. We cannot realistically arrange global exposure to every marginalized group, but we can be responsible with how that exposure comes through our media.
I go to an art club called Drink and Draw every month, and many of the people there are more "serious" artists than I am (or at least more talented). Anyway, my friend Eric is the club's host, and he usually picks me up on his way there so we talk about stuff. This time, we ended up talking about the comic book The Nameless City by Faith Erin Hicks, which I hadn't read.
It turned out that Eric had seen a Twitter discussion about whether The Nameless City was appropriative, because it has a cast and setting clearly based on ancient China, but it's written by a white woman. An Asian artist on Twitter was saying books like this and television shows like Avatar: The Last Airbender (which clearly influenced Hicks) are disappointing in a way because it feels like mainstream culture is capitalizing on "diversity" while still not making way for people to make art about themselves.
This is a good point, and Eric and I had a spirited discussion about it. He invited me to come on his podcast the next day to talk about the same thing with his friend Robbie (who I also know but he's mainly just an acquaintance of mine--we hang out with the same people and he's been in my house but we don't really talk much). Of course, first I had to read the book. So I read it at Drink and Draw before doing my art. ;)
The podcast episode I was on is here: Handsome Boys #142.
A review I did of the book is here: The Nameless City by Faith Erin Hicks (review).
Here's the thing: We all know we would like more diversity of all kinds in fiction, and we all know the only way it can happen is if people make it on purpose. The problems are many, though, and one of the most insidious is that mainstream audiences often think a piece of media is not "for them" if it primarily contains people who are not like them. When we "mark" a piece of media, usually the people who are described by that mark will flock to read it, but it will remain less circulated, undervalued, probably written off as niche, and rarely reaching the broader world. But if the mainstream media actively solicits media featuring characters, settings, and messages less commonly featured, will that help?
Some say it's really not going to help that much if the creators filtering the message into the mainstream are not telling their own stories. If they're telling underrepresented populations' stories through their own lenses, does it really serve the purpose of bringing those stories to light, or is it just people from the mainstream culture wanting to pat themselves on the back for being so inclusive now that diversity is a buzzword?
So what do the underrepresented populations in question have to say about this? Well, as usual, it's a mixed bag. Some want to know why mainstream authors with plenty of connections want to hijack their narratives and give them to the outside world so they can gawk. Some want to know why they're not being solicited to contribute work if it's their perspective that's supposedly so valuable. And some believe one of the things that actually does help pave the road for that to happen is getting mainstream audiences to understand that work about "the other" can be for them.
Avatar: The Last Airbender managed to get a cartoon onto mainstream television that did not contain a single solitary white person, and it's definitely got a large cast, too. The names and concepts definitely have Asian inspiration of various sorts, but it is still Fantasy Asia, so the creators get a bit of a pass if something isn't "accurate." And its creators are two white guys. They have a ton of Asian consultants and people working on the show, but it's still a mainstream Nickelodeon show by Mike and Bryan. Perhaps this sends a message to big media companies that audiences can and do accept and enjoy these stories. Will this prompt them to actively solicit shows with actual Asian creators at the helm? Too early to tell.
But it's clear from most of the dialogue that underrepresented people do not want to build a fence and say "you should not write about us." There's a very good reason why those folks are wary of mainstream creators (why do they want to do it? what are they going to screw up?), and they also have good reason to expect well-meaning mainstream creators to do their research extensively. That research can include bringing in test audiences from the population they're trying to portray, including creators from that background as co-creators or permanent contributors, and consuming media and commentary by those populations.
I want men to be able to write about women, for instance--and I want men who are making creative works about women to help combat the notion that works about us are marked for only our consumption, irrelevant to people who aren't women--but I'm not going to appreciate it if the way the male creator makes his woman character feel "authentic" is to graft in his assumptions about what women think about. I have seen a male author praised extensively for wow it's so hard to believe a man wrote this book about a woman, it feels so feminine but I was shocked that the supposed authenticity was literally her worrying about being fat and being obsessed with shoes. I also once read a very popular male author's book that was from a teenage girl's point of view and I cringed every time he tried to make her say/do something that reminded us of her gender ("ugh why do boys make us watch their movies? we're not interested lol because ladies!"). I would ask these men to read books that are by women, to try to understand why we write what we write, and then don't appoint yourself to tell a Feminine Story About Being Female. You don't need to tell that story, but yes, please, put female characters in your book.
