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There’s been a lot of positive feedback on my previous post, and a lot of offers to participate — so I hope to keep bringing you guest posts from writers across the success spectrum about the kind of failure writers experience. I’ll start with my own.
I want to focus on the kind of failure Debbie Reese was talking about when she jumpstarted this — she referred to a game developers conference where developers speak frankly about failures (sometimes with huge losses of investment), and specifically about a game with Native American tropes that missed the mark. She had critiqued it while in progress, and the developer initially reacted to the critique with the defensiveness and defiance, he ultimately saw her point and grew from it.
It’s important to learn from criticism, especially coming from historically marginalized groups. It is also completely natural to be frustrated by it, defensive, defiant, upset, and annoyed. You spend untold hours working on something creative and it only takes a few minutes for someone to shred it. When a book is already published, there’s not even much you can do about the offense it causes, making it that much easier to push back. But it stunts you as an artist not to listen to feedback. Charlie Chaplin said that artists should actively seek out rejection, and abandon the need to be liked. Part of that is listening to criticism and mulling it over, and part of it is learning to critique yourself in a constructive way.
I have three regrets (and I would probably have more if I thought about it).
First, I have some Native American backstory in my first book, Mudville, and feel like those characters are real and vital to the book. Because such legends figure into the fantasy of the midwest, I felt like I was on firm soil. I got mixed reactions from readers, though, and in particularly upset a woman who had helped me with the Dakota language and cultural aspects as I put the book together. I don’t know what I would do differently were I to start over: drop that backstory all together? Make it more essential? As it is, I can see how readers feel it’s tacked on, appropriating a culture in a half-hearted way, without much sensitivity to the terrible treatment Dakota people have had in this region. At best, I see myself like the school bully at a 20-year high school reunion, throwing his arm amiably around old victims and acting like those episodes of bullying were harmless shared capers that we indulged in together. “We’re cool, right?”
Second, I’ve written previously about Binyavanga Wainaina’s essay, “How to Write About Africa,” and how my own book about Africa measures up. I feel like I failed here to know the tropes well enough to avoid them. I patted myself on the back for writing a positive book (and still think those books are necessary), but live with the fact that I fell into the familiar role of white colonist, having the most important African characters be (a) a wild animal, and (b) the sage, magical character. I did a lot right in the book and it’s still my favorite; it is honest about my own experience, but if I had discovered Wainaina’s article before I launched into the book I might have done something even better, something less reliant on cliches.
Third, I think perhaps my biggest regret in any of my books is not making Penny the main character in Winter of the Robots. She’s my favorite character in the book, and both strategically and for the benefit of the girls of the world, I wish I could have said, “this is about a girl who has a knack for programming robots,” and made that the core of the book. If I ever write a sequel, that will be it. As it turned out, even with two girl characters asserting themselves, they take a backseat to the boys when it comes to building and developing the robots and fighting the battles. (OK, one literally drives with the boys in the back seat, but nobody’s going to be fooled by that one scene.)
All of these figure into how I approach books now. More beta readers from other backgrounds is essential, more attention to the way “others” are treated, more challenges to myself to not settle for my instinctive plot lines that are informed by a literary history of white men.
It’s self-serving. I admit to the failures so I can write better books.
The world of children’s literature is full of generous and supportive people. First and foremost among these are the authors. If they’re competing for shelf space and bestseller lists, they certainly don’t act like it. I’m new to this world, but have been lucky enough to meet and learn from dozens of authors. Kurtis Scaletta has been at this about as long as I have, but it would seem as though he’s been doing it forever. He’s already a seasoned pro. His newest book is The Tanglewood Terror, a beautiful mash-up of classic science fiction, football, bicycle-back adventure, and bittersweet family drama, with a healthy dose of adolescent awkwardness mixed in. It will be released on the same date as The Only Ones: tomorrow! To celebrate the occasion, we decided to interview each other. I’m answering questions on his blog. He’s answering questions here. If you can find a better deal than that, then pin a tail on me and call me a donkey. Because it don’t exist.
Aaron: First off, congratulations on crafting an utterly unique story, a gentle but ominous tale about a plague of mushrooms and a family struggling to hold itself together. And congratulations on your third book in three years (after Mudville and Mamba Point). It’s an astounding accomplishment, especially considering they’re each stand-alone novels set in vastly different times and places.
