books of 2010

It’s nearing the end of the year, so I thought I’d pull out the list of what I’ve read this year. I admit, back in January I was terribly curious to track my reading habits and see what it is I’m doing with my life, but March through October … I couldn’t really care less about what I was reading. Perhaps because I, like any God-fearing Canadian, was out enjoying weather that didn’t bring to mind that scene from The Day After Tomorrow. You know the one*. So naturally, come December, I again find myself wondering what I’ve been reading all year.

I have compiled what is probably an incomplete list. This does not include all the submissions to the agency, short stories, fanfiction, essays and blogs I’ve read this year. Which may or may not count for a lot.

I would like to start off with my three favourites:

1) The Hunger Games, Suzanne Collins

Everything I want in a book. Everything. (Except, possibly, a masked ball, but I tend to look for that more in a visual medium.) I honestly expected The Demon’s Covenant to be my favourite book of the year, and The Hunger Games … does everyone remember when Romeo was all hung up on Roseline? How he never thought he could love anything more? It is the east, and The Hunger Games is the sun. The dark, children-eating sun.

2) The Demon’s Covenant, Sarah Rees Brennan

It is unfair to begin by comparing this book to Rosaline from R+J. This book shines too, like the glint of the sun on a blade. The Demon books are so, so enjoyable. I laughed, I cried, I debated over and over which brother I would want more… and can’t decide. I have loved almost everything Rees Brennan has written for years. This one is no exception. The second book in a trilogy. I was so happy to see the characters again. Am dying for the third. (Expect it on next year’s list.)

3) C’Mon Papa, Ryan Knighton

Okay, this one is actually not predictable. It’s a story about blind fatherhood. Something I have so much in common with. Except it was extremely … relatable? Is that the right word? And hilarious. Knighton kind of writes like Stephen King when King isn’t being terrifying. I love King, but I don’t love the terrifying, so naturally this book is amazing. It is touching and unexpected. I highly recommend it to everyone, blind father or not.

Honourable mentions:

The Time Traveler’s Wife, Audrey Niffenegger (made me cry in public)

Under the Dome, Stephen King (made me cry in public for entirely different reasons)

And here’s the list in full**, and in no particular order:

City of Glass, Cassandra Clare

Artemis Fowl, Lost Colony, Eoin Colfer

Artemis Fowl, Time Paradox, Eoin Colfer

Artemis Fowl: Atlantis Complex, Eoin Colfer

Demon’s Lexicon (x2), Sarah Rees Brennan

Demon’s Covenant (x 3), Sarah Rees Brennan

Disgrace, J. M. Coetzee

Order of the Phoenix, J.K. Rowling

The Wife's Tale, Lori Lansens

Widdershins, Charles de Lint

Clockwork Angel, Cassandra Clare

Super Freakonimics, Steven Levitt and Stephen Dubner

Bridget Jones’s Diary, Helen Fielding

The Hunger Games (x 2), Suzanne Collins

Catching Fire (x 2), Suzanne Collins

Mockingjay (x 2), Suzane Collins

Deathly Hallows, J.K. Rowling

Breaking Dawn, Stephenie Meyer

The Time Traveler’s Wife, Audrey Niffenegger

The Sweetness at the Bottom of the Pie, Alan Bradley

C’Mon Papa, Ryan Knighton

Under the Dome, Stephen King

Eragon, Christopher Paolini

Something Blue, Emily Giffin

Hard-Boiled Wonderland and the End of the World, Haruki Murakami
Cockeyed, Ryan Knighton

It seems I’ve read 26 books this year, 31 if you count the ones I’ve read twice. That’s about a book every two weeks. Is that good? I don’t know. Considering I inhaled The Hunger Games in a day, I feel I could do better.

Aim for 2011 – read: 52 books, earn: 52 dollars/hour, drink: 52 Mai Tais.

I feel these aren’t bad goals.

* I’ve never seen this movie, nor the scene in question, but I’ve heard it mentioned often enough that I feel I can reference it with some accuracy.