From a practical standpoint, I think it's very important for mainstream audiences to start seeing people who are different from them in their everyday media. Without having to deliberately seek it out. Because people who aren't like you are part of your world. Most media does not currently reflect that. We also need both "issue books" and "incidentally representative books." The Nameless City was not about what it is to be any of the Asian populations it included, though it gave its own culture to the fantasy world (as it should). So it's a nice thing if people from all backgrounds can go into a bookstore and see this and think "hmm that looks interesting" rather than thinking "welp, Asians on the front, must be some kind of niche media."
I remember working at a bookstore and having a woman pestering me to make recommendations for "good books" and rejecting all the suggestions before I could even finish a sentence, and one of those attempts was me saying "You might like Life of Pi. It's about a boy from India--" "NO." She immediately wasn't interested as soon as I said "India." We also had an "African-American Fiction" section when I first started at the store. Many black readers would come in asking for the section, and other readers were scandalized by its existence--I heard black readers say it was gross to segregate it from the "regular" fiction, and I also heard non-black readers snot about it wanting to know where the white fiction was. (Clue phone: Pretty much the entire rest of the store.) Later it was integrated (along with several other categories) into one big mega-fiction section. Some people said that was the right choice. Some people were frustrated that they could no longer easily browse a section that was for them, and interpreted it as an attempt to take the entire thing away. Both sides are kind of right, but I think I'm personally more invested in my background and other people's backgrounds all being presented as "for" anyone to be exposed to.
And here's something interesting.
Wait, what's that? Is it a children's book with a same-sex couple on the front? Yeah it is.
This book is coming out later this year. It's explicitly described in the book summary as a love story--depicted in the comfortable fairy-tale style children are used to seeing in all their other storybooks. There is no sticker on it proclaiming "LOOK, IT'S LESBIANS!!" or anything, but even though some people might interpret the red character as a boy because of how she's dressed, a basic glance at the information will make it clear that their names are both feminine-coded names (Sapphire and Ruby) and they both use "she" pronouns. They're in a clear casually intimate pose on the front cover. This is not being designated as a Special Interest book. It's just going to be released as a storybook. For the regular storybooks section.
Recently in an interview, creator Rebecca Sugar said this about children's media:
I think if you wait to tell kids, to tell queer youth that it matters how they feel or that they are even a person, then it’s going to be too late!Based on Rebecca Sugar's history, it's clear that she is very invested in portraying same-sex couples as natural, as an everyday part of life, as not worth batting an eyelash at in protest. She tends not to make her works "issue" works, and on her television show she's included a large cast of non-white characters (as well as coding some of her aliens as having features typically associated with people of color), and she just presents that and lets it be without pointing at it and saying "look what I did."
You have to talk about it--you have to let it be what it gets to be for everyone. I mean, like, I think about, a lot of times I think about sort of fairy tales and Disney movies and the way that love is something that is ALWAYS discussed with children. And I think also there’s this idea that’s like, oh, we should represent, you know, queer characters that are adults, because there are adults that are queer, and you should know that’s something that is happening in the adult world, but that’s not how those films or those stories are told to children. You’re told that YOU should dream about love, about this fulfilling love that YOU’RE going to have. […]
The Prince and Snow White are not like someone’s PARENTS. They’re something you want to be, that you are sort of dreaming of a future where you will find happiness. Why shouldn’t everyone have that? It’s really absurd to think that everyone shouldn’t get to have that!
Rebecca's romantic partner (and major contributor to her show) is Ian Jones-Quartey, who is a black man, and most of the voice cast and many of the writers are also people of color. But this is not written as a niche show.
Now I've heard tell that Seanan McGuire has written a book with an asexual protagonist. (The book also contains a trans man who is, I believe, a romantic interest.) The author is bisexual (and as far as I know not asexual-spectrum), and this is one of the only novels out there that has not just an asexual character tucked in someone's pocket somewhere but an asexual protagonist. This is also not a book about the character realizing she's asexual, nor have I heard that it heavily features that revelation. It just is. As it should be. The question is, did she do it right?
I'll have to see, by reading it. And even though I'm an asexual woman, obviously I'm not the decision-maker on whether Seanan McGuire has written an asexual character "wrong." I would certainly be able to read it and say "I wish that hadn't been there" or "I wish that had been phrased differently" or "just once I'd like to see an asexual character who isn't also XYZ." (I withhold judgment until I read it, obviously.) But I must admit that as an asexual woman knowing a bisexual author has included a character of my incredibly underrepresented background, my first thought was "ohhhhh jeez I hope it isn't terrible." I feel bad that this was my first thought, because though I'm passably familiar with Seanan McGuire, I've never read any of her long fiction. I have no reason not to trust her, and I trust her more than I'd trust a straight person to write aces. And yet that was my knee-jerk reaction. Because I'm used to mainstream fiction taking people I can relate to and framing them as broken, as cold or confused, as villainous, or as needing to learn more about being human. And it isn't just hurtful to see yourself represented poorly in a story. It's hurtful to know this is a mainstream presentation and other people are going to be even more likely to think about me that way. I've been taught to expect this when non-asexual people try to show the world who I am.