Kurtis: Thanks. I published my first book at age 40 and I think I was trying to make up for lost time by putting out a book a year.
Aaron: I guess that leads to my first question. In a children’s book industry dominated by trilogies and series, what is it about the stand-alone novel that appeals to you?
Kurtis: Kids love series, no doubt about it. They ask about sequels a lot. I think it’s because they feel really connected to the characters, they make these temporary friends and want to keep seeing them. But I’m usually focused on a kid in a time of upheaval and transformation. By the end of the book, that kid and the world around him have changed too much to go back and do it again. But I did love series as a kid, too, and I have one in the works… it’s for younger readers than my first three novels so it can be a little more static.
Aaron: The Tanglewood Terror is set in present day Maine, in a world of cell phones and the internet. Yet it also seems to exist in a time when kids were granted more freedom. The characters roam the woods for hours on end. There are none of the “helicopter parents” we hear about. The wonderful title and cover art communicate the retro aspect of the story, but I’m curious how this notion of freedom and autonomy informed your writing. Was it something other than nostalgia for you? It reminds me of the
Talking to Aaron Starmer (Author of The Only Ones) said, on 9/12/2011 6:03:00 AM
[...] traded books, and we’re trading release day eve to talk about them. (Here’s the other talk.) What can I say about The Only Ones? (Indeibound | Amazon | Worldcat) I felt sick as I read the [...]
Kelly Barnhill said, on 9/12/2011 9:34:00 AM
I love the word “avuncular”, and shall aspire now to be more so from now on.
I also love this interview.
Cheers!
Giving Thanks: Acknowledgements for The Only Ones said, on 9/13/2011 4:33:00 AM
[...] Terror, which shares a publisher and publication date with The Only Ones. We traded interviews (here and here) and deep thoughts on each others books. Kurtis is an engaging, intelligent and passionate [...]
Anthony Bourdain — a traveling chef author celebrity — travelled to Liberia and the show aired this week. There was a lot of excitement among the folks I know who used to live there. A preview of the show was posted to his blog a while back, and some of the exact phrases were used in the broadcast.
But no place has so utterly confounded me, intimidated, horrified, amazed, sickened, depressed, inspired, exhausted and shown me–with every passing hour–how wrong I was about everything I might have thought only an hour previous.
He doesn’t explain what so utterly confounded him within an hour of landing, nor what he expected. Oh, well. We know what happened in Liberia, and he sums it up, then goes to the market to suck snails out of shells and so forth. He has fufu and soup with a friend he met at a scrabble club. Those scenes were fun to watch. He travels up to Nimba County, and they show fleeting footage of a pool I once swam in. He goes deep into the jungle for a ritual with a tribe he doesn’t name (or names so passingly I didn’t catch it). He doesn’t bother to show any marks of civilization, although I’m guessing he stayed in the comparatively luxurious Mamba Point hotel while in Monrovia, which even has a sushi restaurant. That’s very close to where Linus lives in Mamba Point, though it didn’t exist in in 1982. You would never guess from watching the show that anybody eats anything other than wildly unrecognizable things. But exotic cuisine is what the show is about, and I expected it. But he goes a little bit further.
He says on the blog:
There’s a church on nearly every corner–but underneath it all, traditional “masked societies” still rule the hearts and minds and behaviors of many…
A theme he expounds upon in the show, saying something about ritualistic cannibalism, suggesting that “Some people try to minimize it, but ask anybody who’s lived here for over fifteen years!” Bourdain was there for what, ten days? And now he’s an expert on Liberia’s cannibalistic practices? Admittedly confounded upon arrival, expecting something completely different from the war-ravaged, recovering, West African nation that he found (again, he didn’t explain this part very well), by the time he’s been led around by some generous guides for a few days, eaten fufu with his hands, and visited a couple of sites, he is prepared to speak to what really happens in those remote villages when the cameras are away.
But he’s wearing kid gloves in the broadcast. In a Slate article he goes a bit further to show how disgusted he was by Liberia.
[A]lthough I find certain tribal practices personally deeply repellant, I’d always felt uncomfortable with the idea of these “enlightened humanitarians” going to Africa and lecturing people who don’t have clean water and have been living with these systems for centuries about how to behave. And yet I gotta tell you, Liberia made me ask myself: Are some things just wrong? Genital mutilation would be one. Some of the practices of some of the traditional tribal elders—witch doctors, basically—are another. I really wonder whether there are absolutes in some cases.
