How to use this Page

WOW. The Spectacle received a total of 256 entries for our Big Box O’ Books Birthday Bash contest in honor of Dr. Seuss’s birthday earlier this month. Whew! We had entries from all four corners of the continental United States. New York was especially well represented, but it appears that every librarian in Nebraska must have entered — there were dozens of Nebraska libraries, both public and school, represented!

The odds worked in their favor, and we’re thrilled to announce that the Big Box goes to…

Arlene Alsmeyer

Scribner-Snyder Community School

Scribner, NE

Yay, Arlene!

We loved the many Seussian rhymes included with many entries, and will post a few of them right away so Spectacle readers can enjoy them, too, without having to scroll through the comment thread of entries.

And thanks are due to Sally Snyder, the Nebraska Library Commission’s Children and Young Adult Library Services Coordinator, who did a GREAT job getting the word out to her state’s librarians. Sally (or one of Sally’s friends), please send your mailing address to [email protected] and we’ll send you a thank-you book you can keep or share with your favorite runner-up.

Some of the stories many of you shared about the needs in your library or community make it tough to give away only one prize. We’ll do our best to come up with another box of goodies for our next contest soon!

We know we promised to announce our Big Box contest winner today, but we were so swamped with entries that it’s taking a little time to be sure we capture all the second chances for repostings and such before drawing the winner. So project yourself a few days into the future, and we promise to name the winner by Sunday!

I’m a metaphor junkie.

I also see a fair number of critique or contest manuscripts, and I lead workshops on occasion, so for a while I’ve been trying to find words or instructional help for something I’ve noticed in lots of manuscripts, and that I think separates pretty good work from publishable work, but that I don’t see mentioned often. I’ve thought of it as “coherence” or “cohesiveness,” but when I say things like that, people glaze over. They don’t know what I’m talking about.

But recently, I attended my high-school niece’s regional dance squad competition, and I may have found the metaphor I need.

I’d never been to a dance competition or even a practice before, but it became clear by the third squad on the floor that you could tell how strong each team’s performance was going to be within the first bars of their music. And usually even before. It was a matter of their energy level, which was almost tangible (or not); the sharpness of each young woman’s movements, and her synchronization with her teammates. It was the looks on their faces. It was the ease and precision with which they found their correct spots on the floor before the music began. And a really big clue was how they got to those spots in the first place — whether they walked silently out and wiggled around and looked at each other and shuffled and found the right position — or marched/pranced/stomped out in step, as a single unit, with discipline, and with everything from their swinging arms to the angle of their heads united — from the audience’s very first glimpse. Without second thoughts, adjustments, or tentative steps.

And I see a lot of manuscripts that would not be winning dance squad performances. They’re good — pretty good writing, pretty good story. But they are not contenders from that very first glimpse. They don’t “take the floor” like winners, every word precise, sleek, disciplined, and in step. (This is why I think proper formatting, spelling, and grammar are crucial.)  The first page doesn’t ooze energy and confidence. The smile or sobriety on the author’s face, the tone, balance, and grace of her writing muscles, are not evident on the page.

I understand so much more clearly now how an editor or agent can reject a partial on the basis of that first page. The writing performance, like the dance squad performance, must be telegraphed in those very first moves. And while some agents and fewer editors will see the talent and be willing to help train and choreograph and discipline, many won’t. They’ll let somebody else coach that writer instead.

I still have to figure out how, if at all, this metaphor might be useful in a workshop. But it also makes me think of those “light bulb” experiences in general. If you’re a writer, what light bulbs have helped you jump a level of skill? If you’re a reader (aren’t we all?), what it is about a first paragraph or page that tells you that you’re in for not just a good performance, but a great one?

— Joni, who’s giddy with this metaphor fix and will overuse the analogy for a good while yet. And whose niece’s squad got a third place. Which was about right, in her aunt’s opinion.

Nick James is the Seattle-area author of a forthcoming sci-fi series tentatively titled SKYSHIP ACADEMY. Hi, Nick, and thanks for talking to The Spectacle! Let’s dive in:

Q: Do you have a release date yet?

The first book in the series will be released by Flux in Fall 2011.