Right now we don't have enough characters like us in the media to risk getting a large percentage of them wrong. Just like a straight white male character being an utter douchebag in a movie will not make people think differently about straight white men, there does need to be room for non-majority characters to not be perfect people, but since people are establishing lasting impressions of us based on how media portrays us, we need to ask creators to be sensitive to this when they plan their presentation. If you have no exposure to a group but you see them on TV, you generalize--even if someone else has chosen how that group is portrayed without being part of it. We cannot realistically arrange global exposure to every marginalized group, but we can be responsible with how that exposure comes through our media.
Saturday, January 23, 2016
Personal Digest Saturday: January 16 – January 22
Life news this week:
Places featured:
New singing performances:
Here I'm singing "Justified and Ancient" by The KLF.
New drawings:
Webcomic Negative One Issue 0558: "Sharing the Victory."
New videos:
None.
New photos:
Social Media counts:
YouTube subscribers: 5,259 for swankivy (6 new), 549 for JulieSondra (1 new). Twitter followers: 735 for swankivy (7 new), 1,200 for JulieSondra (lost 6, lol). Facebook: 285 friends (no change) and 188 followers (3 new) for swankivy, 629 likes for JulieSondra (1 new), 55 likes for Negative One (no change), 119 likes for So You Write (2 new). Tumblr followers: 2,315 (4 new). Instagram followers: 49 (10 new).
- Saturday wasn't very eventful; I was just kinda cleaning up some
stuff I hadn't paid attention to during the week and whining to my
friend Ronni through e-mail. I had a bunch of pictures to process and it
was tiring.
- Sunday was . . . MY THIRTY-EIGHTH BIRTHDAY! I had a nice day, honestly--it was super lovely. I woke up when I wanted to, huddled under my Garnet blanket
watching cartoons, and went out to lunch with my dad at Macaroni Grill.
Then I did more huddling and cartooning until Mom came over with a
birthday cake! And presents! I got new galoshes. Pink ones! We ate the
cake and hung out talking about media and stuff. And I got phone calls
from friends and family to say happy birthday. Such a nice day!
- Monday
I went to work (yes, I had to work on MLK Day), and our new employee
Deborah was starting officially. She seems really low-key and nice, so
that's a relief. (Getting a new employee is a big deal because my office
is TINY. We had four people, including me, before she started.) In the
evening I dove into editing my friend Heather's book, which is why I did
not read a published book this week--I was working on this.
- Tuesday was Meggie's fortieth birthday!
I got her a Disney gift certificate she can use next time she goes to
the parks. While grocery shopping I ran into an old high school friend
who told me she heard me mentioned on a podcast a while back. It was Sex
Nerd Sandra, with whom I'm marginally familiar because she was
considered for a review copy of my book when it was first coming out. We
chatted a little and I went home, proceeding with more editing, and
helping my mom with a roommate ad.
- Also on Tuesday, I got my royalty check for the next six months of book sales, and that's always niiiiice.
- Wednesday was Jeaux Day. We ate at WTFBurger and had pizza and went comic book shopping, and at home we watched Galavant and ate cake. And after he left I finished reading Heather's book.
- Thursday
I sent my book feedback out to Heather. She's going to be a big deal
soon, I think. I spent the evening talking to my friend Victor on the
phone and drawing my comic.
- Friday was rainy and I got to try my new galoshes. The good news is they kept my feet dry. The bad news is my rain suit doesn't do as good a job as the galoshes. I had to sit around wet at work all day which was gross. Mom came over after work for help with her phone and camera, and to give me a late birthday present--a cool CD I didn't have. Anyway I got the comic done and that was that.
- Thousands of X's
has a little run-through of what they think of my book so far, and it's
not very nice, but oh well. I think it's kinda funny that they say
stuff like "It consists of blog posts rewritten to form a book, and you
can definitely tell," and . . . that's not even close to what it is or
how it was written, but to each their own, right? But part of the reason
I think it's funny is that they say you "can tell" something that isn't
true, but then they recommend Asexuality Archive--who literally DID
take blog posts and make them a book, and states explicitly that that's
what he did. Heh. A lot of what they say seems to directly contradict
what other people say about it, but to be honest I'm really glad the
community is not an echo chamber and people don't feel obligated to
review it glowingly.
