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By:
Justine Larbalestier,
on 12/26/2008
Blog:
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I am now almost up to November answering my correspondence. There’s only a hundred more emails to answer! Yay!
If you’ve written to me this year and not heard back from me, that means I either didn’t get your email, or you did not get my response. Either way best thing to do is to write me again.
I received more fan mail this year than all previous years added together. (Which, admittedly, was not hard as I received very few until this year.) Of all the fabulous things that have happened to me in 20081 those letters are by far the best. The majority were about posts and essays on this website—especially requesting writing advice. The next biggest group of letters were about the trilogy, and lastly about How To Ditch Your Fairy. Though to put that in perspective HTDYF has already attracted more letters in the few months since it was published than Magic or Madness did in its first 18 months of publication. Yay, fairy book!
Thank you so much for the wonderful letters. Each one gave me a tremendous lift. Even if I was already in a good mood they made me happier still. While I’ve always wanted to be a writer, until my first book came out, it had never really occurred to me to think about what that would actually mean, about what it would be like to have readers. I know that sounds a bit bizarre, but I was so focussed on my writing, and on getting published, that I just hadn’t considered that part of the equation: that being published means being read by people I’ve never met. I’m glad that part didn’t occur to me ahead of time. I think it would have spooked me. But it turns out to be fabulous.
Thank you for all the letters pointing out the typos and errors in my books and my blog. I really appreciate them and do what I can to fix future editions. Keep ‘em coming!
Thanks to everyone who wrote and begged for more books in the Magic or Madness and HTDYF universes. I’m pretty sure that HTDYF is a standalone and the MorM series a trilogy, but I’m thrilled my books left you wanting more. The best way to get more is to write it yourself. There are gazillions of wonderful fanfic sites out there. You could add your own stories about the further adventures of Tom and Charlie. Go forth and create more fanfic! Mash up MorM with Buffy or Nana. Or HTDYF with Naruto! What would be cooler than that?
Thanks for all the tips on quokkas and mangosteens and cricket and 1930s fashions and photo sites. Much appreciated! Though I’m horrified that any of you are settling for dried mangosteen or mangosteen juice. Ewww. There are no substitutes for the actual fresh fruit!
Good luck with your writing. Yes, sometimes it can be hard and you don’t know what’s going to happen next. That happens to the professionals too. The only thing you can do is keep pushing through. Don’t give up. But remember to have fun with it too. One of the best things about not being published yet is that you have heaps of time to experiment. Write the same story in all the different points of view. See which one works best. Try writing a story backwards. Starting at the end and working your way towards the beginning. Write in lots of different genres. Muck around! Have fun!
Thanks for your letters, your comments, and all your support. It means the world to me.
xo
Justine
Here in the USA’s publishing capital, NYC, there are many signs of a publishing downturn: reports and rumours that books sales are down and that the big chains are ordering less books. A few of the big publishing houses are laying off staff, cutting expenses, not acquiring books, and various agents are seeing a slow-down in their sales, especially for debut novels.
Of all the genres children’s (which includes YA) seems to be the least affected. Sales have slowed but not nearly as drastically as in adults. The Times reports that while parents are curtailing their own spending they’re still buying their children presents. It’s interesting that the recent Times article that covered Houghton Mifflin Harcourt’s freeze on acquisitions did not mention that the freeze does not apply to children’s books.
Children’s books are relatively inexpensive. Especially compared to adults. An average YA hardcover is US$16 while an average adult hardcover is US$24. Quite a difference. Adult books are also given higher advances (on average) and earn out slower, if they earn out at all. Several people told me that way more of their children’s list earns out than their adults. You hear that? We are profitable.
While sales are down, every single children’s division has at least one bona fide hit. Not all of those hits are as insanely huge as Stephenie Meyer’s Twilight books, which have earned every employee at Little Brown a bonus, but they’re still doing very nicely. Not to mention that Meyer’s books have also benefited other authors by creating a demand for “more like that, please!” I’ve gotten quite a few letters from Twilight fans telling me they turned to the Magic or Madness books because they’d run out of Meyer’s. I am very very very thankful to Stephenie Meyer. She and J. K. Rowling are a huge part of why children’s is as profitable as it is. Bless you both!
That said, we are in (at the very least) a recession. Libraries are seeing big increases in traffic and more and more people are borrowing when before they might have bought (which as I argued yesterday is far from a bad thing for authors). Like I said, sales are down. They’re down all over and for many things not just books. (Unless you make Spam, that is.)
So am I worried?
Well, sure. But not that much more than usual. Publishing is a risky business even when the economy is booming. Genres go in and out of fashion, as do authors. I know writers who were doing brilliantly in the 1980s, who are now only published in the small press world. How many of the super popular children’s writers of the eighties and nineties are popular and publishing now?1
Most writers don’t make a living writing even in the best of times. Unpublished writers who are freaking out that they’ll never break through in such tough times are forgetting that their odds aren’t great anyway. It’s not just the unpublished who have trouble. The vast majority of authors with one published book never publish a second. Even long established writing careers go into decline.
Publishing is a tough business no matter what the economic climate. But at least we’re in the strongest part of our industry, and at least we’re not on Broadway, or making cars.
Ally Carter has a wonderful post on asking the wrong questions about writing.1 She is a HUNDRED PER CENT correct! Go read her!
I’ve been asked every one of those questions many many times and I always struggle to answer them but I couldn’t figure out why exactly. Thank you so much, Ally Carter, for figuring it out for me.
So many beginner questions at writers conferences are more concerned with marketing than they are with writing. This is putting the cart so far in front of the horse it ain’t funny. Questions like—How long should a YA novel be? Should I blog to promote my book? (NO! Blog because you enjoy it.) How do I find an authentic teenage voice?—are coming at things from the completely wrong direction. (Read Ally Carter’s post for the right questions and excellent answers.) Especially when these questions come from people who haven’t finished a novel yet.
Write the book first.