Q: Can you tell us a little about the story?

It takes place in a post-war America transformed into one big desert after a string of chemical bombings. Some folks have retreated into the sky, living on city-size crafts called skyships. Others have sought refuge in the Government’s Chosen Cities, protected from the elements by enormous domes. Both sides fight over mysterious green orbs that began falling from the heavens shortly after the bombings. They call them Pearls — and just one can power a skyship or Chosen City for months.

The story follows two teens on opposing sides of the struggle. Hapless slacker Jesse Fisher trains at Skyship Academy, preparing to steal Pearls away from the corrupt Surface government. Meanwhile, Cassius Stevenson works for an elite team of government operatives charged with powering the Chosen Cities. When the two clash — developing mysterious, frightening abilities — they’re pulled into a battle that threatens to unlock the true mystery of Pearls and trigger a new war.

Q: What drew you to this genre?

I was drawn to sci-fi and fantasy at a very young age. I grew up on comic books and went especially nuts over the big, multi-issue story arcs in my favorite series. Epics, I’d call them. I like reading about worlds that require some imagination, people that are relatable on a human level but get swept up in amazing, crazy adventures. I think children’s and YA writing is often the best example of this kind of storytelling. Kids aren’t afraid to express their imaginations and demand books that cater to that.

Q: What inspired this particular story?

I wanted to write a book that combined elements of some of my favorite contemporary adventure series (ARTEMIS FOWL, ALEX RIDER, MAXIMUM RIDE) with the kind of voice and characters from my favorite coming-of-age novels (THE ABSOLUTELY TRUE DIARY OF A PART-TIME INDIAN, THE PERKS OF BEING A WALLFLOWER). So the initial spark was more of a mood and tone than a specific story. As the plotting fell into place, I drew on influences from my childhood, like the dialogue-rich storytelling found in comics and graphic novels. I ended up writing the series I would have picked up and loved as a kid, while making sure it was smart enough to appeal to my (slightly) more grown-up tastes now.

Q: What has been the biggest challenge so far in the writing or your path to publication?

I think any story that requires a lot of world-building is inherently challenging. You want to make the characters’ world feel plausible and real without overstuffing it and making it burdensome for the reader. A lot of my revision dealt with this. It was fun exploring this futuristic world and bringing it to life.

I feel that my path to publication has been relatively pothole-free. As with any author, it’s a lot of work, but I’ve enjoyed every step so far.

Q: What’s the craziest thing you believe in? Or how else is your imagination expressed in your life?

I really believe that life would be so much more interesting if it were a musical. I’m patiently waiting for the day when everyone suddenly bursts into song while going about their daily routines.

A few years ago, my fellow camp counselors and I decided to put this theory to the test and declared a

I must have been among the last 30 people in the U.S. to see Avatar, but recently, I did. Without re-opening the whole can of worms on this movie, it struck me as the strangest combination I’ve ever seen of wondrous, amazing stuff and utter dreck in the same movie.

And it got me thinking about movies that are “so bad they’re good.” This is almost a sub-genre, the stuff cult hits are made of, and it seems that most of the candidates are spec fic. I’m sure everyone would have his or her own list, but some of the old campy sci-fi or horror classics — Mars Needs Women, Barbarella, Plan 9 from Outer Space, Deathrace 2000, Sssssss, Island of Terror — would make a number of them.

But I have never heard anyone say a book was “so bad it’s good.” Books are just good… or not. Why do you think that is? What’s the difference between movies and books in this regard?

Or have you ever read a book that was so bad it was good, and if so, what was it?

— Joni, who wonders if books are taken too seriously to ever be campy

Happy birthday, Dr. Seuss!

I learned to read from a Dr. Seuss Beginner Book (P.D. Eastman’s SNOW) — I’ll never forget that lightbulb moment  — and I’ve had a very warm spot in my heart for the Cat and his Doc ever since. So I’m excited that the occasion of his birthday today (and a book birthday for me, to my delight), we can announce The Spectacle’s BIGGEST CONTEST EVER.