- Ermisenda Alvarez gave it four stars on Goodreads, and there's no real review except that they specify that they actually mean 3.5.
Places featured:
- The Sex Nerd Sandra podcast I didn't know about until I was
told I was mentioned on it (though I was not discussed extensively, but
my book came up in a conversation about how some folks came out to their
parents): "Sex Nerd Sandra #192: Asexuality 101."
- Over the Rainbow:
I'm on the list for 2016 made by the Gay, Lesbian, Bisexual, and
Transgender Round Table (GLBTRT) of the American Library Association
(ALA).
- A Tumblr post I wrote about fear of sex was listed on The Asexual Agenda's linkspam this week.
- Asexuality in a Sexual World recommended my materials for educating oneself. (Though the blogger refers to me as "SwankyIvy," which is a misspelling of my YouTube name.)
- Completed reading: Age of Gramen by my friend Heather, beta-reading. :)
- Currently reading: Dirk Gently's Holistic Detective Agency by Douglas Adams.
New singing performances:
Here I'm singing "Justified and Ancient" by The KLF.
New drawings:
Webcomic Negative One Issue 0558: "Sharing the Victory."
New videos:
None.
New photos:
 |
| Got a bunch of mail on my birthday! Turned out only one of them was a gift though. |
 |
| My birthday cake, made by Mommy! |
 |
| Me on my 38th birthday. |
 |
| New pink galoshes: gift from Mommy! |
 |
| The new employee at the office gave me candy! |
 |
| My royalty check came in! |
Social Media counts:
YouTube subscribers: 5,259 for swankivy (6 new), 549 for JulieSondra (1 new). Twitter followers: 735 for swankivy (7 new), 1,200 for JulieSondra (lost 6, lol). Facebook: 285 friends (no change) and 188 followers (3 new) for swankivy, 629 likes for JulieSondra (1 new), 55 likes for Negative One (no change), 119 likes for So You Write (2 new). Tumblr followers: 2,315 (4 new). Instagram followers: 49 (10 new).
Tuesday, January 12, 2016
Cover Reveal: MACHINATIONS by Hayley Stone!
Hey everyone, so how about one of these--a cover reveal for one of my fellow Pitch Wars mentors! Get excited for . . . MACHINATIONS.
About Hayley's book:
About Hayley's book:
Perfect for fans of Robopocalypse, this action-packed science-fiction debut introduces a chilling future and an unforgettable heroine with a powerful role to play in the battle for humanity’s survival.The machines have risen, but not out of malice. They were simply following a command: to stop the endless wars that have plagued the world throughout history. Their solution was perfectly logical. To end the fighting, they decided to end the human race.A potent symbol of the resistance, Rhona Long has served on the front lines of the conflict since the first Machinations began—until she is killed during a rescue mission gone wrong. Now Rhona awakens to find herself transported to a new body, complete with her DNA, her personality, even her memories. She is a clone . . . of herself.Trapped in the shadow of the life she once knew, the reincarnated Rhona must find her place among old friends and newfound enemies—and quickly. For the machines are inching closer to exterminating humans for good. And only Rhona, whoever she is now, can save them.
Here are some places you can preorder it:
Amazon
| Barnes
& Noble | Kobo
Or add it to your list
on Goodreads!
And now, about Hayley:
Hayley Stone has lived her entire life in sunny
California, where the weather is usually perfect and nothing as exciting as a
robot apocalypse ever happens. When not reading or writing, she freelances as a
graphic designer, falls in love with videogame characters, and analyzes
buildings for velociraptor entry points. She holds a bachelor’s degree in
history and a minor in German from California State University, Sacramento.
Machinations is her debut novel, releasing June
14th, 2016 from Hydra/Random House.
Thursday, December 31, 2015
End-Of-Year Book Survey: 2015!
I'm doing the bookish year-end survey from the Perpetual Page-Turner! If you're a reader and a blogger, why don't you do it too?
So here I go.
Number Of Books You Read: 46
Number of Re-Reads: I don't really reread.
Genre You Read The Most From: Probably a tie between kids' contemporary fiction and YA fiction of a few genres. My reading habits were kinda diverse this year.
1. Best Book You Read In 2015?
I'll go with Fun Home by Alison Bechdel. Really hard call though. I also gave five-star ratings to The Martian by Andy Weir, Landline and Fangirl by Rainbow Rowell, A Long Way From Chicago by Richard Peck, a couple manga books, and the Crystal Gems kids' book.