Write in a genre you know and love and understand. Do not attempt to write a YA novel if you’ve never read any YA novels. My first novel is an adult historical. A genre I know and love. It didn’t sell. My second novel was YA. Another genre I’d read obsessively for years. It also didn’t sell, but it was seen by an editor who took a risk on buying an unwritten trilogy from me because she loved the concept. She’d seen that I could write a good novel so she trusted me to write three more.2
As I wrote the Magic or Madness trilogy I did not think about word count. I just wrote the book and it was as long as it needed to be, which happened to be 65 thousand words. I have never worried about the length of any of my books. They’ve all been the length they needed to be. YA novels range in length from as little as 40k words to as long as—what was Libba Bray’s The Sweet Far Thing?—25 billion zillion katrillion words? Right then. But they were good words. The book is unputdownable even though it’s so heavy it could break your wrist.
When you’re writing your first novel your job is not to worry about word count, or any of those other irrelevancies, like how it will be marketed, your job is to write the best book you can. If it’s a billion zillion katrillion words long then fine as long as those words aren’t boring and crap.
Writing comes first. Always.
I have said this many times and sometimes I get the response that I must be lying because that person sent their extremely long novel out and it was widely rejected. The reason given was that it was too long.
I doubt very much that the agent/editor was saying that the book was too long for YA. There are many very long YAs.3 What they probably meant was that the book was too long for the novel it was. I.e. it wasn’t well-paced. The book needed cutting—not because it was YA—but because it was boring. If you’re getting that same comment over and over again then it’s time to stop sending the book out and go over it to see if they’re right. Are there sentences/chapter/sub-plots that could do with cutting and or trimming?
Or is it time to let that book rest and move on to the next one?
I’m always astonished by the people who say they want to be a writer who stop at one book. Well, it didn’t sell, they’ll tell me. THEN WRITE ANOTHER ONE. If you’ve written the book and it’s as good as you can make it then move on to the next one. Rinse and repeat. One of my friends wrote more than a dozen novels before they finally sold one. I sold my third novel. My first and second remain unpublished. It’s just how it goes.
It could be that your first novel was not ready to go out. It could be that now is not a good time for it. There are many many reasons books get rejected. Ninety-five per cent of the time it’s because they suck. Don’t worry, if you’ve been paying attention to the criticisms you’ve been receiving, and reading lots of really good novels, and working on your rewriting skills as well as your writing skills then your next novel will be much better. By the time you get to your tenth you’ll be rocking out loud.
Did I mention that it’s the writing that’s the thing?
1) The fabulous Guarina Lopez, who is a genius with the camera and took my author photo as well as Diana Peterfreund’s, now has a truly gorgeous website showcasing her beautiful work. Check it out!
2) The Magic or Madness trilogy has sold in Korea! Woo hoo! Chungeorahm Publishing have made a very lovely offer for the trilogy and I have said yes! For those keeping count the trilogy is now published in eleven different countries: Australia, Brazil, France, Germany, Indonesia, Italy, Japan, Korea, Taiwan, Thailand, and the United States. My happiness is huge. All hail Whitney Lee of The Fielding Agency who made the majority of those sales. She’s incredible.
By:
Justine Larbalestier,
on 9/8/2008
Blog:
Justine Larbalestier
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I stopped studying maths in Year 7. Before that I’d made a bit of an effort but in my first year of high school (in New South Wales high school starts in Year 7) I downed tools. I was bored, annoyed, and couldn’t see the point so I quit. Technically I kept going to maths class—it was compulsory until the end of Year 10—but I failed each year and was never made to repeat. I didn’t learn anything new after Year 6.
At the time I thought it was excellent that I could get away with it. In class I read novels under the desk. I never studied and finished my maths exams quicker than anyone else cause I guessed all the answers. Thus giving me more time to read novels.
Now I regret it. My regret is very very very big. Because now I don’t have the underpinnings to understand even the most basic mathematics and science. (I also stopped studying science very early.) Writing the Magic or Madness trilogy was a nightmare. It’s very difficult to write a character who is a mathematical prodigy when you yourself are a mathematical moron.
My current regret, however, is fuelled by the Rethinking Basketball blog. Quentin who writes it is a numbers boy. He has all sorts of fancy formulas and statistics to map the performances of different WNBA players and teams. Like how to take defence into account when figuring out who the Most Valuable Player should be.
I understand almost none of it and that fact fills me with despair. If I could go back in time I would tell the bored and cranky twelve-year-old me that maths would come in handy later on and I should really pay attention to the nice man. (My Year 7 maths teacher was a sweetie, who did not deserve me as a student.)
But plenty of people—including my parents—were telling me that at the time and I ignored them. I probably would have ignored the adult me as well. Sigh.
So it’s now more than a little bit ironic that I am in the position of telling twelve year olds that they should pay attention in maths class. But you really really should. Who knows when or where it will come in handy. But trust me, it will. Don’t be as stupid as I was.
This has been a public service announcement. You are most welcome.
Sartorias aka Sherwood Smith continues the cranky discussion. Both threads have really excellent comments. Fascinating stuff. If only I weren’t in computer hell, I’d be contributing to said discussions. Once things stop sucking in computerland I’ll plunge in. There’s LOTS more to be said.
In other news I just found out that the Magic or Madness trilogy has now sold to PT Gramedia in Indonesia. I’m particularly stoked about this sale as I studied Bahasa Indonesia for four years in high school. It’s a country I’ve always been fascinated by. For those keeping count—I know I am—the trilogy has now sold to ten different countries.
Interviews hurt my brain. Being asked to talk about my work in the abstract feels weird. Especially when I’m asked about what message I wished to convey, what I want to teach people, how I want to change the world, and why did I have this bit of my book symbolise x, y, or z.
The truth is I don’t think about any of that stuff when I’m writing a first draft. Nothing in any of my books is meant to symbolise anything. As far as I’m concerned my zombies are just zombies. I don’t set out to teach anyone anything and I have no overt messages to convey.
(The secret message of my books is that mangosteens are the best food in the universe, quokkas the cutest animal, and anyone who lives somewhere cold should have their head examined.)