Where does the genital mutilation come from? Was Bourdain invited to witness one after the fufu in Monrovia or the tribal dance in northern Nimba County? He doesn’t explain. Though perfectly willing to slight people who go to Africa for longer than a week or two, including those who want to truly make a difference instead of just sampling the food and shooting some exotic footage. I know this is the Africa that Americans want to see. Blood diamonds, genital mutilations, armies of giant ants that eat villages…. you know. Africa.
I’m collecting all the Mamba Point release-related stuff over at my main author site, http://www.kurtisscaletta.com/latest-news. This my “everything else” blog, so I won’t be double posting news and reviews and so forth here. But there’s exciting stuff going on, so click on over.
Meanwhile, to get back off topic, here’s a video I made today after a shocking discovery:
If you can help me figure out exactly what that non-otter animal is, I’d appreciate it! It is not an echidna or a playpus or an aardvark, but I can’t quite put my finger on it. The best I can do is “Q-Bert.”
I asked people on Facebook to send me random pictures and incorporated them all into a book trailer for my second novel. I only allowed myself minimal preparation and one take in iMovie. Special thanks to Ken Burns for the effects.
1. This is my final call for paikus. If you want a rare collectible (probably not that rare) pika beanie baby, just write a paiku. What’s a paiku? Follow the link.
2. I haven’t been double-posting things that I put as announcements over on the dot com site by also posting them here. If you have missed out on the writing-related updates, please go over there now for updates and reminders such as:
Great reviews from Kirkus and Booklist on my second novel, Mamba Point.
Two ways you can win a copy of Mamba Point right now, and a teaser for a third.
An author’s visit next week in northern Minnesota.
1. In the summer of 2004 I was watching the Little League World Series to get inspiration for my work in progress, which was bout a catcher named Roy and a pitcher named Sturgis Nye. In one game a kid named Sturgeon struck out all but a few batters in a complete game shutout. He was lanky, dark haired, and pitched in the mid 70s, an unthinkable speed for Little League. He practically had my character’s name and was just as I imagined him.
2. In Mamba Point, I imagined I’d made up a character named Roger, a hippie scientist in Monrovia studying snakes. That was before my dad sent me this picture of “Charlie the Snake Man,” whom I’d completely forgotten (and still don’t really remember). Another character in the story, also fond of snakes, is called Charlie.
3. In the first draft of Wake, ME (and, I expect, the final book) there is a woman by the unlikely name of Howard. Without getting too much into it, she’s well connected to a famous writer of horror fiction, and is discreetly named for H.P. Lovecraft, whom looms large in the story (there are both oblique and explicit references to Lovecraft throughout the story.) Today my wife told me about an actual woman named Howard. I had no idea there ever was one, and this one turned out to be so perfect that I’ve been chuckling all day. I’ll leave it unstated to see if any of my commenters want to have a guess the name by which she is better known.
W.C. Fields once said, “Always carry a flagon of whiskey in case of snakebite, and furthermore, always carry a snake.” Here is more sensible advice from the remarkable Thea Litschka-Koen, who lives in Swaziland and saves both mambas from people and people from mambas (find out more about her here and here). The tips are taken from an article Litschka-Koen wrote for BBC Knowledge magazine and are used with permission. The article is now filed under Resources for Mamba Point.
It’s interesting, having written about Africa, to find this razor-sharp essay, “How to Write About Africa,” cataloguing basically all of the cliches about Africa in Western literature. I think it’s interesting, and should be required reading for anyone who writes about Africa, particularly if they are not African.
Here is a great reading of fragments of the essay (the reader intentionally or accidentally mistates the title)
If you click through to YouTube, there are also videos of the author talking about the essay under “related videos.”
Having written about Africa, of course I use it to self-evaluate, and am glad I fare well by it, though I don’t get a perfect score. Mamba Point does feature a loyal servant, for example, and he is afraid of snakes. There is magic in my book, too, but no more magic than I’ve placed in Minnesota and New England. Otherwise I don’t think I commit any of the grievances the author lists. But that’s my opinion, and it’s not objective. Ultimately readers and reviewers will decide that for me.
To be fair, my second novel isn’t really “about Africa” anyway. It is set in Africa, but it’s about an American kid who moves to Liberia. Some of the people he meets are American, some are African, and one is a snake.
