Losing the Dream Job: Writing and Recovering

I've been a writer my entire life. It is a lifelong vocation. It comes easily to me, I like doing it, and I can do it just about anywhere. Part of the reason I've seen it as a vocation rather than a job is because I never expected to find a job writing. Sure, I dreamed of writing the Best-Selling Book that makes a million dollars - but that dream rested on the same shelf as winning the lottery (both dreams end with me typing away in a well-appointed English cottage with reliable Wi-Fi).

I suppose I could have gone into journalism or freelancing, but (perhaps immaturely) I always preferred living in fictional realms rather than the real one. I never wanted to chase down elusive leads, I was terrified at the idea of contacting strangers and asking about their stories, and even more terrified at the idea of living, financially, like a desperate trapeze artist swinging from opportunity to opportunity, always one leap away from tumbling down into Ruin. 

Perhaps I was spoiled. Perhaps I was a coward. But that's not really the point of my post.

Anyway, last November, I won the lottery. No, I didn't sell another novel. No, I didn't pick the winning numbers. Instead, I landed a writing job at BioWare. 

Lightning Strikes

Back in September, BioWare put out a posting for a contract Assistant Writer position for their new IP. They were willing to look at applicants with no game writing experience, provided their practical writing experience and writing sample demonstrated talent and a willingness to learn. I sent in my application, was called in for an interview a month later, got a job offer the next day, and officially started with them two weeks later.

It really was the perfect job. First of all - I adore BioWare games. Dragon Age: Origins got me back into gaming, and I've played the Dragon Age and Mass Effect trilogies multiple times. Sure, the gameplay was fun, but it was BioWare's storytelling that hooked me. I loved the characters, I loved the choice-based narratives, I loved the worldbuilding. Whatever I would be working on, it was bound to be amazing.

Secondly, their office was located in Edmonton, right where I live. I wouldn't have to move to another city and miss my friends and family. Thirdly, it was that rarest of rare ducks - a pure writing job that was nine to five with a salary (and a fairly good one!). 

So you can imagine my joy: I'd found a job writing what I loved for a company I loved that allowed me to stay in a city I loved that paid enough money to buy more things that I loved. I learned a lot (and fairly quickly), I was super excited about the IP and the creativity I could bring to it, and I got to share a writer's room and trade ideas with legendary BioWare talents. I bought an embarrassing amount of BioWare merchandise with my employee discount and had a blast at the insane BioWare Christmas party. 

I planned to dye my hair blue (since BioWare has no dress code). I planned to get a tattoo of the IP's name (once it was finalized). I daydreamed about the merchandise and the fan art people would make about the character I would write. 

And Then...

BioWare terminated my contract two months in. The project was going in a different direction, they had to make cuts, and as the newest writer with the least amount of experience, I was the obvious choice. I held it together during the exit interview and the taxi ride home, barely. 

You know that feeling when you miss a step on a staircase? That feeling of disorientation when your foot meets empty air when you expected solid ground? Imagine feeling that for a week. Just total, empty shock, with no idea where you're going to end up. I knew my position was a one-year contract. I knew there was a possibility they wouldn't renew. It had come up in my interview, actually, and the interviewer had said, "Even if we don't renew, you'll have a year with BioWare on top of a published novel under your belt. You can get a writing job anywhere with that."

But what can I do with two months at BioWare?

Losing my job at BioWare is probably the closest I've ever come to experiencing a breakup. I didn't go full Miss Havisham and turn all the clocks in the house to 11:00 am (the time of my final HR meeting, but who remembers such petty details?) while replaying the Suicide Mission from Mass Effect 2 over and over in my BioWare 20 T-shirt and Tali hoodie. But I came close. I placed an inordinate amount of significance on diary entries and receipts and even credit card charges that happened before January 19th, 2016 - I bought this before I knew what was going to happen. I went to this restaurant expecting to have a job this week. I had no idea what was in store for me when I made this appointment.

What Now?

And once you've found and lost your dream job, how the hell do you find another job? Game writing positions are dearer than pearls - finding a game writing job in Canada was lucky enough, never mind one in my own home town. And convincing an American video game company like Tell Tale Games or a British one like Failbetter Games to sponsor me for a working visa based on a novel and two month's game writing experience? What are the odds of that? 

And after having and losing an amazing writing job, is it worth trying again for another writing job? I didn't quit my administrator job of five years for BioWare - I'd already tendered my notice as I was planning on attending Vancouver Film School in January to study screenwriting. I withdrew from film school for BioWare, and the relief I felt that I wouldn't have to move away and I wouldn't have to empty out my savings convinced me I was making the right choice. Once I lost my job at BioWare, my desire to go to film school was similarly torpedoed. I'd opened the door to my fears of Leaving Home and Spending All My Money - and there they remain, ready and waiting for me whenever I try to revisit the idea of reapplying to VFS. 

Would you really want to leave all your family and friends and spend all the money you've saved over ten years to get into an industry that can kick you out after only two months?

So the remaining option is to go back to the way things were before - working in a stable, administrative field by day and writing by night. But once you've lost your dream job, how can you go back to looking for administrative jobs? You're supposed to apply for jobs you want, jobs that improve on the experience you have, jobs you envision being happy and fulfilled in. How do you apply for jobs knowing this will not and will never be the case? How do you keep from going crazy? 

Moving On

I'm still wrestling with what to do. I've applied to numerous jobs - mostly administrative, but I did take a shot on an Ubisoft scriptwriter position in Montreal. I haven't written off Vancouver Film School just yet. I suspect it's a choice millions of people (artists especially) have to worry over: ordinary stability or uncertain greatness? Do I go for a stable job and fight to keep up an artistically and socially impassioned home life? Or try for the fantastic artistic career and all the insecurity that comes with it? 

Out of all this, I remain certain about two things. The first is that I am not bitter towards BioWare. I realized it that first, awful afternoon when the taxi dropped me off and I collapsed onto my bed. The first thing I saw when I came up for air (and the first thing I see when I wake up every morning) is my Dragon Age Inquisition calendar pinned to my cork board. The second thing I see are my Tali and Garrus figurines on my windowsill. And the Tali hoodie on its hook on the back of my bedroom door. Dragon Age: Origins is my comfort game. The Trespasser soundtrack is my go-to secret to writing productivity. I still follow and converse with all of my BioWare writing friends on Twitter. 