** Some of these books I have not finished, but more or less intend to before the year is out. This does not include Widdershins, which I found a huge let-down after reading The Blue Girl by the same author, and do not intend to finish. It serves me right for starting in the middle of a series - although it worked with the Harry Potter series that one time.

the problem with good writing

This week I did not read about breasts once. (I know, my life has become sad and empty.) In fact, for all the questionable manuscripts I read last week, I must have read twice that number of really good samples of writing.

I don't know what's worse.

The problem with the good ones is that most of them are missing one crucial factor, just that extra je ne sais quois to make it spectacular. It might be underdeveloped characters, stilted dialogue, a weak premise. And that's harder. To read about each character's breasts thrice on each page makes my life easy; it's a fairly quick rejection. To read the good stuff with the interesting plot and carefully constructed characters makes it quite difficult. I want to respond to each manuscript with things like, "Please keep writing!", "Revise and submit again in six months!",  "I love the part where Cynthia tells Jake she loves him for the first time but it's already too late because he's accepted the job in Asia and married the woman from the prologue!"

But I can't. No one can. Sadly, there are not enough hours in a day to write out detailed reviews of everything I liked and didn't like. Once I thought a story showed a lot of promise, but it was so not the genre my agency looks for, so I took the time to look up the information of another agent who does rep the genre, and I passed along the info. This will probably not happen again. There are not enough hours in a day.

As a result, I do give serious attention to every piece of writing I read. It's a big responsibility having other people send in their stories for consideration. I know all of them have put in serious work, so I must give serious consideration. I do. Like I said, it's tough not being able to do more in terms of feedback for the ones that get rejected. (Except for that guy with the breasts. Oh my God, I don't think I'll ever recover from that one.)

But just because I (or any agency) cannot give more feedback, doesn't mean that no one can.

http://www.critters.org/ is a good website for fantasy and sci-fi writers to receive feedback. This website also makes it a requirement that members give detailed feedback about other writing as well, which is super useful because it means you have to take the time and figure out what did and did not work for a certain piece. As a writer, once you start seeing what does and does not work, you will be able to see those things in your own writing. Really, feedback and critiquing are equally useful.

http://www.publishersmarketplace.com/ - this is another good website for finding agents. Like I said, some of the really good stuff I see just isn't right for the agency I represent, but there could be other agencies out there who are interested.

In conclusion, there is lot of good writing out there. A rejection doesn't mean it can't be published, a thoughtless response doesn't mean your story was thoughtlessly reviewed, and ultimately: a breast doesn't mean an intern will automatically reject a manuscript.

(But within reason, people, within reason...)

life at a literary agency (and breasts!)

I’ve recently started an internship at a literary agency, which I’m very much enjoying. Literary agents are the step in between authors and publishing houses, for those of you who don’t know. It is possible to get a novel published without an agent, but I wouldn’t advise it; most publishers won’t read unsolicited manuscripts, and agents will know which editors to get your novel to. Agents will negotiate the best deal financially.

At the end of my first full week, I’ve already learned a lot.

Like … what not to do when trying to get a novel published.

I get to read many of the submissions that come in, and a number are well-written, interesting, addressed politely and have followed the submission guidelines. These are not the majority.

Though our submission guidelines are clearly posted on the website, which ask for a hard copy, there are many people who seem to be confused by this. I get emails every day (usually addressed: “Dear Sir or Madam”) asking for representation, and often with no message about the novel in question. When referring one individual to our submission guidelines on the website, he acknowledged that he had read them, but asked for a five minute phone call or in-person meeting with the agent (whom he didn’t address by name). He insisted that he wouldn’t be doing this if he didn’t know his novel would be a best-seller.

Readers, do I take his word for it?

In this business, like in most businesses, business etiquette will only get you far. When seeking representation, ask politely, address the agent by name, include information about the novel, and above all, follow the submission guidelines. If someone hasn’t bothered to read the guidelines, I can only assume they haven’t bothered to write a decent novel. Every single submission whether it comes by email or by post is read and considered, but the ones that don’t follow the guidelines have done themselves a huge disservice. Whoever ends up reading it at the agency is already annoyed that they’re reading yet another person’s email who couldn’t be bothered to take the time to read the guidelines.

