Spanish Magic Under Glass cover!

Yesterday was my birthday, and the publishing industry so kindly provided me with coincidental gifts! Like the Spanish cover to Magic Under Glass aka "Corazon Mecanico" aka "Clockwork Heart". I think it's absolutely lovely and I like the new title too. I love how different this is from my other covers. How interesting to see all the interpretations.




I also heard from my editor that copyedits for Between the Sea and Sky are on the way, which I presume means ARCs are not too far off. I've already started to get a number of requests for them. The ARCs I receive from my publisher are limited and will be saved for giveaways. But if you are a reviewer, you can always email me and I will forward requests to my publisher, or you can email my publisher directly, to be considered for a review copy. But if you want one from me, you will have to win one in one of my EXCITING CONTESTS! Yay! Just like with Magic Under Glass, I will give away one or two heavily sketched-in copies. So watch for it!

Plot driven fiction vs. character driven fiction

I'm working on my fifth book (if you exclude two that are definitely DRAWER NOVELS) (whoa, I've already written four legit books? Sometimes I still can't believe I actually write entire novels, beginning to end...even when it's my job and I've done it six times if you do count drawer novels, it sounds very daunting) and I see this is going to be a plot driven novel.

I've noticed now that my novels tend to fall into one category or the other.

Character-Driven Novels:
--Take longer to write, and are more difficult, because the characters come with strong personalities and I have to figure out what they would actually DO that could be an interesting story. I have to work with them, because they won't change just to be exciting. Dialogue scenes are particularly hard, because the characters in my mind are very natural. Too natural. Like, hey guys, I've got a story to tell here, I don't have all day.
--Haunt me all day and night. I have dreams about the characters, and I think about them in little out-of-story vignettes.
--Are harder to write, but more fun to have written. I like to reread them, and imagine the what-happens-after.
--Are cozier. They tend to have more humor and sweet moments to balance the tension, because I would be happy just writing about these characters buying their groceries, and in fact, have to resist the urge to do so.
--Compel me to get out my sketchbook a lot more often, to capture those little moments that don't fit in the book.
--Tend to be romance and relationship driven.

Plot-Driven Novels:
--Are written more quickly, because although I have an outline, the plot is so exciting that it compels me to keep writing to see exactly how it will unfold.
--Are very fun to research and world-build, at least so far, because so far my plot novels have had a very intriguing historically based setting as well as an exciting plot.
--Are fast to write, but yuckier to revise, because I don't love the characters as much to spend tons of time with them.
--Aren't as interesting to me in the long run.
--Rely on constant tension and mystery to propel the reader forward.
--The setting is vivid, but the character's lives don't run beyond the bounds of the story. If you walked into the book on the "off-time", you'd see everything dismantled and the characters sitting around drinking coffee or something instead of being their real selves.

You can probably tell which I prefer. Character novels. And yet, I think I need to write a little of both. I think I push boundaries more with my plot novels and write them in a blur of excitement, and then I cozy up a bit with the character novels. So far I only have one novel out, Magic Under Glass, and it's a plot novel. Between the Sea and Sky is a character novel. Magic Under Stone is the only novel I've written to be equal parts both, I think because I knew the characters much better than when I wrote Magic Under Glass. So I have yet to see which my readers seem to prefer.

Extreme examples of character vs. plot novels would be the Betsy-Tacy books vs. The Hunger Games series. I throughly enjoyed both. The Betsy-Tacy books are comparatively easy to put down (in fact, I rather like to stretch out the experience of a character-driven novel), but dear to my heart. I reread them. Hunger Games has compelling characters, but if it was just a little story about Katniss, Gale and Peeta in their town, the readership would be much less. I read every Hunger Games book in one day the moment I got my hands on it, but I'll probably never read them again. (Some people do, obviously this is a matter of preference.)

As a reader, character novels are always the ones I save in my collection and read again and again. But plot novels are the ones I devour in a day. Both experiences are enjoyable, but if I could pick one kind to read, it would be the former! And some novels straddle the line--I think Harry Potter is a good example. And some novels will be one thing to some readers and another to other readers. It's all about what is compelling you to read on.

Which do you prefer to read or write?

Serious Topics

One of the most popular posts at my blog is the Mermaid-y Interview with L. K. Madigan. So I know she has a lot of fans out there. I've known about this for days because my agent broke the news, but today she made a public post that she has pancreatic cancer that has metastized to the liver. You can send her and her family thoughts, prayers and well-wishes here: http://lkmadigan.livejournal.com/185246.html.