The termination of my contract wasn't personal. It's a sadly frequent reality of the video game industry. BioWare has a lot of separate moving parts, and the parts I came into contact with during my employment with them treated me extraordinarily well. If I was sent back in time to choose between applying to BioWare knowing I'd only have two months, and never applying at all, I'd do it all over again without question. And if tomorrow, in a month, in a year, another Assistant Writer position becomes available, I will apply again. Without question.

The second thing I remain certain of is that I can still write, and that it will always make me happy whether or not I do it for money. Every day, after I spend the morning scrolling through job postings and sending out resumes, I open my latest journal or scribbler and the words continue to flow from my pen. Regardless of the panic I feel at being unemployed, the self-consciousness at having to define myself in every cover letter as an administrative assistant, the frustration and longing at discovering a game writing internship is only open to recent graduates who live in the United States, I can still come up with ideas that take me away from everything but my own mind. I'm still a writer. Hell, I'm a great writer, and I can always take pride in that.

I don't need to be paid to write.

But .... it would be nice.

How I Learned to Wake Up and Smell My Laurels

You've probably heard the expression, "resting on your laurels." It means to milk a singular success instead of going out and succeeding some more.

But is there the opposite of that expression? "Downplaying your laurels"? "Hiding your laurels in a tasteful floral arrangement"? "Those aren't really laurels, that's just a Christmas wreath you stole from the sales rack at Target"?

Last August, I actually won some laurels I'd been searching for my whole life. My debut fantasy-romance novel, The Duke of Snow and Apples, was published by Entangled Romance. And for one hot month I was wearing 100% laurel-woven tunics and eating laurel salad and drinking laurel smoothies.

I'd done it, I was an author. I had reached the Mount Olympus of artistic achievement, and it was time to drink ambrosia, abduct Greek maidens and commit incest in a variety of impractical animal forms with the other mighty wordsmiths who had come before.

And yet, the more time passed, the less I believed in what I had done. It wasn't that I stopped bragging (although I did, because the world kept turning after I achieved Literary Immortality and I'm not a dick). It was that my brain started reverse-bragging.

It's one thing to not brag about an achievement because it's not relevant to the current conversation.

It's another thing to retroactively dismiss a legitimate achievement. Some months after Duke came out, when people asked about my book, I'd talk about it - and then I'd find myself apologizing. Adding some sort of explanation to it. Just to make sure they didn't get the wrong idea.

"Oh, I had a book published - but it's only in ebook form."

Or, "My book came out - but it didn't sell very many copies. My mom bought a lot."

Or, "My book was published by Entangled - you've probably never heard of them."

Or, and this makes me really kick myself, "I do have a book out - *apologetic smile* - it's a romance."

Let me back up for a moment. I grew up as one of those quirky kids who, despite not being an habitual liar, was always afraid of being thought a liar. I've always been paranoid of people not believing me. It's resulted in a pathological reluctance to take sick days ("what if my boss thinks I'm faking?"), return retail items ("what if they think I actually wore it?"), or demand refunds ("what if the malfunctioning coin-laundry company thinks I'm trying to scam money from them?").

For some reason, when I told people I was an author, it felt like I wasn't telling the truth. Or at least, the whole truth. I wasn't really an author. Entangled was a small publisher, and they probably published everybody. My book was only a step above self-published. It was a nobody book at a nobody publisher - what the hell was I doing, telling people I was an author? Susan Elizabeth Phillips is an author. Robin Hobb is an author. I'm just a schmuck.

What the hell? Why was I thinking those things? Why was I downgrading my achievements in front of people who asked about my book?

First of all - Entangled is a fantastic publisher with a rapidly growing reader base and a diverse stable of authors. They do not accept "just about everybody." I would know - I interned there for over a year. I read their slush pile. And their best authors sell tens of thousands of copies.

....and, okay, I didn't make it that far. But I checked my sales stats and I know as an empirical fact that I've sold more copies than my mother could possibly justify buying. Which means that strangers I'd never met - of sound mind (hopefully) and of their own free will - liked the idea of my book enough to buy it and read it. And a lot of them liked it and wrote great reviews! That means something!

Moreover, when I attended the Words in 3D Conference in my hometown this weekend, I was strongly reminded just how tough it can be to break into publishing. People who have been writing their whole lives and have slogged through hundreds of writer's cons and writing groups and author seminars are still fighting for that dream.

At my workplace, I had someone from a different department reveal to me they've been trying to write and publish a novel for ten years. AND I STILL FELT EMBARRASSED, like I had cheated on a test and won the scholarship that the struggling genius working two jobs should have received.

Worse - I found myself belittling my work because it was romance. HAVE YOU PERCHANCE HAPPENED TO NOTICE THE TYPES OF NOVELS I'VE REVIEWED ON THIS WEBSITE FOR A DECADE?

Wow, I am a schmuck.

Hubris can be fatal and arrogance is unattractive (unless you're a sexy, swarthy Duke with a dark past, of course!), but everyone needs to have pride in something. And maybe pride needs to be nurtured.

I don't know why I've felt this way about my book. Maybe it's because I'd dreamed for so long about Becoming An Author, and embellished the Ultimate Glory of that Achievement in my mind for so many years. When it finally happened and Hugh Jackman and Channing Tatum failed to materialize at my door on a tandem bicycle holding my You Did It! Trophy, I suppose that caused my brain to tell me that I hadn't really "made it" yet.

This is sort of true. Publishing your first book isn't the end of the road - it's just a super awesome rest stop where you can replenish your self-confidence and creativity. You're never going to reach that "Made It" plateau where you can stop and the world's accolades will just come to you. When I was a teen I just assumed once a publisher took on your first book they were contractually obligated to publish you forever, like a Random Penguin imprinting on its mother. You were now an Author, and your publisher had only to bask in your radiance and provide offerings of royalties and deckled page editions. This is not true. Like, at all.

No one likes a braggart, and I'm not supposed to rest on my laurels. But I need to remind myself every now and then to smell the laurels. To remind me they're real. That I did win them. That I worked really hard and had a lot of fun and was rewarded. That I am special and talented.

I am an author. I was published. I even made royalties! But now it's time to get back to writing.