If other people see my zombies as representing the corruption of Western capitalism or the horrors of commodification or whatever. That’s cool. If they learn something that’s fabulous, too. One of my favourite things is hearing what readers take out of my work. Mostly it’s not anything I intended. My readers teach me stuff.1
But I didn’t do that on purpose. Truly. I don’t write like that.
I know writers who do, though. A friend of my carefully plans all sorts of symbols and always talks about the message of their book. Not me, though.
I just had to answer a set of questions from the members of the Teen Advisory Group of the Kingsbridge Branch Library in the Bronx via their Young Adult Librarian, Andrea Lipinski. Their questions were awesome. There was nothing about metaphors or meanings or messages. Bless you all! They wanted to know if I believe in magic, whether I like Sydney or NYC better, who I think is the better writer me or Scott, whether my trilogy’s going to have a fourth book, and which of my characters is most like me.
So much more fun answering those kinds of questions! Especially as the answer to all of them is “Maureen Johnson.”
All three volumes of the Magic or Madness trilogy will be out in Germany in the next few months. Here’s what they look like:
These may well be my favourites out of all the trilogy’s covers.
Talk about eye-catching! She even looks a little bit like I imagined Reason looking. Though the nose is wrong, the face too narrow, and Reason doesn’t have facial tats or elf ears or blue-black hair and eyes . . . details, details.
Here’s the first page in German:
If you’re in San Francisco, Seattle, or New York City you can find signed copies of my books here:
Borderlands
866 Valencia St
San Francisco
415.824.8203
They not only have the Magic or Madness trilogy but also Battle of the Sexes in Science Fiction and Daughters of Earth
Books Inc Opera Plaza
601 Van Ness
San Francisco
415-776-1111
All For Kids
2900 N.E. Blakeley Street
Seattle
206.526.2768
Books of Wonder
18 West 18th Street
New York
212-989-3270
If you’re hankering for a signed copy of one of my books but don’t live anywhere near those shops—they all do mail order.
And because I’m curious how many of you like to have all your favourite books signed by the author? Do any of you collect signed books even if you’ve not read the book in question?
In my previous life I was an academic. Not a very successful or prolific one. I spent four and a half years researching and writing my PhD thesis, while on a scholarship and doing paid-by-the-hour teaching (what’s known in the US as being a TA) as well as IT support. After that I was awarded a three-year post-doctoral fellowship that my university extended for nine months. In that time I wrote and published one book,
The Battle of the Sexes in Science Fiction, and edited a collection of stories and essays,
Daughters of Earth as well as writing a bunch of essays and papers (and on the sly I wrote
short stories and a
novel.)
Twas an eight-year-and-three-month career that ended more than four years ago. Yet, people write to me disturbingly often asking me my opinion of the field I studied, about what books I think are at the cutting edge, and curly questions about my two scholarly books which I wrote ages ago and can’t remember a thing about.
I haven’t read any scholarly work since it stopped being my job. I have no idea what the latest work on science fiction is. I don’t even read science fiction novels anymore. It was never my favourite genre and having to read it for more than eight years put me off for life. Though I don’t mind YA science fiction. I pretty much enjoy YA everything.
Not having to read scholarly work any more is one of my greatest joys. Too much of it is turgid and boring, which is why I’m so relieved I don’t have to write it any more. I hated having to second guess every possible objection to every sentence I wrote. It’s a joy not having to write as if I have constipation or to footnote every single argument.
The only things I loved about being an academic—research and hanging out with like-minded people—I still get to do. For the Magic or Madness trilogy I read a scary amount of books on mathematics and number theory (I’m not saying I understood ‘em). For the book I’ll be writing after The UFB I’ve been going back and reading gazillions of ballads. I even plan to crack open some ballad scholarship. For the book after that I’ll be doing lots of research on [redacted for reasons of spoileration] and [also redacted for the same reason].
The glorious thing about research for fiction is that if the research doesn’t fit I can ignore it. I’m writing fiction—most often fantasy—so I twist the facts to fit my books not the other way round. Such bliss!
I’ve written five novels since I quit being an academic. I can’t remember my research for the Magic or Madness trilogy so I really can’t remember any of my scholarly projects. I’m not alone in this. I remember hearing Jonathan Lethem say that when Motherless Brooklyn came out he was taken up by the Tourette’s Syndrome community. But by that time he was onto the next book and had forgotten all his Tourette’s research. We writers are a fickle short-term memoried lot.
To sum up: please don’t ask me about my scholarly books. I know nothing.
Two weeks ago I mentioned that I’d been criticised for making the main character in the Magic or Madness trilogy black
when the story isn’t about her being black. I said I’d write more about it and then didn’t. Mostly because there are so many disturbing assumptions in that criticism that it makes my head explode. And also because I was secretly hoping someone else would post about it.
Well, yay! Tempest did:
Why, they ask, does the character have to be non-white if the story isn’t about being non-white? Because, I say, every story of my life isn’t about my non-whiteness. Sometimes it’s about my ability to let go of a crush, or figure out what raptor birds are doing on my fire escape at night, or what I plan to do with my life after college, or why I love the view from on top of a mountain yet fear the way up. If that’s true for me, it’s true or other non-whites, too.
And, you know, there are lots of non-white people in this world. It’s all right to have a few stories where they just exist, okay?
Specifying race helps to fill a character in, but doesn’t necessarily mean that the filler is standard and clichéd. When the reader first reads that Brenna is of a specific ancestry rather than a general, unspecified one, it makes her more real. Same with Reason. That’s what it adds to the story.
Many white writers are nervous about writing characters who aren’t white and seem to think that if they do so there must be a reason for it. They fear being criticised for writing people who have a different skin colour to them, they fear getting it wrong. On the other hand they worry about being criticised for having no non-white characters. Damned if you do and damned if you don’t.
To which I say, well, der. Of course, you’re going to be criticised. If you write and people read the words you have written some of them will not like those words. Doesn’t matter if you’re posting on your blog, writing an email, or publishing a novel.
