How Do I Know What I Think Until I See What I Say?

Let me confess a weakness--I like boys with girl names. This is a hard thing as a writer, because boy characters with girl names are not popular in YA. They are confusing at best, readers say, or imply things about the character that you don't want to imply.* So despite the fact that I know actual non-gay boys named Shannon and Kelly and Lesley and Yancy, it is going to be hard to include non-gay boys with those names in my stories. The thing that annoys me about this is that girls with boy names are NO PROBLEM, especially if the girl is supposed to be awesome and kickass. Think about it--how many "Sams" and "Alexs" have you seen in books lately? I even saw a "Mike" (short for Michaella) once. And this prejudice carries over into non-girl names as well. Recently, I had to change a main character's name from Julian (which is TOTALLY a boy's name, Twinsburg!) to Jeremy because the readers were getting confused by his gender.** The problem, fo...

1. Glee comes back on this week--yay! Foz re-ran the pilot this past week and I'm even more in love with this show now than I was a few months ago, if that's possible. GLEE! 2. I just started a five year journal (which is where you write a sentence or two about what happened today on a page, and then come back on the same day the next year and do it again). I've only been doing it for a few days, so it's boring now; I wonder if it will be more interesting next year, or the year after that. 3. I have a new favorite song, this one (stupid music companies disabling the embed). This girl (Fefe Dobson) is like the love child of Joan Jett, Rihanna, Green Day, and Kelly Clarkson, in other words...awesome. 4. Also awesome, this old commercial for Pets.com, which I saw on YouTube while I was looking for the Fefe Dobson thing: WOOO OOOOH OOOOOOOO, baby, please don't go! 5. Disturbia is a pretty good modern take on Rear Window , and I totally understand why people t...

Way back in July over on Fangs, Fur, & Fey, Marie Brennan had a poll about what readers think of side stories surrounding books, especially books in a series. Her responses seemed to indicate that readers enjoy these kinds of stories (where we find out what happened to the characters before or after the book ends, or in between books, or when they were offscreen) although most people aren't really interested in having to pay for them. I don't know that I agree. When I used to write fan fiction about television shows, we called these stories "missing scenes." They would be stories about what happened in between scenes in an episode or in between episodes themselves, but one of the key elements was that a "missing scene"* would have to fit seamlessly between the scenes where it took place. One that didn't wasn't a missing scene story, it was just plain old fan fiction, jumping off from the show and going in a whole new direction. I call this k...

Recently, on Unclutterer,* Erin had a post on being the best. In it, she talks about how, after years and years of studying ballet, she quit because she realized she was never going to be the best, and how much she regrets that decision now, along with the other decisions she's made not to do things because she's not going to be the best. I think all people, especially creative people, have made decisions based on that criteria. (Or have considered making them on that criteria, at least.) Our culture, after all, is a culture of winning, where people say things like "second place is first loser" and "if you can't be the best, why bother?" That kind of attitude, in my opinion, is bulls##t. Sure, winning matters. If you play a sport, for example, it's important to know who won at the end of the game. Any kind of competition, really, should have a winner, I think. I'm not one of those touchy feely people who thinks that everyone getting a ...

1. Dear LSAT students: When you come to take a diagnostic test you should probably bring (a) your diagnostic test book and (b) a pencil. This is not junior high, people. You want to be lawyers; get it together. 2. That's enough, Nickleback.* 3. You know that post I wrote about that Our Lady Peace song that was so awful? Yeah, guess what's on repeat on my iPod right now? I can't help it! It makes me laugh every time I hear it. Congratulations, Our Lady Peace, you have successfully got me to spend my money on you. I'm not sure if it's a sustainable business model, but you gotta work with what you've got, I suppose.** 4. I'm experiencing a sort of writing high point at the moment. That's why I missed all my updates last week, because every time I sat down at my computer I had a billion other story-related things I wanted to do first. It's so exciting when things start happening in a story. ~~~ *This is from a meme that's going around F...

From Hey, Teenager of the Year : What’s the last thing you wrote? I'm working on some backstory for The Book at the moment. Nothing that's going in to the story, just some stuff that came to me that lead to further questions. Was it any good? It's Not for Human Consumption, so it doesn't matter. What’s the first thing you ever wrote that you still have? I couldn't even answer that question. I don't throw my old writing away unless I've incorporated it into new stuff, but I also don't keep it in any organized fashion. Write poetry? Oh god, yes. Wasn't everyone a teenager at some point? Angsty poetry? Of course . Again, I was a teenager . Favourite genre of writing? YA, FTW! Most fun character you ever wrote? Brandy Summers. She's from "the wrong side of the tracks" and she's got a smart mouth and a high sex drive. What's not to love? Most annoying character you ever wrote? I like them all, so I'm immune to being annoyed...

Over at the Bookends blog, Jessica has a post about writers being true to themselves and being proud of what they write. I know people who are embarrassed to write what they write--romances or memoir or YA or whatever--but none of those people are actually published, I suppose because someone who is embarrassed to admit what they write is going to be going out there and seeking publication.* But I guess I'm surprised that it's an issue. I shouldn't be--I was an English major and I'm familiar with the concept of the anxiety of influence**--but the idea that a modern writer would be worried about not being "literary" or not writing a certain genre is...odd to me. I write YA. That's what I do. I don't feel like I should be writing literary fiction, or romance, or mysteries or something.*** And even if I did feel like YA wasn't "worth it" (whatever that means), I don't know that I'd be any good at writing anything else.**** Why ...