2013: The Year in Writing, In General, and the Year to Come

Writing

Happy New Year, readers! We've been through how I did as a reader and reviewer, but 2013 was also a really good year for me in terms of writing.

In 2013, I wrote 4 articles for Heroes and Heartbreakers:

• Villainesses in Romance
• Men Are From Mars: The Art of Writing Misogynists
• Love This Pain: Romance Novels That Twist the Knife
• Dr. Lovinkind's Guide to Common Romance Medicine

I also wrote two articles for The Huffington Post's Book Blog:

• The Legacy of Katniss, or Why We Should Stop 'Protecting' Manhood and Teach Boys to Embrace the Heroine
• Lovesick and Tired: Unnecessary Romance in YA

The biggest writing event for me, however, was selling The Duke of Snow and Apples (my genderbent retelling of Snow White) to Entangled Publishing! Yes, 2013 was the year I became a published - er, to be published author! Before you ask, it's coming out this year, but I have no idea when yet. We will see! 

2013 In General

So 2013 was an interesting year overall. I took some time in the summer to recap Fringe, Veronica Mars and Downton Abbey - although it wound up taking way more effort and time than I'd anticipated.

I went to Book Expo America for the second time, and I had an amazing roommate for it. I also got to meet my favourite author Alice Hoffman in person - and Jim Carrey! Extremely blurry Jim Carrey.

The Year to Come

As some of you may know, I've been blogging for a while. Going on ten years this June. I started out whining about my parents, then reviewing romances, and then I expanded to reviewing literally every book I read. I loved doing it, it strengthened my writing and editing skills and introduced me to a wonderful community of fellow bloggers, book lovers, writers, and publishing industry professionals.

However, for the last couple of months, blogging has started becoming a little overwhelming. What with my paying job, my non-paying publishing intern position, and my attempts to actually write another book of my own, my schedule has gotten pretty tight. I've had trouble juggling all these different responsibilities and while blogging has always come easily to me, it still takes up a huge chunk of my time. The average book review can take anywhere from two to four hours to write. And since I'll be starting the editing and revision process for The Duke of Snow and Apples soon, I'll have even less time. 

I can't help but feel a little guilty - after all, I'm already pretty low-maintenance for a blogger. I don't have a set schedule, I read whatever I want, I don't do blog tours or giveaways or memes or cover snarks, and I've never managed to review more than eight or nine times a month anyhow. I still have so many ARCs from Book Expos gone by.

It's also difficult because book reviewing is something I'm good at and know I'm good at. I'm way more confident of my reviewing skills than I am of my fiction-writing skills. It's so tempting to just give up the editing and the novel writing altogether in order to stick with the skills I already receive positive reinforcement for. In fact, that's pretty much what I did for most of 2013 - I used my blogging as an excuse to not write fiction. Not enough time! Can't do both! Sorry, I filled my writing quota for the week raging at Everything But the Moon! My fiction sucks and my blog is awesome - so why waste time on the novel? However - if you do what you've always done, you'll get what you've always gotten. And if I want something different, I have to do something different.

For me, 2014 is going to be about abandoning the Safe and Same. I'm not giving up blogging. I'll start slow with a blogging sabbatical for a couple of months. I'll still read, obviously - and I'll still review if a book is particularly excellent, interesting, or terrible (or if I've already promised to review it). But my schedule just can't support reviewing everything I read anymore.

However, I'll keep up the snark on Twitter and star-grade everything I read on BookLikes. I'll still be more than willing to discuss which books suck donkey balls on either of these platforms. I'll still keep up with and comment on other book blogs.

So I'll still be here - just not with constant reviews.

Here's hoping for an exciting and successful 2014!

"The Duke of Snow and Apples" and the End of Aspiration

I've pretty much had the same dream for most of my self-aware life.

To be a writer. Now, being a writer is a pretty easy dream to fulfil. If you put a pen to paper, or set your fingers above a typewriter, and apply enough physical pressure to scrawl or type out words, you're a writer.

....or if you dictate it to your mum because you haven't learned how to write yet - so long you draw all the pictures!

And I did become a writer. I started this blog. I wrote for The Green Man Review, The Gateway, Heroes and Heartbreakers, and even The Huffington Post. 

My first published fiction piece happened in 2007, when my novella, "My Brother's Own Words," appeared in Cicada Magazine's March/April issue.

It was a professional magazine. They took almost a year to receive, read, accept, and publish my manuscript - and they paid 25 cents a word, which, for a 9,000-word novella, was not too shabby! 

Still, I couldn't quite kick the "aspiring" label off of my efforts. I wanted to be a novelist. Have my own book. My own Amazon and Goodreads page. My own cover. A book that was mine. 

Recently, I took The Duke of Snow and Apples - a novel I'd written a few years ago - out from under the metaphorical bed and gave it a dust-off. I realized that the time we'd spent apart had given me a better perspective on the novel and how to improve it. So, after polishing it one more time, I resubmitted it for the first time in years.

And it got accepted. 

ACCEPTED.

The Duke of Snow and Apples is going to be a reality, thanks to Entangled Publishing! It's going to have a cover, and eventually an Amazon page, and crappy 1-star reviews from people angry that it's priced too high! It's going to be a published novel, and it's going to be my published novel! 

It was almost anti-climatic how it happened. I received the E-mail on my Blackberry - a cheery little yellow envelope icon blinking up at me as I was having my afternoon break at work. I don't know what I was expecting - although I had harboured daydreams of my publishers turning up in a van, showering me in confetti and announcing their intent to acquire my novel by way of chocolate icing tastefully hand-written onto an enormous ice cream cake. 

But believe me, for the last couple of days, I've been happily coughing up accidentally-ingested confetti in my heart. 

The interesting thing is that this didn't really happen by focusing on accomplishing One Major Dream - but by gradually accomplishing smaller dreams that accumulated and granted me the skills and experience required to tackle the Big Dream. I wanted to be a writer - so I wrote. I wanted to be a published writer, so I volunteered for magazines and started a blog. Using the exposure I got from my blog posts, I turned to contributing to e-zines and literary blogs. And in the process of doing all that, I learned how the publishing world worked, especially in relation to the things I'd already written. 