2. Book You Were Excited About & Thought You Were Going To Love More But Didn’t?
Transmetropolitan by Warren Ellis. People kept telling me I was going to really dig this graphic novel, and when I read it I was like . . . "what the heck is this?" Same with the Lumberjanes graphic novel by Noelle Stevenson, Grace Ellis, Shannon Watters, & Brooke Allen--really wanted to like it, but just didn't really enjoy it.
3. Most surprising (in a good way or bad way) book you read in 2015?
The Haunted Mesa by Louis L'amour. It was assigned by my book club and I was kinda jazzed to find out what the defining author of westerns was about even though I had no real desire to read the genre. It was the most bafflingly incoherent, simplistic, offensive book I think I've ever read, and I finished it almost in tears because I know how popular and successful the author was.
4. Book You “Pushed” The Most People To Read (And They Did) In 2015?
I wasn't too successful with book pushery this year. My dad bought The Martian and is part-way through it because of my recommendation, and one of my friends is reading Fangirl because I gave it to her for Christmas.
5. Best series you started in 2015? Best Sequel of 2015? Best Series Ender of 2015?
I technically only started one series this year, so I guess by default Shannon Hale's Rapunzel's Revenge wins for best series started this year.
Best sequel was deffo J.C. Fann's book Of Goddess Born.
Best series ender was definitely Princess Academy: The Forgotten Sisters by Shannon Hale.
6. Favorite new author you discovered in 2015?
ALISON BECHDEL ALISON BECHDEL ALISON BECHDEL.
7. Best book from a genre you don’t typically read/was out of your comfort zone?
The Appeal by John Grisham! I was not looking forward to a courtroom drama book, and was so pleasantly surprised that I want to read more Grisham.
8. Most action-packed/thrilling/unputdownable book of the year?
I read very few thrillers, and though some were thrown at me by book club, I didn't find them thrilling. Except for . . . The Martian. I was able to put it down, but it kept me on a couple reading streaks I didn't intend.
9. Book You Read In 2015 That You Are Most Likely To Re-Read Next Year?
Let's face it, I will reread my Guide to the Crystal Gems book. That kinda doesn't count.
10. Favorite cover of a book you read in 2015?
Most of the covers I saw this year weren't actually appealing to my taste, art-wise. But I did read a graphic novel compilation of Steven Universe comics that had a really pretty cover.
11. Most memorable character of 2015?
Ahh, well, probably Miri from Princess Academy. I just love her.
12. Most beautifully written book read in 2015?
Fun Home by Alison Bechdel.
13. Most Thought-Provoking/ Life-Changing Book of 2015?
Thought-provoking, huh. Fun Home again.
14. Book you can’t believe you waited UNTIL 2015 to finally read?
A Long Way From Chicago by Richard Peck. I've had it on to-read lists for years. Also, Rubyfruit Jungle by Rita Mae Brown. It's a classic but I didn't read it until I got a copy as a freebie in my Lambda Awards attendee goodie bag.
15. Favorite Passage/Quote From A Book You Read In 2015?
—From Welcome to Night Vale by Joseph Fink and Jeffrey Cranor.
16.Shortest & Longest Book You Read In 2015?
Goodreads says my longest read was The Yearling by Marjorie Kinnan Rawlings, at 513 pages.
Shortest read was Avatar: The Last Airbender: The Search: Volume 1 by Bryan Konietzko & Michael DiMartino. 76 pages, and it was a graphic novel.
17. Book That Shocked You The Most (Because of a plot twist, character death, left you hanging with your mouth wide open, etc.)
The Appeal by John Grisham. Bad guys aren't supposed to win the way they did.
18. OTP OF THE YEAR (you will go down with this ship!)?
I'm not a huge shipper. (OTP means "One True Pairing" by the way, if you don't know.) I honestly had no huge investment in any pairing this year. (Not one that was in any books I read, anyway.) How about Georgie & Neal from Landline by Rainbow Rowell?
19. Favorite Non-Romantic Relationship Of The Year?
Cath and her fanfic characters. Haha. No actually, Cath and her sister Wren. (From Fangirl.)
20. Favorite Book You Read in 2015 From An Author You’ve Read Previously?
Fangirl by Rainbow Rowell.
21. Best Book You Read In 2015 That You Read Based SOLELY On A Recommendation From Somebody Else/Peer Pressure?
The Martian by Andy Weir. Not only was it the book club book but the founder of the club kept talking about how great it was.
22. Newest fictional crush from a book you read in 2015?
Can I still say Garnet from the Steven Universe graphic novel even though I didn't get my crush on her from the book?
23. Best 2015 debut you read?
Ummmmm Breaking the Ice by Gail Nall.