Shelby Grossman said, on 3/23/2010 1:46:00 PM
I definitely don’t think you fall into these traps. In fact this was my main take-away from your book–that you managed to portray Liberia as a young boy would see it, without characterizing everything as extreme and primitive.
Kurtis said, on 3/23/2010 2:22:00 PM
Thanks, Shelby. It’s good to hear that from someone who has lived there.
Last summer I got excited about the idea of showcasing snake drawings to go along with Mamba Point, which is all about a boy who draws snakes, so I set up a gallery and invited people to send in their snake drawings. In fact, I still am excited about it, but even with the temptation of prizes I haven’t gotten many drawings that I didn’t bully my friends and family into drawing. So I’ve decided to bring more attention to the gallery by bringing those snakes home. While before they were off in their own corner of KurtisScaletta.com (they made the other blog posts nervous), they are now right here in the main HQ. You can find them under “Mamba Point Extras” on the right sidebar, under “Extras” at the top, or uh, click here. You can still also go to http://kurtisscaletta.com/snakes, but you’ll get sent to the new gallery.
I promised prizes, and they still stand, but I’m moving the deadline way back to October 1, so people who read the book and are overcome with the desire to sketch a serpent can participate. I’ll do two a month (or so) and pace it out. One prize per month will be random, for all the folks who’ve participated so far, and one prize per month will be for a really outstanding snake drawing that I’ve received. All previous entrants will also be eligible for that, too. The prizes will be books, toy snakes, Liberian flags, and other things I might find and throw in.
I implied — er, by outright stating — in a previous post that Sarah at Knopf did the artwork for the cover of Mamba Point. Sarah is a designer, and while I originally assumed there was a different painter involved, I somehow got confused along the way and thought she had in fact also done the artwork. The actual artist is Lisa Congdon, whose other works you can peruse via that link. She does a lot of great work involving animals and nature. She also has an etsy shop with lots of cool stuff. Anyway, I love the painting and the whole book design; so thanks and congratulations to both Sarah and Lisa.
I watched a terrific documentary about black mambas on PBS tonight. I had to because just about every member of my family called or emailed to let me know it was on.
I wish the show had aired a year ago when I was researching Mamba Point! It’s really hard to find more than basic information about mambas at the library or on the Internet, and in one hour I got it all. What mambas eat, where they live, how they hunt, how big they are, how fast they are, and how they make baby snakes.
The show features an incredible woman who catches mambas, and she’s fielding questions about them on the PBS Website. Ask those questions here.
I have advanced review copies (aka ARCs) of MAMBA POINT. They are gorgeous. There are cute little snakeys in the margins and the chapter headings. Sarah is going to win book designer awards for this one I bet.
I can spare one copy. One and only one. The rest are spoken for.
So here’s what I’m going to do… in addition to the regular prizes I’m giving away much later, I am going to send one of these babies off to a randomly selected person in a month. This means you get to read it several months before anyone else.
But you have to draw me a snake and send it to me by Halloween.
Send me your snake drawings by following the link above and then going to “Send me your snakes.” I will accept scanned or photographed and e-mail digital copies for this drawing (kurtis at kurtisscaletta dot com), although I would appreciate it if you also mail me the hard copy (see “contact me” page for the address).
I drop the whole shebang if I don’t get at least ten new snake drawings. Because the whole point is to get new snake drawings. Also small-print-wise, this is only for *new* snakes. If you already drew me one, thanks, I appreciate it, and your snake is beautiful… but if you want to win this, you have to draw a new snake.
Matt Miller, who appears in my forthcoming novel, Mamba Point is a big fan (like I was when I was his age, and still am) of Edgar Rice Burroughs. Unlike me, Matt has even written fan fiction — namely, a short novel set in Burroughs’ world of Pellucidar, the primitive world on the inside of [...]
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[...] traded books, and we’re trading release day eve to talk about them. (Here’s the other talk.) What can I say about The Only Ones? (Indeibound | Amazon | Worldcat) I felt sick as I read the [...]
I love the word “avuncular”, and shall aspire now to be more so from now on.
I also love this interview.
Cheers!
[...] Terror, which shares a publisher and publication date with The Only Ones. We traded interviews (here and here) and deep thoughts on each others books. Kurtis is an engaging, intelligent and passionate [...]