During NaNoWriMo 2008, I landed on an idea for a novel. A romance novel. A retelling of Snow White - only this time, the damsel was the hero (a footman), and the Prince Charming a spoiled noblewoman. The setting would be very similar to Regency England, but set in a fantasy world where the importance of bloodlines and breeding had a very specific magical purpose. 

So I wrote it. I finished it. I polished it. And I critique-grouped it thanks to the RWA's fantastic Fantasy, Futuristic, and Paranormal chapter. I pitched it to agents (once in person!). I submitted it to contests. It appeared in Dear Author's First Page series. One agent request a partial. A publisher requested a full. 

But somehow, it never happened. There were a lot of critiques and the consensus was that it just wasn't quite good enough. I think the excitement of all the requests followed by all the rejections sapped my drive for the idea. I honestly forget why I gave up on it, but I think my brain was already churning out new ideas and wanted to work on a new project rather than waste the effort on a flagging former project that didn't measure up. 

But sometimes setting a project aside for a while can be a good thing. In the intervening years, the publishing world changed, readers changed, and I changed. For the better, I hope.

Now I can finally scratch out "Aspiring" next to my description. Elizabeth Vail, Aspiring Novelist. It has a nice ring to it.

I haven't heard back yet about a release date, but I'll be sure to keep you guys updated! For now - I'm off to work on another novel! 

Responding to Negative Reviews: Do's and Don'ts

This little post is in response to a recent scandal involving a way-cray-cray website created by a spiteful writer in order to revenge herself anonymously upon snarky reviewers by stalking them, going so far as to post their addresses and personal information online. And all of it in the name of "stopping bullying" (except for *cough* the fact that all the legitimate anti-bullying organizations she linked to refused all association and demanded the removal of their banners from her page). But the fact remains - how should authors react to negative or snarky reviews?

Well, search no more, because AnimeJune has the answer.

So, let's imagine you're a crispity-cool magic-fantastic writer of published novels, and let's say you're innocently surfing the internet when...

EGADS!

 A negative review of your CRISPITY-COOL MAGIC-FANTASTIC NOVEL!

A lot of emotions might be going through your head right now. 

Your first instinct might be depression, because someone didn't like all the cool things you wrote, which means they don't think that you're cool, which makes you start to doubt if you were ever crispity-cool and magic-fantastic to begin with.

Your second instinct might be rage. After all, rage is more productive, right? This reviewer clearly didn't even read your novel, at least not the way it was meant to be read - and he or she is telling everyone how to read it THE WRONG WAY. They're threatening your career! They're spreading lies and misconceptions about how your book isn't crispity-cool and magic-fantastic - WHEN IT CLEARLY IS, BECAUSE YOU WROTE IT!

 Decisions, decisions. What would a truly crispity-cool magic-fantastic author do in this situation? It's not like there's a guide on the internet.

WELL, NOW THERE IS! THE ULTIMATE DO'S AND DON'TS FOR RESPONDING TO A NEGATIVE REVIEW:

DO eat your feelings.

So many magic-fantastic feelings...

DO drink wine. It's nature's Control-Z! And it helps you live longer, like the French do, because we read it somewhere in a magazine. We think.

DO call your mum. DO call your friends. They're your very first fans, after all! They'll understand and listen to what you're going through!

DO cry in the bath. You are an artiste! You are not a machine! Your passionate heart is wounded!

The bathtub of an artiste is a judgement-free zone.

An artiste's feelings are very exhausting. 

DON'T write nasty posts or e-mails to the reviewer. You are an artiste! Your work must be engorged with love, not with hate!

DON'T use the Internet to track down that reviewer's personal information, credit rating, or address.

DO use the Internet to find pictures of kittens!

DON'T go after your reviewer with a knife...

...unless it's to offer them chicken in a gesture of peace! Dark meat or white meat?

Mmmmmm, chicken. The anguished, hungry goddess of vengeance is appeased.

DO keep writing. Writing is YOUR passion, and YOUR dream - you don't do it for the reviewers, after all. You do it for yourself, because you are a crispity-cool magic-fantastic author.

The writing-space of an artiste is also a judgement-free zone. And Mama's gotta make her deadline.

 Lasty, DO remember that you are a crispity-cool magic-fantastic author. If people are reviewing your book, that means people are also reading your book. And the more people are reading and talking about your book, the more people will find out about and start reading your book. And that is awesome.

The Weekly Wanting (8)

Happy Sunday, folks! Some cool things are happening this week!

Firstly, today is my Third Twitterversary! Yup, I've been on Twitter for three years, had some great 140-character conversations, learned a lot of new things and overheard a lot of scandals. But I still can't explain how it works to my parents!

As well, I have a winner for the Catch And Release giveaway! HANNALILY come on down! And by down I mean, e-mail me your deets!

Tomorrow I'll be having my second Forever Young Adult Bookclub meeting! We'll be meeting at a pub and discussing The Disreputable History of Frankie Landau-Banks over drinks and fried foods.

Writing-wise, especially given what I wrote last week, it's actually picked up. I just made myself sit down in a place with very few distractions (in this case, Steep's Tea House with several pots and eventually a tea latte of their Choco-Chili-Chai blend) and wrote whatever I wanted. And it started to get good! I actually tried to be funny - and y'all know I can be extremely funny in my reviews, and I like being funny, so I tried to make it funny. Have I typed the word "funny" enough? I think so.

In this case, writing in a contemporary setting, I found the humour was easier. A lot of my previous works were historical or set in a fantasy world, and the humour in those types of books can be very difficult to pull off since they often rely on modern humour filtered through an historically-appropriate lens, so it often comes off as stilted or obvious.

And, as I've always found, writing requires a lot of momentum. The more I write, the easier it is to write. The more I write in one book, the easier it is to pick it up again. For instance, I've been focusing a lot on my Fantasy YA (More Than Normal) more than my Fantasy Fairy-Tale Retelling (Mouseheart), so it's easier to pick up the first novel and keep at it then my second (although it still has potential so I may return to it later).

In sad news - I've spent the last two weeks breaking in a new pair of sandals for BEA - and they broke me in instead, and by me, I mean my poor right heel. I spent most of yesterday on the internet terrifying myself with websites about Heel Spurs and Haglund's Deformity and Achilles Tendonitis and retrocalcaneal bursitis and plantar fascilitis. I'm under thirty, I'm not overweight, I walk a lot but I don't jog or run. All I did was wear new sandals for two weeks! So I'm just going to keep my feet up, ice it, take Motrin, and hope I can still walk for BEA!