24. Best Worldbuilding/Most Vivid Setting You Read This Year?
Princess Academy: The Forgotten Sisters by Shannon Hale.
25. Book That Put A Smile On Your Face/Was The Most FUN To Read?
Well, gotta go with Texts from Jane Eyre by Mallory Ortberg.
26. Book That Made You Cry Or Nearly Cry in 2015?
Fangirrrrrrrrrrrl definitely Fangirl.
27. Hidden Gem Of the Year?
A Kingdom Apart by J.C. Fann.
28. Book That Crushed Your Soul?
Rubyfruit Jungle by Rita Mae Brown.
29. Most Unique Book You Read In 2015?
Fun Home by Alison Bechdel, never read anything like it. Welcome to Night Vale was a close second, though.
30. Book That Made You The Most Mad (doesn’t necessarily mean you didn’t like it)?
The Passion of Sergius and Bacchus by fellow Lambda nominee David Reddish, because his typo/language mistake quotient was out of control for a published book. I was sad about that.
BOOK BLOGGING
1. New favorite book blog you discovered in 2015?
I didn't discover any book blogs in 2015.
2. Favorite review that you wrote in 2015?
Maybe Hurricane Punch by Tim Dorsey because it was honestly kind of a rage fest.
3. Best discussion/non-review post you had on your blog?
There's no way to really say what the "best" was so I'm gonna pick Representation: Incidental vs. Targeted.
4. Best event that you participated in (author signings, festivals, virtual events, memes, etc.)?
I guess that's going to have to be the Lambda Awards, where I was a nominee for the LGBT Nonfiction award. (I didn't win, but it was kinda cool attending the ceremony and getting a picture on the red carpet and everything.)
5. Best moment of bookish/blogging life in 2015?
Let's just go with picking Lynn Forrest for my Pitch Wars mentee. It was so squeeworthy.
Feeling like I'm disappointing myself and others when I don't come through with a book update, haha. I've taken to updating about my writing progress on Thursdays, but some weeks if I don't write, I feel crappy that I didn't.
7. Most Popular Post This Year On Your Blog (whether it be by comments or views)?
My Pitch Wars post, which had over 2000 views and was fed traffic by the contest I was in. I had a few other popular posts in association with Pitch Wars, like Avoiding the Red Pen of Doom and Nerdy Analysis, but my most popular non-contest blog post this year was It's Not Fair, with 769 views.
8. Post You Wished Got A Little More Love?
Cartoons and Representation. ;)
9. Best bookish discovery (book related sites, book stores, etc.)?
On Tumblr, sometimes people post queer titles in groups and I like favoriting them while telling myself I'm totally going to put all these on my to-read list someday.
10. Did you complete any reading challenges or goals that you had set for yourself at the beginning of this year?
I didn't set any goals or challenges, though I roughly aimed to read a book every week. I fell a little short of that (with 46 books read in 52 weeks), but there were some awfully busy weeks this year and some big books I just had to give myself permission to read over a couple weeks.
LOOKING AHEAD TO 2016:
1. One Book You Didn’t Get To In 2015 But Will Be Your Number 1 Priority in 2016?
Probably Are You My Mother? by Alison Bechdel.
2. Book You Are Most Anticipating For 2016 (non-debut)?
Excited about the self-published book by J.C. Fann, one of my friends, entitled Blood of Our Own, which is the fourth in the Queenschair series. (I was trying to pick something that actually comes out in 2016, and I don't have a lot of not-yet-out stuff on my list.)
3. 2016 Debut You Are Most Anticipating?
Girl Mans Up by M-E Girard.
4. Series Ending/A Sequel You Are Most Anticipating in 2016?
Solutions and Other Problems by Allie Brosh. It kinda doesn't count since it's not technically a sequel, but it's sort of a continuation of the first book in a way.
5. One Thing You Hope To Accomplish Or Do In Your Reading/Blogging Life In 2016?
Relax the chicken.
6. A 2016 Release You’ve Already Read & Recommend To Everyone:
I'm afraid I have not gotten my grubby paws on anything coming out in 2016, because I am not a special milkshake.
THE END.
So here I go.
Number Of Books You Read: 46
Number of Re-Reads: I don't really reread.
Genre You Read The Most From: Probably a tie between kids' contemporary fiction and YA fiction of a few genres. My reading habits were kinda diverse this year.
1. Best Book You Read In 2015?
I'll go with Fun Home by Alison Bechdel. Really hard call though. I also gave five-star ratings to The Martian by Andy Weir, Landline and Fangirl by Rainbow Rowell, A Long Way From Chicago by Richard Peck, a couple manga books, and the Crystal Gems kids' book.