My trilogy has been criticised for being too Australian and for being not Australian enough, for getting the American characters completely wrong, for getting Sydney and New York City wrong, and for many other things. That’s what happens when stuff you write is out there where people who don’t know or care about you can read it.
If you’re not going to write something because you’re afraid of criticism why bother writing at all?
As for why Reason has to be black: It’s because she is black, okay?
Also, Tempest, you have raptor birds on your fire escape at night? Really? That is so cool.
This review contains spoilers.
Justine Larbalestier's Magic or Madness trilogy reached its conclusion this spring with the March publication of Magic's Child. I've long been a fan of Justine's blog, so when the opportunity to interview her as part of Colleen Mondor's June Blog Tour Blast came up, I took it and picked up the trilogy in preparation. And, boy, am I glad I did--this is one smart trilogy for the teen (and adult) reader.
The trilogy opens with Magic or Madness, when 15-year-old Reason ends ups in Sydney with the very grandmother--Esmeralda--she'd been hiding from her entire life. Esmeralda, Reason's mother Sarafina claims, is a witch, who sacrifices small animals, eats babies, and conquers men in an attempt to maintain her powers. Sarafina describes a house of horrors, with no electricity, but with bones, teeth and other magical objects littering the place. Sarafina has also taught her daughter to be on her guard--to not trust Esmeralda and to run if she's ever caught by her grandmother.
Imagine Reason's surprise when she ends up at her grandmother's house (after Sarafina suffers a mental breakdown) and it's a virtual palace--light, clean, airy, and huge. Esmeralda herself seems perfectly normal, even kind. Reason has her own bedroom and bathroom and she's found no evidence of witchcraft. Esmeralda allows Reason to visit her mother in the mental institution, and Reason even makes a first friend--a sweet boy named Tom who lives next door, is a whiz at fashion, and who teaches Reason to explore their neighborhood without touching the ground. Life, Reason finds, is not what she expected at Esmeralda's.
Then, one day, Reason decides to follow her grandmother out the back door and she finds herself in a mysterious cold gray world complete with snow. (This desolate place turns out to be New York City.) A girl happens upon Reason shivering in her Sydney clothes and takes her home. Turns out this girl, Jay-Tee, was waiting for her. And so is Jay-Tee's benefactor, one Jason Blake--Reason's grandfather. In working against Jason Blake, Reason and Jay-Tee become friends and Reason learns the whole truth--that magic does exist, that she herself is magic as are Jay-Tee, Tom, Esmeralda, and Jason Blake, and that magic has huge costs. Namely, each time you use magic you shorten your life. But, paradoxically, if you are magic and don't it at all, you will go mad, as Reason's mother has. Finally, magic can be stolen by other magical folk--as Jason has taken, or drunk, from Jay-Tee.
When Reason learns the truth about herself and her family, she fights back. With the help of Esmeralda and Tom, who track her through the streets of New York, Reason and Jay-Tee make it back to Sydney in once piece, but with many questions.
Magic or Madness is a thought-provoking fantasy novel on many levels. First, Larbalestier's characterizations are particularly strong. Reason arrives from the Australian outback and knows very little about modern life and absolutely nothing about magic. Esmeralda remains an ambiguous character from start to finish. Jason Blake is evil, but his motivations are clear and understandable--he uses others so he can live. Second, Larbalestier's focus on the costs of magic makes this trilogy interesting from a philosophical point of view.
Magic Lessons, the second in the Magic or Madness trilogy, finds Reason at home in Sydney with Esmeralda, Jay-Tee, and Tom. The teens have a million questions for Esmeralda and she agrees to instruct them all in the basics of magic. At the same time, Reason's powers of magic are growing as she begins to recognize them: always a math genius, Reason finds she's able to read the internal structure of the other magical people in her life and she finds Jay-Tee and Esmeralda have very little time left. Also, the door between Sydney and New York begins to act up--banging, and rippling, and wreaking havoc in the kitchen. Eventually a sticky yellowish substance streams under the door and enters Esmeralda, Jay-Tee, and Reason. Jay-Tee almost dies, but Esmeralda and Reason gain incredible strength and more magical power. Reason heads through the door to New York to find out why.
There she finds a creature--an old man--who at first terrifies her with his awful smell and appearance. But, she realizes he's a Cansino, one of her own family, and she begins to track him in order to discover what he wants and why he's still living past the lifespan of the average magician (20-40). In the meantime, she lives with Jay-Tee's brother, Danny, and finds herself falling in love with him.
Magic Lessons explores Reason's growing strength as a magician (manifested often synesthetically) and the world of magic as a whole. Reason begins to see magic as a disease, one that can be cured--an idea supported by Jay-Tee, who tells her that Jason Blake dreamed that Reason would be the one to solve magic's downsides.
At the end of Magic Lessons, old man Cansino returns to his final resting place in Sydney, but not before imbuing Reason with incredible powers. Jay-Tee, Tom, and Esmeralda also learn that that Reason is pregnant and that Esmeralda's magic boost from old man Cansino is gone.
In the final volume of Larbalestier's trilogy, Reason's powers have grown so much that, to magical people, she hardly appears human. She can reshape DNA--her own and others'--and can move herself through space. Jason Blake sets up a final showdown in an attempt to steal Reason's powers and live forever. And, he uses Sarafina in a bid to outmaneuver Reason.
Reason, Esmeralda, Tom and Jay-Tee track Sarafina in an attempt to save her. Jay-Tee nearly dies in the chase, but Reason saves her by rearranging and fixing her DNA. Jay-Tee lives, but her magic is gone. Jay-Tee, both saddened and exhilarated by her new status as a non-magical person, finds a nearly analogous magic, however, in a new romance with Tom.
In the end, Reason does save herself and others. But not by making magic safe to use over the course of a lifetime. She disables the magic in her mother, her grandmother, and in herself. She tries to save Tom as well, but he refuses--afraid he will no longer be able to make beautiful clothing without his magic. The book closes with a magical moment, but one I won't spoil for readers.