I also went out and bought BOOKS this week! Gasp! With BEA almost upon me and everything! I comfort myself with the fact that neither of these authors are going to be at BEA, so I'm not doubling up - I found a 2002 edition of Alice Hoffman's Illumination Night (whoohoo!) and Kingdom of Gods by N.K. Jemisin so that I can finish her trilogy on the plane!

Speaking of planes, and BEA - I'M GOING TO BEA this year! But I'll be making a whole separate post about that so that this one doesn't go on too long!

As for the whole Wanting part - not so much this week. Sometimes there are weeks where every blog I read is talking about the same two or three books and they're just NOT what I'm interested in at all. But I did find one:

A Confusion Of Princes, by Garth Nix 

Genre: Science Fiction, Possibly Science Fantasy

Cover Snark: I really like the vest!

The Story: Our hero is a Prince - but in a science-fictional world where there are 10,000 Princes fighting for supremacy! Awwwwkard.

Why I Want It? There are few storylines I like more than Arrogant Douchebags who are Brought Low and Redeemed Through Toil (see: my love for the protagonist of District Nine), which is what the Booksmugglers' review made it look like. Excellent!

So that's my week! How's yours going?

 

The Weekly Wanting (7)

Hey readers! Sorry about the lack of a Wanting last week. To be perfectly honest, I hadn't come across any books that particularly interested me that week, so I did without a post.

This has been an exciting week. I've been preparing for Book Expo America. Commissioned gorgeous business cards, scheduled hair and um, eyebrow appointments, shopped for new clothes, printed my Broadway tickets and hotel and flight confirmations, bought some new clothes and with the help of band-aids, I've been breaking in my newest pair of pretty sandals.

But this is definitely an event I'm going to as a reader and a blogger instead of an author. On the author front, I'm kind of at a crossroads. When it comes to writing non-fiction, like commentaries and reviews, I love it. I look forward to it. It makes me happy. However, when it comes to actual fiction - I've always wanted to write a novel. And I have good story ideas. But whenever I think about writing fiction, I stop. I'll do anything to hold off having to do it. I'd rather read some books. I'd rather surf through Tumblr. I'd rather clean my house. And aren't writers supposed to want to write? To be excited?

Like, I even reorganized my bookshelves - although, let's be honest, I love organizing my bookshelves:

I used to just stack all my books vertically, thinking it saved space, but really, horizontally is the way to go - they're easier to access and it just looks better.

But back on topic: writing fiction. I've started and stopped a lot of novels. To date, I've only finished two - and only one of those got through more than a first draft (The Duke of Snow and Apples). But when I actually decide to stop writing fiction and just focus on reading and my blog, I get another good idea. Life is hard. NaNoWriMo helped a lot, actually, so even though it's the end of May, I'll try to get back in that groove. In the words of Chris Baty: "The first step in writing a good book: giving yourself permission to write a bad book."

It's weird. I talk to a lot of authors on Twitter and I keep wondering how can they do it? How can they write so much in one day, actual coherent stuff that regularly gets published, and still have jobs and lives? I mean, when I was younger (and still to some extent today), I think of the incredibly magical and talented works of authors like Cathrynne Valente and Elizabeth Bear and just assume they live very odd and unconventional lives - like they live in elaborate eco-friendly treehouses and write with owl-feather pens and own retired racehorses and whatnot. So of course it's very jarring to see them Tweeting about how their fridge broke down or the latest episode of The Bachelor. 

The best I can do is keep writing, I suppose, although at this point it's more like digging through a giant mountain of poop hoping to find gold somewhere. But enough of my weekly ramblings! What books am I excited for this week?

The Uninvited Guests, by Sadie Jones
Genre: Historical, Paranormal, Comedy of Manners
Cover Snark: I really wouldn't invite anyone before I'd had a chance to decorate, either.
The Story: While a landed gentry family is throwing a classy dinner party, a train derails nearby and they're forced to accommodate the (gasp!) lower-class survivors. Also, ghosts.
Why I Want It: I loves me some period pieces. Comedies of manners even more so. And with a recommendation from The Booksmugglers? Sold! On that note:

The Outcast, by Sadie Jones
Genre: Historical fiction
Cover Snark: Everyone loves hugs!
 The Story: A boy returns to his home after a prison sentence, unravelling a number of dark secrets about his community, his family, and his mother's disappearance.
Why I Want It? Just reading the description from The Booksmuggler's review of Uninvited Guests sounded like something I'd definitely like. Historical period, dark family secrets, in England? Yes please!

Breaking Beautiful, by Jennifer Shaw Wolf
Genre: YA, Contemporary
Cover Snark: Ooh! Nice shoes!
The Story: After surviving a car accident that killed her popular boyfriend, our protagonist is forced to remember and confront the fact that their relationship was abusive, as well as rebuild her life with the friends she left behind.
Why I Want It? It sounds like an interesting story, particularly about a girl dating the town's most popular and well-liked guy, only to come to terms with the fact that he was a monster while the town is mourning his death. I honestly forgot where I read the great review for this. I think I'll have to take better notes in the future.

And that's it! What are you looking forward to reading? Also, any writing advice for burnout?

The Unwashed Blogger Masses: A Rant

I am AnimeJune.

And I am one of the unwashed blogger masses.

Let me explain. One of the most glorious things about the internet, is that is has given everyone a voice. Virtually anyone can start up a blog, give it a title, and start writing about whatever they please. Out of this has grown a thriving reviewer community - not just for books, but for about every product on the planet - plays, videogames, TV shows, movies, you name it.

Now, most artists and authors see bloggers as an untapped, budget-friendly goldmine. Give a few free ARCs away, have a reviewer give a positive review, and then another twelve bloggers will read that post and try the book themselves and realize they love it, and then that's twelve more reviews, with thirty bloggers reading those blogs and deciding to try the book themselves. And so on and so forth

The thing is, some authors have not learned how to deal with negative reviews. Writing takes an absurdly puffed-up sense of confidence - believe me, I've had it. So a scathing review out of nowhere can pop that bubble pretty damn fast, and some authors just can't cope. And, unfortunately, it is far easier to take out your rage on an "amateur" reviewer than it is a seasoned journalist who says the same thing.