The ones that come in having followed the guidelines are already miles ahead. I kind of want to see them all represented. And isn’t that something you want the agency thinking as they go through your submission?

I’ve heard other agents going on and on asking people to follow the guidelines, and I see now how much restraint they’re actually showing.


For those interested, I’ve also noticed a few reoccurring traits that rejected manuscripts share:

1) Breasts. Breastsbreastsbreasts. I just read a manuscript that had breasts mentioned – in no connection with the plot – on page 3 (twice), 4, 5 (twice), 6, 8 and 9 (twice). Then I stopped reading. Sure, most female characters will have breasts, and sure, most straight male writers will think about them at some point. But I don’t want to read a story and be left with the impression that the author was thinking about sex (and breasts!) the whole time. I read another manuscript where every single female character was sexualized in some way by the end of the third chapter – in no connection to the plot. Again, sure, male protagonists will think about other characters’ breasts. But do we need detailed physical descriptions of all the side female characters in the story when we have yet to learn what the two male leads look like? I don’t want a book like that, and I doubt most men want a book like that – if they’re looking for breasts, they’re looking at porn.

2) The assurance that this novel will make an excellent movie. Are you writing a novel or a screenplay? Because we represent only novels. (As stated in our submission guidelines.)

3) Self-insertion. The really cool guy syndrome. The beautiful girl whom everyone wants – she can’t even walk down the street without leaving a trail of broken hearts in her wake. You know what I mean. Go on – give the character a flaw or two. Maybe the guy lost his smokin’ Ferrari to his gambling addiction, maybe the girl has cast a spell that went horribly wrong and she’s left with the guilt of destroying every marriage in town. I don’t know. But it would make the story more interesting.

That’s all for today. Tune in next week for when I snap and lobby to have our submission guidelines re-written saying we don’t accept manuscripts with a single mention of breasts.

sea lions and bondage

My first experience with Skype was an interesting one. The voice I spoke to had an odd metallic twang about it, giving my friend the appearance of one of those semi-sexy computer voices in Science Fiction movies letting the hero know: “Enemies. Approaching.” Or: “No longer. Listening.” Or even: “Going. For a. Smoke.” So it always seemed a little bit like talking to a non-human entity, which was kind of exciting until it would randomly disconnect, leaving me crouched in my tiny kitchen (because I don’t want to wake up my boyfriend in the other room) with an odd assortment of furniture, in the middle of the night, whispering something no one can hear anymore like, “…my co-worker keeps giving me the crazy-eye!” and feeling slightly unhinged.

I just want to give readers a clear view of my mental state when I did this next bit. (And seriously – the unpleasant sensation of suddenly realizing that you’re talking to yourself in less than ideal conditions* is akin to looking and looking for that thing you saw just yesterday, and remembering you last saw it on Ebay next to a set of taupe oven-mitts** today.)

So after a couple of random disconnects and re-dials, I find myself in a conversation in which my computer-voice-friend is telling me about the sea lions she saw the other day. I google sea lions just to be sure we’re talking about the same animal, and end up on the Wikipedia page for these adorable animals (we were).

Maybe it was the computer’s fault for going on about sea lions for longer than I could possibly be interested, or maybe it was mine for thinking the scenario mentioned in the first paragraph could lead to anything other than a further loss of grip on reality, but whatever the case, I found myself thinking, I wonder if I could get from Sea Lions to, like, BDSM by following related links on Wikipedia.

The answer was, of course, yes. Yes, I could. But the real question was how many links it would take. Place your bets now.

Annnnnd done. All bets should now be in.