This one’s only for public or school librarians, and the prize is almost a library by itself: 0ne book, two book, red book, blue —oops, no, sorry. Not one or two books, but eleven great spec fiction books can join your library’s collection:

1. INCARCERON by Catherine Fisher (hardback)
2. SACRED SCARS by Kathleen Duey (hardback)
3. THE BOOK OF NONSENSE by David Michael Slater (hardback)
4. THE BOOK OF KNOWLEDGE by David Michael Slater (hardback)
5. THE SECRETS OF THE CHEESE SYNDICATE by Donna St. Cyr (paperback)
6. HOUSE OF THE SCORPION by Nancy Farmer (paperback)
7. THE EMERALD TABLET By PJ Hoover (hardback)
8. NAVEL OF THE WORLD by PJ Hoover (hardback)
9. THE SEER #1: DON”T DIE DRAGONFLY by Linda Joy Singleton (revised large issue with short story bonus)
10. THE FARWALKER’S QUEST by Joni Sensel (hardback)
11. THE TIMEKEEPER’S MOON by Joni Sensel (hardback)

Are you hopping on Pop with excitement? Here’s how to enter:

Librarians, send us your library’s name and your professional e-mail address. You can leave that info in the comments here or e-mail it directly to joni AT jonisensel.com. Earn an additional chance at the prize if you repost or tweet the contest and let us know with the link.

And if you’re not a librarian, don’t be a Grinch! Instead, we hope you’ll repost and otherwise alert all your librarian pals. (In fact, we might pull out a bit of a prize for the referral, if our winner can tell us who told them about it.) We’ll draw the Box O’ Books winner on March 25, so there’s plenty of time to spread the word to all the Whos down in Whoville. Good luck!

— Joni, on behalf of everyone here at The Spectacle

<

14 Comments on Big Box O’ Books Birthday Bash Contest, last added: 3/2/2010

In considering conflict this week, I wanted to step outside the box — or outside the book, anyway — and prompt a discussion, I hope, about conflict between authors and readers, whether young ones or the librarians and other “gatekeepers” who help feed them books. Or between readers over a given book.

I’ve encountered several kinds of conflict like this. The first is minor conflicts with young readers who email with requests I can’t or won’t fill, such as the young man who couldn’t understand why I wouldn’t email him the entire text file of my book after a school visit. While I find that kind of conflict annoying, because it seems to me that parents and teachers should be doing a better job of educating their students on what is and is not an appropriate way to interact with adults they barely know, it’s okay — he has to learn appropriate boundaries and fandom somehow, and I’m as good a person to teach him as any, I suppose. Such conflicts only arise because I’m meeting my audience and/or they’re reading my books, so who’s gonna complain about that?

Another kind of conflict, as we’ve discussed before, is when readers get upset about the contents, direction, or resolution of a story or series. Or, for that matter, what’s on the book’s cover. My own experiences with this have been more limited than I expected, given the violence and/or sexual content in some of my books. The one that surprised me the most was an adult reviewer who was pretty disappointed by the fact that in my first Farwalker book, Ariel does not end up in a romantic relationship with someone more than twice her age. It didn’t ruin the book for her, she wrote in her review — but almost. It’s hard for me, even here and now, not to line up my arguments for why that would be a terrible idea. Defensiveness aside, though, it does highlight for me the ways in which a book takes on its own life in the hands of every reader, since that reader brings a part of themselves, and their own norms, expectations, and longings, to every book. The ultimate expression of this kind of conflict, I suppose, is censorship efforts (or whatever you want to call activities aimed at removing books from libraries or reading lists).

I think a third kind of conflict, if you can call it that, is alignments such as “Team Edward” vs. “Team Jacob.” Would that any of us authors have fans so rabid they’re willing to wear buttons and have arguments over our characters! This may be more marketing hype than anything else, but it’s a fun kind of conflict to have.

I have to think that, as in a plot, conflict is mostly a good thing– because it requires readers’ emotions to be stirred enough to care or bother. But clearly that can be taken too far, too. What other sort of conflicts have you, as a writer, librarian, teacher, or reader, witnessed between readers and books or the authors who write them?

— Joni, who would just as soon keep most of the conflict in the pages