There was an episode of Saturday Night Live recently, where Daniel Radcliffe plays an oblivious internet artist who "went to a school with no grades" and just assumes that everyone loves him. In the sketch, he attempts to draw Chinese calligraphy while simultaneously doing an Irish gig, and when he sits down, he blithely says, "I tried, and therefore no one can criticize me!"

I fear that there are a lot of authors who secretly feel that way - who feel, I actually wrote a BOOK, and therefore no one can criticize me! Who somehow believe that making it past the thorny tangle of agents and editors and slushpiles to join the ranks of the Printed Word renders one exempt from opinion. They have SURVIVED submissions. They have ENDURED revisions. Their experience with negativity is henceforth over, and they and their book lived happily ever after! I'm sorry, but that's not how it works.

Now, there have been quite a few kerfuffles recently in the YA and Romance communities about negative reviews, and I've even posted about the inevitable pattern these responses to negativity take. In a nutshell, these replies always follow along the same lines:

• "You're personally attacking me!"
• "You're a stupid loser poo-poo head who writes in her basement!"
• "How many books have YOU had published? Thought not!"
• "You're just jealous!"
• "You have no idea how much work goes into writing a book!"
• "All these other people on Amazon liked it!"
• "Nobody reads your blog anyway!"

But what I've recently taken the most exception towards is Maggie Steifvater's post about what makes a review a review. It starts off reasonably enough, stating that bloggers should never make reviews personal (as in, make personal remarks about the author - their sexuality, personal life, number of cats, education, etc. etc.). That is 100% correct.

But then she starts to veer off:

A review is an unbiased, careful look at a book — basically it is a little academic paper. It involves an itty-bitty thesis on your opinion of the book, surrounded by tiny supporting sentences describing the strengths and weaknesses of said book. Every month, dozens upon dozens of these reviews come out in professional journals. Because they're fair and thorough, they're prized and respected in the publishing world. Authors celebrate positive pro reviews. They sigh and learn from negative pro reviews. Publishing houses bend over backward to send review copies to these journals in time for a timely review, because good reviews can make or break a book's success with libraries and booksellers.

By now you'll have noticed the neat, little words she drops - "academic," "professional." Nice, clean, bland picket-fence words - so pretty and nice as they clearly separate "us" (the nose-picking, skinned-knee, orphan urchin bloggers) from "them" (the fair, thorough, prized and respected academic few, consuming their tea and cucumber sandwiches). And then, she goes on to condescendingly explain to us that we are not, in fact, true reviewers:

Let's talk about the negative "reviews" that authors have been lashing out at. They often involve animated gifs, swearing, and snark. They're often quite funny. But here's the thing, though. When a blogger writes a biased, hilarious, snarky rundown of a book they despised, he/ she is not writing a review. They are writing a post about a book. I'm not saying that bloggers shouldn't write biased, hilarious, snarky rundowns of books. I'm saying that those rundowns are not reviews. Bloggers who regularly write them cannot expect to garner the same respect and treatment from authors that pro reviewers or non-pro reviewers do. They can't expect authors to read their posts and learn something from them. And they cannot expect authors to not take it personally. They've made it personal.

You'll notice that this paragraph only mentions the negative blogger reviews as being "not reviews" - by the very nature of them being negative. No one ever takes issue with the "professionalism" of someone who writes a positive review. No one ever accuses them of being unqualified, or jealous, or tells them they write for a dinky little quarterly that nobody reads.

This post may be swaddled with reasonable-sounding rhetoric but at the heart of it is yet another author who reacts to negative reviewers by attacking their qualifications.

And have I mentioned how much I love it when authors accuse a book review of being biased? "How dare this reviewer express an opinion about a book in their book review! Opinions have no place in reviews!" A book review is the explanation of a bias - by reading the book, you become biased for or against, and a review is simply an explanation of how you got to that point.

Because of the Internet, everyone has a voice. But because anyone can do it, it allows people to diminish the voices of those they don't like. Just because we live in a society where everyone has the opportunity to perform a certain action, doesn't mean the action is meaningless.

Do you want to tell the new mother and her day-old infant that she's hasn't done anything that special? That literally billions of people, rich and poor, since the dawn of time have done the same thing a billion times over? Does that really diminish the importance? Or your child learning to read for the first time? Again - it's been done before. The vast majority of people in North America can already do it. That's not really an achievement or a special gift, now is it?

So I'm afraid author comments that the members of the blogger community are simply representatives of the unwashed, uneducated, common masses because we don't have the same literary gatekeepers doesn't hold a lot of water with me. We're the ones who do it for free. We're the ones who do it on top of our day jobs, in spite of our day jobs, staying up late, because we love it. Because we are passionate about books and reading. So who are you to say our voices don't matter - unless they say something that you like?

AnimeJune Takes Manhattan: RWA 2011

Well, now that I'm all rested and ready to leave for Ireland tomorrow (hectic jetsetter that I am), I thought I'd give you all a recap of my trip to the Big Apple for the Romance Writers of America's 2011 National Conference.

Did I do some things differently this year? Yes. I didn't attend as many workshops. I didn't pitch. I researched YA, and I didn't go hog-wild at the booksignings this year. In fact, I think I attended three signings and walked away with fewer than six books total.

Did I have a good time, though? YOU BET I DID!

Day One started on Monday. Flew into New York, and despite a bit of panic over a very, very tight connection, arrived in one piece and on time to reconnect with 2011 RWA Librarian of the Year Wendy and Rosie! We fell into chatting (while I unhinged my jaw and devoured a chicken quesadilla - due to the tight connection, all I'd had for lunch was a banana, some string cheese and a Fresca) just like old times, like we totally hadn't been separated by geography for a year!

And Times Square, let me tell ya, it's a glorious spectacle the first, oh, three times you walk through it to the hotel, but afterwards, well, it's kind of like being assaulted by real-life Internet pop-ups. All advertisements, all the time, great big neon letters. After a while, I totally understood why all the native New York attendees advised us to get the hell out of the Square to experience the real city life. Honestly, it made the merchandising in DisneyWorld look subtle.