The answer is fifteen. Notice how to be fair I wrote out the number and included it in part of a larger paragraph so your eye couldn’t automatically catch it while being asked to place your bets?*** I aim to please, I aim to please. And what would really please is to know the path I took to get there, right?**** So here it is:

SEA LIONS

- TROPICS
- WINTER
- JACK FROST
- HOGFATHER
- SUSAN STO HELIT
- PROTAGONIST
- THEATRE OF ANCIENT GREECE (because I thought Ancient Greece: there’s plenty of sex there, right?)
- CLASSICAL GREECE (Wrong. Not according to Wikipedia. I had to keep trying.)
- ALEXANDER THE GREAT
- CULTURAL DEPICTIONS OF ALEXANDER THE GREAT
- ALEXANDER (film) (Because I was reaching now, desperate to kind a link between sea lions and bondage. The computer had moved on to more interesting topics at this point, I’m sure, or hell, maybe I was talking at this point, but the chase continued…)
- SEX IN FILM
- PORNOGRAPHIC FILM
- LIST OF PORNOGRAPHIC SUB-GENRES

BDSM


And you know? The quest seems kind of empty in retrospect, like there’s still more to life I haven’t figured out. More than fun with Wikipedia and Blogs and talking to my laptop. More than figuring out how many of the 26 items I blogged about last time made it into this post. (There were 5, but anyone who placed bets gets to win for simply reading the footnotes as they came up and knowing about this exciting, one-time offer fake betting opportunity!)

… I’m going to bed.




*Are there ideal conditions in which to talk to oneself? I don’t know. Despite everything about me, I don’t really engage in this harmlessly deranged behaviour. Really.

**Did this really happen to me? You don’t know!

***Not real bets. I ask for bets to make the narrative sound more exciting. Though there will be another opportunity to place bets on a number later in this blog post. Place bets on that number… NOW!

****Or to know I’m locked in a room with soft walls? No such luck, I’m afraid. I’m still here in my tiny kitchen in the middle of the night writing a blog post about sea lions and bondage.

for Nika, because I take requests

I've had a blog post requested. It's from one of my three readers, and since I would like to cater to my fans, I'll do it. I'm a little bit out of ideas at the moment, but google still solves everything, and has inspired this post. I shall merely go through the alphabet with google, and you, dear readers, will get my opinion on each item that comes up when I type in a single letter.

A) Air Canada: Picking airlines is always so difficult. Which is cheaper? Which flight has fewer connections? If I leave on a Monday, can I extend my trip a day? Is the alcohol included? Don't bother. Each and every airline will eventually screw you out of several thousand dollars and a few days of your life. You will miss a connection and have your luggage lost with all of them. Why not fly Air Canada?

B) BMO: This is a bank. Like airlines, banks will generally screw you, too. I'm not with BMO, but I'm sure they also have hidden fees. I hope C is better.

C) Canadian Tire: Not really. I have fond memories of going here with my dad when I was a kid. My sister and I would run through the aisles. Later in life, we bought an inflatable kiddie tub from this store which we then filled with jello and had people wrestle in during a memorable party. The pool held out.

things that say a lot about me

In high school I had five particularly memorable teachers: three in English, one in Philosophy, and one in Accounting.

This, embarrassingly, explains a lot about me.

I got the degree in English and toyed with a minor in Philosophy for a while. And then there's this thing I like to do sometimes where I add up big numbers in my head and see how fast I can do it. I probably shouldn't have mentioned that last part. I came here to talk about the Beatles.

One of the memorable English teachers taught a bizarre little class where we discussed a lot of James Joyce, and I began my hatred for Conrad's 'Heart of Darkness'. (The horror.) More often than not, the already tiny class of twelve had about seven students in attendance on any given day. On one afternoon my friend and I debated all through lunch whether or not to go to the class (it was a 'Heart of Darkness' day, I'm sure of it) and ended up halfway to the bus stop before some unknown force had us running back through the school halls, ten minutes late.

We rounded the corner at a dangerous speed to find the teacher standing outside the classroom, watching us with a radiating disapproval. We panicked, then, sure, but continued on to class thinking we couldn't flee since he had seen us, and it was too late in the year to drop the class.

With an apology and outrageously hopeful spirits, we entered the classroom to find it empty save the sad piece of tumbleweed and the cricket. Upon realizing what happened, his stance at the doorway looked a lot more like the hope of a man clinging to a log in the ocean than disapproval.