Ethical issues play an important role in the Magic trilogy. The fact that people with magic must steal it from others to stay alive means choices are difficult. Esmeralda stole magic from Tom without telling him, while Tom gave some freely to Jay-Tee when she nearly died. Esmeralda, despite her lapse, tries her best not to take from others, but Reason sees her eyes light up with greed when she sees Reason's unlimited power in Magic's Child. Sarafina chose madness over magic altogether and willingly gives up her power when Reason offers. And Reason herself must decide between a normal life and one consisting of beautiful patterns, numbers, and, most importantly, no pain.
Structurally, the Magic books are fascinating as well, with chapters told in first person by Reason, Jay-Tee, and Tom. Over the course of the trilogy we learn to know each of these characters well and understand the choices they face. Overall, the Magic trilogy gives the reader much to consider, while providing hours of entertainment.
Justine Larbalestier's Magic or Madness trilogy includes some (not overly graphic) sexuality in volumes two and three and is best suited for readers ages twelve and up.
======================
Michele: If you haven't read these, you really should! I think you'll like them.
Off to Paris today. I’m not sure what my intramanet access will be like while there, plus I’ll be busy, so I figured I’d best leave you with a slightly meaty post given as I’m not sure when I’ll be posting again.
For your delectation some thoughts on the efficacy of spreadsheets for novel writing:
A while back I posted a tongue-in-cheek guide on how to write a novel in which I suggested using a spreadsheet. I’m still getting letters from folks telling me what a revelation that was, how it’s transformed the way they write, solved all their plotting problems, and made their teeth whiter.
And I’m still coming across comments from those who are appalled and outraged by the very idea. A spreadsheet! For creative work! The utter utter horror! Spreadsheets are for accountants! The muse is allergic to spreadsheets. What kind of philistine is this Justine Larbalestier? (If that is her real name.)
I don’t get the outrage.
A novel is a large document containing a whole world with a population that can range from one (boring navel-gazing novel about a man trapped inside a unicycle) to billions or more (space opera where the Empress of the universe destroys a whole planet and the reader follows the last day of each inhabitant of said planet). Keeping track of all of that is tricky. The longer or more complicated the novel the harder it is to keep all of it in your head.
I’m sure some writers can do it. Some writers can also write entires novels in their head and produce but one perfect draft.
But pretty much every writer I know has some method of tracking their novel. It might be a set of notes, a wall chart, a spreadsheet, a ouija board, an outline they annotate as they go, index cards, pigeon entrails, their ghostwriter, whatever. They have some kind of a thing that is not their novel that tells them stuff they need to know about their novel.
My first novel is an epic, 145 thousand words long*, spanning many years, with a cast of gazillions, and multiple point-of-view characters. I wrote the first draft using another word document to note down who was related to who, what the countries were, the different language groups, the seasons, things I needed to change, and etc. By the time I finished the first draft, my notes about the novel was almost longer than the actual novel. I needed another document to keep track of it. And then I needed another one to keep track of the one keeping track of the notes keeping track of the novel. Spot the problem?
My boyfriend of the time (thank you, Geoff!) suggested I use Microsoft Project. I fell in love. It was the first (and only time) I’ve been smitten by any of Microsoft’s software**. Project was exactly what I needed: I could chart each character in relationship to the other characters over a period of days, months, years, whatever I needed. At a glance, I could see characters who disappeared with no explanation, who remained pregnant for two years, babies who stayed at the baby stage even though five years had passed since their birth.
It made rewriting much easier.
My second novel was much more straightforward, shorter, and told from only one point of view. A very short file was all I needed to keep track. And to be honest I didn’t use it much, which might be why it’s so very bad, and will never ever see the light of day.
My third novel was Magic or Madness, which while not as complicated as my first, had its own challenges, such as being set in Sydney and New York City. Towards the end of the first draft, Scott introduced me to his spreadsheet method, which made it much much much easier to track what time it was in the two different locations as well as the shifts in points-of-view.
I used the same spreadsheet for all three books of the trilogy. It made me happy.
For the Great Australian Mangosteen Monkey Knife-Fighting Elvis Cricket Fairy Young Adult book I also used a spreadsheet, but it served mostly procrastinatory purposes. The book is told from one point of view and is pretty much beginning, middle, end. It woulda been just as easy to write it without one.
So there you have it: spreadsheets neither write your novel for you, nor do they stab the grand muse of writerising through the heart. They’re just this sometimes-for-some-people useful thing, ya know?
And now I believe I have a plane to catch.
*For contrast all the Magic or Madness books are around 65 thousand words.
**And, of course, Microsoft instantly stopped producing a Mac version. So I never got to use it again, which is a shame because it is the most excellent instrument of procrastination novel tracking I have ever used.
I just found out that Magic Lessons is on the shortlist for a Locus Award. Check out who else is on the list:
Spirits That Walk in Shadow by Nina Kiriki Hoffman
Magic Lessons by Justine Larbalestier
Voices by Ursula K. Le Guin
The Keys to the Kingdom: Sir Thursday by Garth Nix
Wintersmith by Terry Pratchett
Talk about stellar! Those are some of the best writers in the YA universe! I’m on a shortlist with Ursula Le Guin! I think I’m going to faint.
There are other wonderful books up for Locus awards, including Samuel R. Delany’s About Writing and Julie Phillips’ Tiptree biography for best non-fiction, Ellen Kushner’s Privilege of the Sword for best fantasy, Ellen Klages’ Green Glass Sea and Naomi Novik’s Temeraire for best first novel. Woo hoo!! Congratulations to them all! And if you haven’t already read these then you really really ought to!
Very flaky internet access—the wifi keeps dropping to one bar so I’m keeping this short. Also I don’t seem to be able to reply to emails, but I’ll be back in NYC by Saturday and will catch up then. If it’s urgent call me on the mobile.
We’re doing two more Texas appearances. Details here. Come say hi.
Also I’m getting a lot of people asking me the same questions about the ending of the trilogy so I’ve started a SPOILER FAQ over here [scroll down]. If you have questions about the trilogy that aren’t already answered you can ask them on the comments thread over there and I will respond. But please don’t ask spoiler questions in the comments for this post. Lots of this blog’s readers have not read Magic’s Child yet.