Anyhoo, the next day (Tuesday) was my Annual Day of Not Pacing Myself. For my three years of attending RWA, I've turned Condensed Sightseeing into something of an art form. In 2009, I tramped over the National Mall in Washington DC in one day - taking the Metro, seeing the Smithsonian, the National Monument, and the memorials for three different wars. In 2010, I explored three Disney parks in two days swimming through Floridian humidity in July.

Firstly, though, I picked up my Conference Swag:













Bitches can't handle my swag! Books that I really wanted to read, a beautiful conference pen, a flashdrive (of course!), a booklight, a water bottle bag thing that leaked all over the place, and a really helpful New York map from Carina Press and the Smart Bitches!

After that, it was time to really explore New York. I decided to forgo the $17 waffle offered by the hotel restaurant and foraged through Times Square, eventually settling on an EZ Deli that made a mean pancake platter for $4.50 - so quite the bargain in comparison to the overpriced hotel meal.

After that, I took the New York subway to the Museum of Natural History. Now, I'm young and Canadian and watch far too much TV so I was really touristy about a lot of things - like how, "oooh! The subway looks like just it does in the movies!" A lot of New York appeared "just like the movies" or "just like TV" to me. Sad but true.

The museum itself was amazing - lots of dioramas, dinosaurs, giant whales, and stuff animals (not the cuddly kind).

After that, since the museum skirts Central Park, I decided to walk across Central Park to reach the Metropolitan Museum of Art (which also borders Central Park - on the other side). First, though, lunch - a soft pretzel and mustard. I shared the pretzel with a horde of fearless, well-fed New York pigeons and the mustard with my pants. And none with the homeless person sleeping on the bench since I didn't even notice him until I threw the rest of my pretzel in the garbage.

Central Park was glorious - everything was ripe and green, the day was hot but not too hot. Again, the movie-lover in me took over, because I flipped out over the bridge from Enchanted (and the New York episode of Glee) as well as Bethesda Plaza where the musical number of "That's How You Know" (again, Enchanted) was performed.

Central Park is a bit of a maze, though, and it turned out to be a pretty long hike from one end to the other, with a lot of twists and turns and misdirection.

But it was fun to walk. I mean, I had no real idea of how enormous Central Park was. I kept thinking, it's one park in the centre of an enormous city. How big can it be?

The answer - pretty fucking big. But after about an hour and a half of walking, I finally made it to the other side, to the Metropolitan Museum of Art.



First of all, it's a gorgeous building all on its own, with loads of Palladian columns and people hawking their own art in front of it. Inside, there were loads of different exhibits. I wanted to see the Savage Beauty exhibit (dedicated to the art of Alexander McQueen's fashion) but there was an estimated 45 minute wait and a line of about two hundred people just to get in to that, and as it was already mid-afternoon I decided life was too short and went and explored the exhibits for 19th century portraits as well as armour and weaponry.

There was so much to look at - gorgeous pictures, cool swords, statues and sculptures and pastels... after a while it became a bit of a sensory overload and even then I had to pry myself away and cab back down to the hotel to get there in time for the Literary Autographing.

I arrived in time, starving and footsore as expected.














But I saw Christie Ridgway!














And Shirley Thomas! Who told me she'd read my review of His At Night and thought my casting for Spencer Stuart was spot on - and that it got her to watch Downton Abbey (always a plus!).














Then I saw Kate Noble and got her newest book, Follow My Lead.














Reconnected with Courtney Milan and bought a copy of Unveiled.














Fangirled over Rose Lerner! Although her new book still isn't out yet!














FINALLY FINALLY FINALLY got to meet Marjorie M. Liu! I love her books!














Met with Victoria Dahl and Joanna Bourne again, as well.














Checked out both Jennifer Echols and Simone Elkeles, too, as I'm now trying to write YA and they seem to be the best in the biz right now - I also went to Elkeles' very helpful YA workshop with David Levithan.

As well, I managed to snag the last copy of It Happened One Season (a project-sequel of sorts to the lovely anthology It Happened One Night) and got it signed by Stephanie Laurens, and I met Jo Beverley, who very kindly signed my old, yellowed, used copy of Forbidden (which I'd read on my flight over) instead of making me buy the new re-issue.

I couldn't stay for the whole signing however - I was swaying on my feet by then, not to mention starving. I'd also been invited to the Nelson Literary Agency party (for being an author-friendly blogger, as it turns out!) and if I didn't have anything to eat before then I wouldn't be fit company for anyone, much less a party of authors and literary agents and publishing industry professionals.

So - I caved. One of the things I wanted to do while I was in New York is find one of the great, fabulous, glamourously secretly awesome restaurants and eat there but I was short on time and long on hunger so I ate at the McDonald's on Times Square - but walking, food in hand, I ended up having an unexpected celebrity experience.

I'd noticed in the morning that the middle of Times Square had an enormous Transformers display, with smashed cars and cranes and a life-size replica of Bumblebee. Well, now that it was evening, I discovered it was actually for the New York premiere of the third Transformers movie, Dark of the Moon - and I actually got to see Josh Duhamel walk by. I got a video of him, actually, which was pretty cool. I didn't have time to wait and see if Shia LaBoeuf showed up, unfortunately, so I made my way back to the hotel, gussied myself up, and shared a cab with fab author Carolyn Jewel to the NAL party.

The cocktail party hosted by the Nelson Literary Agency was amazing - it was held at a restaurant on the roof of a twenty-story building, so I could see brilliant New York skyline at dusk. Spoke to some authors, some agents, ended up in a long conversation with Andrew Shaffer and one of the writers for GeekMom, a lovely women who also writes Viking erotica whose name I have forgotten, as well as a couple of people who worked with digital books whose names I have also forgotten (I'm still rifling through my business cards, bear with me). Great conversation. Amazing view. Open bar. I was in heaven, although honestly, by the end of the day my knees were wobbling - I'd probably sat down for maybe 20% of the day, with the other 80% spent walking, running, and standing.

So I poured myself into bed and woke up the next day to start with the full conference experience. Today I actually did cave and get a $17 waffle because this year the conference didn't offer complimentary continental breakfast, and yet the opening session still started at 8:30 in the morning. But whatever. The opening session with Diana Gabaldon, Tess Gerritson and Steve Berry was eye-opening (Outlander apparently started as a "practice" book that was never supposed to be published), and Madeline Hunter gave a lovely speech for her keynote address at the luncheon.