2. Book You Were Excited About & Thought You Were Going To Love More But Didn’t?
Transmetropolitan by Warren Ellis. People kept telling me I was going to really dig this graphic novel, and when I read it I was like . . . "what the heck is this?" Same with the Lumberjanes graphic novel by Noelle Stevenson, Grace Ellis, Shannon Watters, & Brooke Allen--really wanted to like it, but just didn't really enjoy it.
3. Most surprising (in a good way or bad way) book you read in 2015?
The Haunted Mesa by Louis L'amour. It was assigned by my book club and I was kinda jazzed to find out what the defining author of westerns was about even though I had no real desire to read the genre. It was the most bafflingly incoherent, simplistic, offensive book I think I've ever read, and I finished it almost in tears because I know how popular and successful the author was.
4. Book You “Pushed” The Most People To Read (And They Did) In 2015?
I wasn't too successful with book pushery this year. My dad bought The Martian and is part-way through it because of my recommendation, and one of my friends is reading Fangirl because I gave it to her for Christmas.
5. Best series you started in 2015? Best Sequel of 2015? Best Series Ender of 2015?
I technically only started one series this year, so I guess by default Shannon Hale's Rapunzel's Revenge wins for best series started this year.
Best sequel was deffo J.C. Fann's book Of Goddess Born.
Best series ender was definitely Princess Academy: The Forgotten Sisters by Shannon Hale.
6. Favorite new author you discovered in 2015?
ALISON BECHDEL ALISON BECHDEL ALISON BECHDEL.
7. Best book from a genre you don’t typically read/was out of your comfort zone?
The Appeal by John Grisham! I was not looking forward to a courtroom drama book, and was so pleasantly surprised that I want to read more Grisham.
8. Most action-packed/thrilling/unputdownable book of the year?
I read very few thrillers, and though some were thrown at me by book club, I didn't find them thrilling. Except for . . . The Martian. I was able to put it down, but it kept me on a couple reading streaks I didn't intend.
9. Book You Read In 2015 That You Are Most Likely To Re-Read Next Year?
Let's face it, I will reread my Guide to the Crystal Gems book. That kinda doesn't count.
10. Favorite cover of a book you read in 2015?
Most of the covers I saw this year weren't actually appealing to my taste, art-wise. But I did read a graphic novel compilation of Steven Universe comics that had a really pretty cover.
Ahh, well, probably Miri from Princess Academy. I just love her.
12. Most beautifully written book read in 2015?
Fun Home by Alison Bechdel.
13. Most Thought-Provoking/ Life-Changing Book of 2015?
Thought-provoking, huh. Fun Home again.
14. Book you can’t believe you waited UNTIL 2015 to finally read?
A Long Way From Chicago by Richard Peck. I've had it on to-read lists for years. Also, Rubyfruit Jungle by Rita Mae Brown. It's a classic but I didn't read it until I got a copy as a freebie in my Lambda Awards attendee goodie bag.
15. Favorite Passage/Quote From A Book You Read In 2015?
You will smell must and soap, and feel a stab of panic about how alone you are. It will be like most showers you've taken.
—From Welcome to Night Vale by Joseph Fink and Jeffrey Cranor.
16.Shortest & Longest Book You Read In 2015?
Goodreads says my longest read was The Yearling by Marjorie Kinnan Rawlings, at 513 pages.
Shortest read was Avatar: The Last Airbender: The Search: Volume 1 by Bryan Konietzko & Michael DiMartino. 76 pages, and it was a graphic novel.
17. Book That Shocked You The Most (Because of a plot twist, character death, left you hanging with your mouth wide open, etc.)
The Appeal by John Grisham. Bad guys aren't supposed to win the way they did.
18. OTP OF THE YEAR (you will go down with this ship!)?
I'm not a huge shipper. (OTP means "One True Pairing" by the way, if you don't know.) I honestly had no huge investment in any pairing this year. (Not one that was in any books I read, anyway.) How about Georgie & Neal from Landline by Rainbow Rowell?
19. Favorite Non-Romantic Relationship Of The Year?
Cath and her fanfic characters. Haha. No actually, Cath and her sister Wren. (From Fangirl.)
20. Favorite Book You Read in 2015 From An Author You’ve Read Previously?
Fangirl by Rainbow Rowell.
21. Best Book You Read In 2015 That You Read Based SOLELY On A Recommendation From Somebody Else/Peer Pressure?
The Martian by Andy Weir. Not only was it the book club book but the founder of the club kept talking about how great it was.