Hope no one’s too damp in NYC.
Okay, now I attempt to post this . . .
Courtesy of Marrije, I now know what happens to Reason after the Magic or Madness trilogy:
She’s now working advertising coffee in the Netherlands!
See the eerie resemblance?
It’s a huge relief to me to know that at least one of my characters is not going to starve just because I’ve stopped writing about them. Phew!
Today is the fourth anniversary of my becoming a full-time freelance writer. That’s right, on 1 April 2003 I stopped getting a regular salary and set about trying to earn dosh with the words I write. What more appropriate day than April Fool’s day?
It was Scott who convinced me to do it.
For the previous eighteen months my regular salary as a post-doctoral fellow at the University of Sydney had been the bulk of our income, but Scott’s earnings as a freelancer were on the rise. It would be more than enough, he asserted, to support both of us while I found my legs as a writer. There were several academic jobs I could have applied for, but Scott convinced me not to. It wasn’t hard, while I preferred being an academic to any other job I’d had, I liked writing way more. “It’s the only thing you’ve ever wanted to do,” he told me over and over again. “Now’s the time to do it.”
I thought he was mad.
I was right.
The next three years and a half years were filled with financial anxiety: loans were taken out, credit cards were juggled, and tonnes of panic was panicked. Two freelancers living together is not for the faint of heart. It’s not even a good idea for nerves of steel, lion-hearted types.
I received my first freelance money—the advance on signing for the Magic or Madness trilogy—in December of 2003, which was eight months after I’d gone freelance. It was my first professional sale. The offer came in September so by publishing standards I was paid very quickly. But it was an awfully long time to be bringing in no money. In the meantime Scott signed up for two separate three-book deals (the Uglies trilogy and the three Razorbill books—So Yesterday, Peeps, and The Last Days) to keep us from going under. Problem was those books were on top of the Midnighters trilogy he’d already sold.
Suddenly he was writing three books a year and experiencing the joys of shingles. All because I’d gone freelance prematurely.
Do I regret it?*
No. I’m proud of what I’ve achieved. In my first four years of freelancing I’ve written four books, edited another one, and published four: the Magic or Madness trilogy and Daughters of Earth. I sold my first novel only five months after going freelance. Not bad, eh?
Of course, I’d been trying to sell a novel since 1999, so it was four (almost five) years from first finished novel to first sold novel. And I’d been trying to sell short stories for much, much, much, much longer than that (way back into the eighties). I still haven’t had a pro sale for any of my short stories.** And since I’ve pretty much stopped writing them, or sending them out, that’s unlikely to change any time soon.
Although the trilogy hasn’t earned out (bloody joint accounting!) it’s close and with the foreign sales of the trilogy (thank you, Whitney Lee) I’m now earning enough to support myself***.
But if someone who’d never sold a novel asked me whether they should go freelance I would tell them no.
No matter how talented or promising you are, going freelance without a single professional sale is madness. Perhaps you have a partner or a parent or a patron who’s willing to support you—it’s still dangerous and scary to try to make a living at something you’ve not proved yourself at. And there’s no guarantee that your partner or parent or patron will continue to support you. They might one day get jack of the whole thing. You might never make a single sale. Lots of extraordinarily talented people have failed to make a living as writers.
I have no idea what the future will bring. I’ve seen too many writers with stalled careers after even the most brilliant of starts to be sanguine about my own. The young adult market is thriving right now and advances seem to be going up all the time, but who knows how long that will last?
Yet despite the financial insecurity, the never knowing if my next book will sell or not, and the destruction of Scott’s health, these have been the best four years of my life. All the books i’ve published are the very best that I could make them at the time. There’s no book out there with my name on it that I’m ashamed of.
Turns out that I love being a writer. It’s what I’ve always wanted, and now I have it, it’s better than I imagined. Fingers crossed that it lasts.
Happy anniversary to me! And thank you, Scott, for everything.
*The real question is: Does
Scott regret it?
**When I sold to Strange Horizons in 2001 it wasn’t classified as a pro market.
***Or to support the alternative me what doesn’t have expensive tastes and lives in Dubbo.
NOTE: I apologise for the complete absence of April First Foolery. Fortunately others in the blogosphere are more than making up for my seriousness.
Magic’s Child only came out last Friday and already I’ve had a stack of letters and some comments here asking when there’ll be another book in the series.
Wow! I’m stoked at the enthusiasm and thrilled that you like the Magic or Madness world so much you want more. I’m not sure there’s a bigger compliment you can offer a writer. Thank you.
But right now I have no plans for more books set in that world.
Don’t yell at me! I’m not saying there won’t be books in the future. But there won’t be any in the immediate future.
Why? Lots of reasons but mostly because I need a break. I started work on the trilogy in June 2003 and had been thinking about it for months before then. I finished making corrections to Magic’s Child in early November 2006. So I spent more than three years solidly in that one world, with those same characters, and for now that’s enough. We need our space. Both the characters and me. Otherwise ugliness would ensue.
Also at the moment I have no idea what happens next. No clue at all. It’s very hard to write a book without any ideas.*
Right now I’m busy rewriting the fairy book (otherwise known as the Great Australian Elvis cricket fairy mangosteen YA novel), and on the weekend I started a new book.
What book was that? Remember I asked you all to vote on what I should write next?
Well, you voted and you chose by an overwhelming majority—
drum roll
very big drum roll
so big it’s still rolling
and rolling
and rolling
rolling
rolling
rolling
So I started the sexy cricket one instead.
Nah, just kidding.
I really did start the lodger book. You know how sometimes starting a book consists of hours and hours of staring at the screen, lots of deciding the front room needs to be tidied, or that there’s urgent mail to be sent, or that it’s a long time since the sock (ew!) drawer was rearranged, or that perhaps a long walk is needed to get the thoughts to coalesce into words and sentences and paragraphs?
Not this time.