I've known Lisa for years. I have a little hanging mermaid she sent me that says "Impossible is a word humans use all too often." I hope Lisa can have many more beautiful moments on this planet. But I know pancreatic cancer is rough. My partner's mom died of it six years ago. In fact, curiously, I had a dream the other night, days before I heard Lisa's diagnosis, where Dade's mom visited me in my dream to tell me she was happy and watching over us. I never had a dream about her before, and this one was very vivid. I live my life with a deep faith that there is another world we can't quite see, that loved ones watch over us, that some "magic" can be real, that things happen for a reason...but on the surface I also doubt every day. I fear death. But moments like that...well, I really feel sometimes that Dade's mom has moved some things around to take care of us, and maybe she knew I needed a dream like that just then.

It's a sad day for so many of us in the writer community who love Lisa and hate to see something like this happen to anyone who still has so much to do and so many books to write. But the comments are her post truly are a beautiful outpouring of love.

On another note, also serious in a very different way, there has been a fresh crop of talk about illegal downloading of ebooks. Saundra Mitchell has a good post about it here.

I do think illegal downloading is something blown out of proportion. In some ways, it gets the word out. And I think only a fraction of downloaders would actually buy the book. We have no way of knowing how many. 5%? 10%? 20%? But I think a bigger concern is the idea that it is OKAY to download things illegally. I remember when mp3 downloading first happened...I think at first everyone thought of it as not much different than the decades-old tradition of making mix tapes. "Oh, now I can hear that one song I used to listen to ten years ago again...what was that?" Before we knew it, everyone was downloading full albums. All the time. Lots of people just assumed all musicians were rich anyway. But you know...they're not. And writers definitely aren't. Every time you buy a Magic Under Glass hardcover, you basically paid my wage for about...three words, by the time you add up all the editing and marketing and other stuff that goes into a career. And believe me, I don't make a lot of money. And three words isn't a lot. But when you add them all up, they make books. If you bought my book, it's kind of like three of the words in it are yours because you bought me the time to write them. If you checked it out from the library, three of the words in it belong to that library copy, and that's good too. You can even pick up some used words at the used bookstore. But for goodness sakes. Don't steal them. Just find some legal way around it, and it's a better world. And please don't encourage it in your friends either. (And fellow writers: I feel like we should all emphasize this at school visits while we have a (mostly) enraptured audience of the next generation!)

How I write period voice...and, um, bookshelf pictures!

I did a blog interview today that asked about the period feel of my voice, and I realized I've gotten this question (or seen that comment in reviews) quite a few times, and maybe I could post about how I capture the feel of an era in voice.

The easy answer is, there is no easy answer, because for one thing, who is to say definitively what is the feel of an era? My editor flagged words as sounding too modern that came straight out of period literature, but I changed them because I decided actual accuracy wasn't as important as not jarring the reader's perception of accuracy. There is also the concern of not confusing a reader. In the 19th century, and into the 20th, oftentimes "dinner" was the midday meal and "supper" the evening meal. My grandparents still say supper. Lunch was not in such common use. But nowadays supper has fallen out of favor and many readers would be confused by the mid-day dinner/evening supper situation, so I stick with lunch and dinner.

Period voice is, for me, intuition as much as anything. But where does the intuition come from? Books!

Tip #1: Read a lot.

I am a non-fiction ADDICT. I buy some novels, sure, but what really opens my pocketbook is a good non-fiction book. My reference library is just to the right of my desk. Lots of books aren't even in there because they are scattered everywhere. (And of course, I'm also a heavy library user!)




































If you're trying to capture a period voice, you have some options:
--Reading novels or memoirs/travelogues/whatever written in the time and place you are trying to capture
--Reading non-fiction about the era or collections of diaries and letters
--Reading novels/memoirs set in the era by someone who lived in the era, but written afterward...it might change their voice, but it might also be a bit easier to read

I recommend some of all of the above to get the most rounded picture. And what are you trying to pick up while reading?

#2: Pay attention to small details.
For instance, Magic Under Glass, pg. 28: "The servants filled a tub with hot water from brass canisters." I could have left off the brass canisters, certainly, and just say they filled the tub. And one mention of brass canisters or the silk lining of a carriage won't fill out the book. But when you slip them in here and there, it helps set a mood and paint a picture. These are the sorts of things I take note of when I read, to stick in later.

You can also take note of the words people use. The Betsy-Tacy books, for example, are full of natural teenage dialogue that doesn't sound like nowadays, the kind of thing you could jot down or the rhythms of which you can absorb if writing an early 20th century American novel:

"I don't see anything so special," Tib remarked.
"Why, we're sitting here drinking coffee," Betsy repeated somewhat lamely. "And not just for a lark."
Tacy's thoughts followed hers.
"We're actually juniors," she said, "stopping in for coffee after shopping, not freshmen or sophomores pretending to be juniors stopping in for coffee after shopping."
Tib looked confused. "You usually take chocolate. I've just got you in the habit of coffee because I come from Milwaukee."
"But Tib!" Betsy cried. "That isn't the point. The point is that we're so frightfully old."