22. Newest fictional crush from a book you read in 2015?
Can I still say Garnet from the Steven Universe graphic novel even though I didn't get my crush on her from the book?
23. Best 2015 debut you read?
Ummmmm Breaking the Ice by Gail Nall.
24. Best Worldbuilding/Most Vivid Setting You Read This Year?
Princess Academy: The Forgotten Sisters by Shannon Hale.
25. Book That Put A Smile On Your Face/Was The Most FUN To Read?
Well, gotta go with Texts from Jane Eyre by Mallory Ortberg.
26. Book That Made You Cry Or Nearly Cry in 2015?
Fangirrrrrrrrrrrl definitely Fangirl.
27. Hidden Gem Of the Year?
A Kingdom Apart by J.C. Fann.
28. Book That Crushed Your Soul?
Rubyfruit Jungle by Rita Mae Brown.
29. Most Unique Book You Read In 2015?
Fun Home by Alison Bechdel, never read anything like it. Welcome to Night Vale was a close second, though.
30. Book That Made You The Most Mad (doesn’t necessarily mean you didn’t like it)?
The Passion of Sergius and Bacchus by fellow Lambda nominee David Reddish, because his typo/language mistake quotient was out of control for a published book. I was sad about that.
BOOK BLOGGING
1. New favorite book blog you discovered in 2015?
I didn't discover any book blogs in 2015.
2. Favorite review that you wrote in 2015?
Maybe Hurricane Punch by Tim Dorsey because it was honestly kind of a rage fest.
3. Best discussion/non-review post you had on your blog?
There's no way to really say what the "best" was so I'm gonna pick Representation: Incidental vs. Targeted.
4. Best event that you participated in (author signings, festivals, virtual events, memes, etc.)?
I guess that's going to have to be the Lambda Awards, where I was a nominee for the LGBT Nonfiction award. (I didn't win, but it was kinda cool attending the ceremony and getting a picture on the red carpet and everything.)
5. Best moment of bookish/blogging life in 2015?
Let's just go with picking Lynn Forrest for my Pitch Wars mentee. It was so squeeworthy.
I GOT PICKED IN #PITCHWARS I'M CRYING @JulieSondra THANK YOU THANK YOU
— Lynn Forrest (@LynnMForrest) September 2, 2015
6. Most challenging thing about blogging or your reading life this year? Feeling like I'm disappointing myself and others when I don't come through with a book update, haha. I've taken to updating about my writing progress on Thursdays, but some weeks if I don't write, I feel crappy that I didn't.
7. Most Popular Post This Year On Your Blog (whether it be by comments or views)?
My Pitch Wars post, which had over 2000 views and was fed traffic by the contest I was in. I had a few other popular posts in association with Pitch Wars, like Avoiding the Red Pen of Doom and Nerdy Analysis, but my most popular non-contest blog post this year was It's Not Fair, with 769 views.
8. Post You Wished Got A Little More Love?
Cartoons and Representation. ;)
9. Best bookish discovery (book related sites, book stores, etc.)?
On Tumblr, sometimes people post queer titles in groups and I like favoriting them while telling myself I'm totally going to put all these on my to-read list someday.
10. Did you complete any reading challenges or goals that you had set for yourself at the beginning of this year?
I didn't set any goals or challenges, though I roughly aimed to read a book every week. I fell a little short of that (with 46 books read in 52 weeks), but there were some awfully busy weeks this year and some big books I just had to give myself permission to read over a couple weeks.
LOOKING AHEAD TO 2016:
1. One Book You Didn’t Get To In 2015 But Will Be Your Number 1 Priority in 2016?
Probably Are You My Mother? by Alison Bechdel.
2. Book You Are Most Anticipating For 2016 (non-debut)?
Excited about the self-published book by J.C. Fann, one of my friends, entitled Blood of Our Own, which is the fourth in the Queenschair series. (I was trying to pick something that actually comes out in 2016, and I don't have a lot of not-yet-out stuff on my list.)
3. 2016 Debut You Are Most Anticipating?
Girl Mans Up by M-E Girard.
4. Series Ending/A Sequel You Are Most Anticipating in 2016?
Solutions and Other Problems by Allie Brosh. It kinda doesn't count since it's not technically a sequel, but it's sort of a continuation of the first book in a way.
5. One Thing You Hope To Accomplish Or Do In Your Reading/Blogging Life In 2016?
Relax the chicken.
6. A 2016 Release You’ve Already Read & Recommend To Everyone:
I'm afraid I have not gotten my grubby paws on anything coming out in 2016, because I am not a special milkshake.
THE END.
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