I sat down to write the lodger novel and had several thousands words in a matter of seconds. Scary excellent stuff! (I mean the writing process. I can’t tell about the words yet.) This book is practically writing itself. Yum.
Here’s hoping my Magic or Madness fans will enjoy also the fairy book and the lodger book. Oh, and that they find a publisher . . .
*I’m not saying it hasn’t been done. Do not ask me for examples!
**The votes:
Lodger book: 12
Liar book: 8
Cricket romance: 7
Werewolf snowboarding epic: 6
Baby killing ghost novel: 6
Vintage clothes shop book: 4
Hollywood book: 1
NT family epic: 1
Short story: 1
That’s right, the final book of the trilogy, Magic’s Child should now be available in the US of A (and possibly Canada too). You can celebrate by
- buying Magic’s Child
- borrowing it from your library (or getting them to order it in ’cause they’re very unlikely to have it already)
- reading it
- reading the whole trilogy through all in one go (please to let me know what that’s like)
- reading the first draft of the first book in the series, Magic or Madness and laughing at how bad my first drafts are
- downloading a special Magic’s Child screensaver (they’re on the sidebar to your right—pretty flutterbyes!)
- Reading through the various reviews of Magic’s Child
- Making origami ammonites
Or if you’re me, the mad author, you sit and play with the hardcovers of Magic or Madness, Magic Lessons and Magic’s Child and chuckle madly to yourself “I did it! I did it! Look at my pretties! All finished! All finished!”
[Accompanying image of mad author assaulting her books censored. Your eyes are grateful.]
The first person to send me photographic evidence of actual copies ofMagic’s Child in an actual book shop will win a signed copy of the book complete with matching Magic’s Child bookmarks.
By:
Justine Larbalestier,
on 3/22/2007
Blog:
Justine Larbalestier
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For the next month, there’s an ad for Magic’s Child up on Locus online. Tis my very first one and I’m dead excited. Ordinarily, I can’t stand ads but somehow it’s different when it’s an ad for one of my books. That makes me want to pat it and sing it songs. Lovely, lovely ad. Designed by the fabulous Courtney Wood who also made those beautiful screensavers which you can now download from the links in the sidebar.
There is now a cover for the Science Fiction Book Club’s 3-in-1 version of my trilogy. It’s called The Magic or of Reason.
In other vainglorious news, the Hathor Legacy likes Daughters of Earth, describing it as the “perfect marriage of fantastic stories and excellent critical analysis”. Yay! That’s what I was going for.
And to stop skiting for a second, wouldn’t it be great if this happened? An ODI series between India and Australia right here in NYC? I could bring all my USian friends what want to learn about the noble game and convert them to the glories of cricket in their own country. Bliss!
Also this could be the day Magic’s Child is released into the wild. i await reports. Remember there is a prize for the first person to send me photographic evidence that my latest book exists and it may not be as crappy as I said.
Reason Cansino, the protag of my Magic or Madness trilogy, is somewhat of a mathematical prodigy, but she pales in comparison to Terence Tao:
By age two, he had learned to read. At 9, he attended college math classes. At 20, he finished his Ph.D.
Now 31, he has grown from prodigy to one of the world’s top mathematicians.
. . .
“I always liked numbers,” he said.
A 2-year-old Terry Tao used toy blocks to show older children how to count. He was aquick with language and used the blocks to spell words like “dog” and “cat.”
. . .
At age 5, he was enrolled in a public school, and his parents, adminstrators and teachers set up an individualized program for him. He proceeded through each subject at his own pace, quickly accelerating through several grades in maths and science while remaining closer to his age group in other subjects. In English classes, for instance, he became flustered when he had to write essays.
“I never really got the hang of that,” he said. “These very vague, undefined questions. i always liked situations where there were very clear rules of what to do.”
Assigned to write a story about what was going on at home, Terry went from room to room and made detailed lists of the contents.
I love that last image of the boy writing lists, rather than a story. Though, of course, depending on how he ordered them, they could well wind up being one. Harper’s Index is jampacked with stories. Many of them deeply disturbing.
I can’t imagine Reason making lists in quite that way (though in the early chapters of Magic or Madness she is pretty methodical as she notes the contents of the rooms of her grandmother’s house) but I can totally see her using blocks to teach other kids to count. And if she were to survive the last book of the trilogy* I see her going on to be a mathematician. Maybe she’d be working on primes just like Mr Tao. They do sing to her.
The Times article on Tao is a lovely portrait of someone who hasn’t been wrecked by being a prodigy. Nice to have a counter to all those stories of prodigies who crash and burn.
*Do not ask for I will not tell you.
Given that it’s now late February and Magic Lessons is available in a corrected and cheaper paperback edition in the US of A, and Magic’s Child is a mere month away from pubbing*, I thought I would celebrate by posting the very first draft of the first two and a bit chapters of Magic or Madness:
Chapter One
Reason missed her mother. She lay on her new bed in her new home missing her mum, Sarafina, so much it hurt. It was her first day in her grandmother’s house. She should get up, explore, do things, but all she could think about was how much she missed her mother.
Compare and contrast with what wound up in the final version of Magic or Madness many, many, many, many rewrites later:
Chapter One: Reason Cansino
My name is Reason Cansino. I was named Reason because my mother, Sarafina, thought it was prettier than Logic or Rationality or Intellect and had better nicknames, too. Not that Sarafina has ever called me anything but Reason. My mother believes in all those things: logic, reason, and the rest, and in mathematics, which fortunately wasn’t on the list of possible names. I’m grateful to have a head full of numbers, but I wouldn’t want to answer to the name of Algebra, Trigonometry, or Calculus.
I have mentioned before that my first drafts are really bad. Now you have proof!
“Reason missed her mum.” Has there ever been a less dynamic first sentence? Or first paragraph? “I miss my mum and instead of doing anything I’m going to whinge.” I’d keep reading that. Not!
I hope this encourages you in your own writing endeavours. The first draft ain’t nothing but the very roughest of beginnings. It exists only to be enbiggened and embettered.
Hmmm, maybe I shouldn’t have posted the first draft after all?