In between that and the Book Blogger Tea, I ran into Jodi Thomas (who wrote Rewriting Monday, which I reviewed), and had a lovely chat with her and her friends. I told her I wanted to be published, and she said, with absolute certainty, "You will be. You know why? Because you care enough about it to come here." What a sweetheart!


After that, I went to the Book Blogger Tea hosted by Harlequin's Digital Team. We got to fill out survey sheets about what we liked to read and review (although I doubt I'll get anything because I said I preferred print to e-pubbed books), and we all got handmade fascinators (I kept mine - I'm the one in the pink shirt on the photo on the right). Saw Kristie J there, too (the woman in the red plaid in the picture on the left).

I could only stay for about half an hour, though - I had other things to prepare for. Big things. One big thing in particular that's been on my Bucket List since I was about seven years old.

My first live, real, original cast Broadway show!
I saw The Book of Mormon at the Eugene O'Neill Theatre, and the experience was, well, pretty much beyond words. Amazing, hilarious, and life-changing are pretty mild, surface-scratching descriptors.

Needless to say, it was the highlight of my whole trip. The songs, the dancing, the actors, the jokes ... it was amazing! I sat in row B, close enough to spit on the actors (not that I would - they were awesome!), and I saw everything.

After that, well, the rest of the conference was still pretty good. On Thursday, I went to more workshops, cheered for SuperWendy upon winning the Librarian of the Year award, listened to Sherilyn Kenyon's depressing, inspiring, horrifying, uplifting keynote speech. Met author Lila diPasqua at our table (and she convinced me to pick up a copy of The Princess in his Bed at one of the signings the next day), and then did more sight seeing.

This time I went and explored 30 Rockefeller Plaza. The home of NBC Studios and the Top of the Rock Attraction. Weirdly enough, the security to get to the top of a building was more rigorous than the security at LaGuaria Airport, but the view was sure worth it!

You have to go up 67 floors to get to the top - the ride lasts 45 seconds and they play images and music on the ceiling of the elevator as it goes up and down.

But I got my sightseeing on and returned down in time to take the NBC Studio Tour - there we got to see Dr Oz's studio (getting renovated) and Jimmy Fallon's studio for The Late Show with Jimmy Fallon. Jimmy's studio was tiny. Like, living-room tiny. All the studios in NBC are small because they all started out as radio studios, so they've had to make due. Apparently, Jimmy can only seat an audience of about 182 people (Leno gets twice that, at least), and the producers use a wide-angle lens and never pan between Jimmy, the floor, and the band in order to trick people into thinking the studio's bigger.

Seeing that was nothing compared to seeing the studio for Saturday Night Live - a show I've been watching religiously for about ten years now. I actually got to walk down the hallway where you see all the pictures of the cast and the guest stars! They were renovating inside, too, but we still got to see the major stages - there are three. The middle stage is where they have the monologue and the easily collapsible stages like Weekend Update.

The right stage is the semi-permanent stage which they use for difficult-to-set-up bits like sets that require stairs or water falls or something. The stage on the left is the one for the musical guests, and the guide (an actual page! Like Kenneth!) told us they've now had to include the stage's size in their contract with the musical artists because both times Kanye West forgot and had to squeeze forty ballerinas and giant gospel choirs onto that tiny stage.

After that dream come true, I trecked up to see and pray at St. Patrick's Cathedral. It even had a teeny-tiny gift shop.

And after that was the Gathering, the party for the FF&P Chapter of RWA. Great hors d'oeuvres, chocolate fondue, and goodie bags for everyone.

After that, it was Friday. The last day of the conference. I actually went to a couple of booksignings today, mainly to get Jennifer Echol's Love Story (which I did!), and some other cool books, too.

For my last afternoon of sightseeing, I checked out the Paley Center for Media - the new name for the Television and Radio Museum. When I walked in, I was greeted by this small, neat British man who introduced me to the exhibits - it's not a museum for walking around. For the price of admission, you can go downstairs to the theatre and watch all the specials and retrospectives and documentaries about television, and you can go upstairs and have an hour and a half of time watching anything from their enormous, enormous library of shows and archival footage. I watched a little bit of everything - some of the original pilot of Sesame Street, to 13-year-old Alannis Morrisette in You Can't Do This On Television, to the incredibly silly pilot of Cop Rock (America's one and only musical police procedural).

I got back in time for dinner before the RITAs - with a pretty sad result. I asked a certain other blogger to a Japanese place a friend of mine had suggested. She accepted, then turned around with a bunch of other attendees and told me we were having Thai. We walk from the hotel to the famous Restaurant Row, and I discover I can't eat at the restaurant because they cook with a food to which I am fatally allergic. The response from everyone? Oh well. Everyone went in. I stayed out. I got ditched.

It would have been easier to take if the Thai restaurant had been in the middle of nowhere, but we were on Restaurant Row, where you could literally cannot throw a rock without hitting a restaurant. They were up and down ninth avenue, all different styles and ethnicities of cooking. We could have gone anywhere else. Literally. And while I'm used to eating alone, I guess, it felt so depressing to be left on my own for the my last dinner at RWA. I just wish they'd told me they didn't want to eat with me while I'd been at the hotel. Because then I could have flagged down someone else.

I ended up eating alone at a Cajun place (with a yummy fried shrimp po'boy), cheered myself up by reading Jo Beverley's Forbidden, then went to the RITAs. And that was pretty much my New York vacation. I had a blast, I saw some great sights, and ... well, I have to admit that it wasn't so much about the conference this time. Going back over my memories of the trip, 90% is what I saw around New York and The Book of Mormon, and about 10% was the conference itself.

I don't know what that means, exactly. I still like writing, and I'm still working on a novel and want to be published, but the conference experience just wasn't with me this year, I guess. I'd let myself grow apart from my writing (or at least that part within the romance genre), so I felt a bit of a disconnect this year.

But I still managed to carry home some swag! Yeah, that's what I wrote - carried home. No shipping for me this time. I just took the books I wanted, and only enough to fit in my suitcase Hurrah for tiny apartments and will power!


We'll see what next year brings! AND NOW - ONTO MY ENORMOUS REVIEW BACKLOG!