The bastard still gave the lecture. We discussed Margaret Atwood's poetry, and I fell asleep halfway through with the thought: "I can't fall asleep; it's just me and one other-"

It was that kind of class.

hockey

I've been Canadian for a while now (since birth, even) and I only just started playing hockey this past September. It's great. My team has made it through the playoffs and into the finals. It begins tonight and I'm quite excited. *coughs* If only I hadn't gotten down with the drunken karaoke last night... *coughs* Bah. No regrets. :D

Hockey comes slowly tonight
I wonder if there'll be a fight
Can't wait for the game
It will be insane
But who'll win, evil or light?

the end of the world

I spent some time in Cuba recently (beautiful country, nice sand) in a resort. I admit I was not traveling for the thrill of exploring a new foreign land as I have in the past; I was there for the beach and all-inclusive alcohol.

Open bar...

Though I did get to see Havana. It was fascinating and sexy. It was a real sexy city, like New York. New York has sex appeal. So did Havana. Also, shady stores selling rum, coffee and cigars. As well as shadier individuals outside promising said goods for a cheaper price. (I am sure such places exist in NYC as well, though I have not seen them.)

During the majority of my time there, I could be found at the beach under the floppy hat, jealously guarding my book and beer with my standard paranoia and muscular travel companion. I quickly finished my novel about the gossip during the first day, and moved on to Murakami's 'Hard-Boiled Wonderland and the End of the World'.

The book is utter crack. Which isn't a bad thing. But it got me thinking about the End of the World. To be honest, a lot of things get me thinking about the End of the World, but that's only because of the aforementioned paranoia.

In any case, I went down to the beach one night and gazed out over the water. The waves broke over the sand as they did during the day, and bumped and swelled a little further out. Then a little further out... darkness. The black water stretched out and up, and up - until there were stars. There was no horizon, just blackness stretching out from your feet in the surf. It was like standing on the edge of the world. It was like standing at the End of the World.

And what if, I thought, there was nothing out there in the blackness. I knew that somewhere to the north lay Florida, and beyond that, the sexy city of New York, and beyond that, my home, my friends, my family, my bed, the mall down the street, the clubs downtown, my old schools, my favourite restaurants... But what if all that wasn't there? What if the world had ended and there were no more schools and no more clubs because there was no more electricity and no more people? What if there were no more hospitals and no more doctors and no one you could call for help? What if it was just you, standing on the edge? You and the universe and the End of the World.

I left the beach after a while and went back with my muscular travel companion to the open bar and the lights and stopped thinking about the End. For a while. But the End always creeps back into my mind. Because it's always on the edge. Waiting.

identity theft

I've been thinking a lot lately about Identity Theft. This is perhaps because in the last week, there have been three thefts concerning people I am close to. Jamais deux sans trios, oui?

In this day and age, information is sent at impossible speeds around the world, so when you're paying for yet another case of beer in Brazil, your bank in Windsor can say, "No, fool. DECLINED." And in the morning, you're glad that this technology exists. You're glad that the store that sold you your 62" television has a record of your phone number and address so when you lose the receipt and it stops working in three days, they can say, "Hey, not a problem."

But no one's glad to see that their bank account has been emptied one day. ESPECIALLY when it wasn't you who emptied it. No one wants to be turned down for a mortgage because their credit has turned sour. No one is glad to learn they're on the airport's special list because some other John Smith with your birthday (and let's face it, there must be tons) has been convicted of murder. Will the real John Smith please stand up!

So while trying to catch a cab home from the airport (because they finally figured out it wasn't you, but damn, you missed your flight), you're starting to wonder how this is possible. How can you be wanted for a crime you did not commit? How can someone else have used your debit card to demolish your life savings? How can we stop sharing so much information?

And do we even want to? What is the alternative? Sharing all this information is so convenient for everyday living, we all know this. But it comes at a price. There is that risk we take everyday. That someone could walk away with your IDENTITY. And what is scarier than that?

I think Eminem had something there.