Justine backs away slowly from the computer.
These are not the droids you’re looking for!
*Two months if you are in Australia or New Zealand. Many more months if you’re looking to score a copy in a
language other than English.
The ethics of accepting free things for review is being debated amongst comic reviewers. Can you give an unbiased opinion about a book or comic or DVD or whatever if it’s a freebie? Etc etc blah blah blah. Please! Of course, you can.
I have to admit I find this debate a bit yawn-worthy. Reviewers and critics have been getting stuff for free and then completely slamming the stuff they don’t like since the dawn of the printed word. If someone out there is giving only good reviews to the free stuff then they’re not worthy of the name “reviewer” or “critic”. They’re poorly paid advertising. Readers can tell the difference.
Colleen Mondor agrees the debate is pretty silly. She also makes a really excellent point over at Comics Worth Reading:
I am sure it is frustrating for creators to know their books (or comics) are being sent out there and then not hear anything from reviewers, but it is just one more step in the long frustrating game of publication. Honestly, I think writers should be glad that there are so many more venues for their books to be reviewed now then in the past —at least with the web you can get your work reviewed by literally hundreds of places, rather than relying on a very few the way it was twenty years ago. At least you have a decent shot to get some publicity.
This is so very true. In the last six months or so I’ve been finding accidentally stumbling across roughly a review a week of one of my books somewhere on the intramanets. Some are just a line or two, others are much longer. That’s a lot of talk about my books that would not have existed ten years ago. Or even five. Not all are positive, not all sites have a tonne of traffic. So they’re not generating oodles of sales. Doesn’t matter. It’s absolutely delicious to be able to read what my audience thinks. To have tangible proof that I have an audience. No matter how small.
I remember way back in 1993, at my very first science fiction convention, meeting a published writer who had already published five or six books. She told me one of the things she liked best about cons was getting to meet people who’d read her books. “Otherwise, I’d just be writing in a vacuum. Most of my books haven’t been reviewed anywhere.”
My eyes bugged out. It had never occurred to me that you could be a published author and not be reviewed. (It had never occurred to me that you could be a published writer and not be living on champagne, mangosteens, and caviar with rainbows of happiness cascading all around you.) Now, of course, I know better.
I’ve just finished a trilogy. The first book was widely reviewed in the offline press, the second book—not so much. I’ll be interested to see what happens with the third. I’ve heard that the longer a series goes on, the less you get reviewed. (You know, unless you’re J. K. Rowling.)
But I do know that even if I get no “official” reviews at all. There’ll still be online ones. There have already been a few. I came across the lastest one today. It’s from one of the regular commenters here, Rebecca, and it’s her very first book review. I think it’s excellent, but I’m incredibly biased. She says
Magic’s Child does everything I could have hoped for and more. If you aren’t already reading it, or on the waiting list to borrow my copy of Magic or Madness (hehe, I have a waiting list), then you should go out and get the books RIGHT NOW. Plus, Magic Lessons just came out in paperback. And so I must conclude that Magic’s Child is awesome and was an excellent, surprising, and exciting end to the trilogy (which, incidentally, I pulled an all-nighter to read. Yes–it’s that good 
). Read it. Everyone. Now. 
So, yeah, what Colleen said. This writer is very glad indeed that the intramawebbies has produced so many more venues for reviewing and talking about the things we love. Yay intramanets!
It has been brought to my attention that the US paperback of Magic Lessons—the middle-but-still-loved book of the trilogy—is now available and has been for a week.
So, um, if you’re a paperback kind of a person—there you go! The first two volumes are now in the cheaper and more portable version.
And if you see or have seen copies out in the wild please to let me know. Because, as I’ve mentioned it’s been too cold for me to leave the flat. I mean it’s still in the minuses. I need positives before I’ll venture out there. (Today a piece of ice fell onto our window sill. That is a thousand kinds of wrong.)
I should also mention that the paperback edition is the authorised-with-way-less-typoes version. You know, if that kind of thing matters to you.
It does to me.
I’m obsessed with getting rid of all possible typoes and other whoopsies from my books. Unfortunately, in order to do that I have to go over them a lot. And, well, if you write a book you’ve been over it close to a billion times before it gets into print. Once it’s in print the very last thing in the world you want to do is read it again. So typo elimination is an onerous task.
Which is to say, should you ever find any typoes in any of my books please let me know so I can get them corrected for the next edition.
I know I’m not the only one driven insane by typoes. Nor am I the only writer who is unfond of re-reading my writing. Step up and confess, people. You write but you don’t like to read it, do you? And typoes? They’re a sharp pain in your side, aren’t they?
How to reconcile the two?
Excuse the digression. My point was: Magic Lessons out now in paperback. Please to add to your collection. Or suggest your library do so. I need new shoes!
Both Magic Lessons and Daughters of Earth have made the the Locus Recommended Reading list. Scott also makes an appearance with not one, not two, but three of his books making the cut: The Last Days, Specials and Blue Noon.
Then there’s my compatriots Margo Lanagan (making four appearances) and Gath Nix. Others on the list that I’ve read and loved are the two stories from Christopher Rowe, as well as Julie Phillips’ Tiptree biography, Ellen Kushner’s Privilege of the Sword and Naomi Novik’s Temeraire. Woo hoo! If you haven’t read these you really need to.
I’m sure there are other wonderful books and stories on there, but I confess I haven’t read hardly any of them. I am bad.
In other news UK author Kevin Wignall of Contemporary Nomad likes Magic or Madness and Magic Lessons. Check it out! Though Oz English is not a dialect of Pom English. No way!
This has been a very head-swelling year thus far. May it keep on keeping on!
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The most poignant question me and Scott were asked at BookPeople was the following:
We rambled on about how middle school/high school (if you’re Australian) doesn’t last forever etc etc. How we too were unhappy in 6th, 7th, 8th grade.1 But I’m not sure our answers were satisfying. And we didn’t really suggest any survival techniques.
I have been thinking about this question ever since. Do any of you have any idea for how to survive the dark days of primary and secondary education? If so, do please share.