#3: Which brings me to the mood and rhythm...
Even though so far I write fantasies inspired by historical periods rather than actually history, the mood and rhythm of the language is a huge part of creating the world. Between the Sea and Sky was intended to take place around 1800. I feel that writing around 1800 was often actually simpler-sounding than the Victorian period. Marie Antoinette's letters, for instance, often sound very modern to me. Of course they're translated, but still. Jane Austen is wordy but not as wordy as Dickens! So the language in the book I tried to keep straightforward, a little bit "classic" perhaps:

Ginnia led Esmerine from the dim bedroom. Dusk had crept up almost unnoticed until Esmerine came into a dining room lit by a candle and glowing hearth-fire. Sometimes the mermen started a fire on the islands for some purpose or another, but only certain men knew how, and children couldn’t come near, so Esmerine had never been close enough to fire to feel the heat. An older woman with gray curls falling across her cheeks beneath a squarish black cap was sitting quite near it, smoking a pipe. Could this be Belawyn? Esmerine couldn’t believe a mermaid would smoke.
Ginnia went to stir the pot while Swift waved her to an empty seat. Alan was pouring red wine. “Esmerine, do you want wine or water?” he asked.
“I’ve never tasted wine.”
He poured a little in a cup and handed it to her. She took a sip and was surprised it was not at all sweet or salty, just nasty and like nothing else she had ever tasted.
Swift laughed. “She doesn’t like it.”

Magic Under Glass is inspired by the Victorian era, and the voice was more "affected":

I joined Mr. Parry in the tower—not the top of the tower, which must have been shut off like the rest of the upper stories, but the second floor, a small circular room with three huge windows overlooking the woods. A table already bore a spread of food: thin soup, more crusty bread, and some kind of drink in a silver pitcher. A footman waited in the shadows, in the invisible way of servants. Mr. Parry was standing, waiting for me to arrive before he took his seat. The footman pulled out a chair for me.
I smoothed my skirts underneath me and took the heavy, carved chair.
“A pity it rains,” Mr. Parry said, pouring himself the drink: something red and bubbly. “I suppose the gardens had to wait.”
He held the pitcher over my glass and I nodded. “Yes, sir. I don’t mind. I explored the house, the library—I spent ages reading. The sun might have set without my notice.” I chose my words carefully, feeling the need to make proper conversation, whatever that meant. I’d read it in stories, but I’d never shared a table with a gentleman before.

I'm working on a Weimar Berlin inspired setting now, and the voice in this one becomes more modern, a tad choppier and more cynical:

Thea hoped for a moment that it would be one of the old cakes, but of course it wasn’t. Mother didn’t even know how to make a cake right anymore. She used to make buttery pound cakes, and moist apple cakes, and gingerbread… When Thea opened the pantry, she saw the same old chocolate cake sitting there. It wasn’t even a good chocolate cake. Too dense, with a strange sour taste.
Still, she sliced it and got the coffee going. She set the table with plates and cups, all chipped by now from something or another, and when all was ready, she pulled Mother away from the window and into a chair.
Mother picked at her cake. “I do like this cake.”
“I’m glad you do, because you made it.” Thea chewed on hers, sorry that good flour and sugar had gone to waste.

(I used three eating scenes, to try to offer the best comparison...)

And one more note, because good HEAVENS this is going on forever:
#4: Don't forget to consider the age, sex, class and location of your character(s) when shaping the voice. My great-grandmother was born in the teens and grew up in Ohio, and the letters she sent to me as a kid and the way she talked always carried the flavor of an older era. Consider the past of your world too! And of course, a character's class can have a huge effect on their speech.

Of course whatever voice you use, it won't work for someone. For every two people who praise Magic Under Glass's voice, I see a review that said it was too "precious" or something. But at least I know it's as accurate as I can make it, being a modern girl, and that's the best you can do!

More Art in 2011!: Ifra

One of my New Year's Resolutions this year is to post more art!! Of course, part of the reason I haven't posted much is because my computer doesn't have a scanner or Photoshop. Bit of a deterrent. But I'm getting around it, even if the art doesn't look that polished. Oh, well. I like to think of it like a 19th century tinted picture.

Anyway, I got some Pitt brush pens for Christmas so I've been playing around with them, and I drew this picture of Ifra, because I also got a book about clothes around the world, and Ifra has the most colorful male dress in the book, for sure. He's also my favorite character in Magic Under Stone. He looks a little intense here, I must say, which is not really OUT of character, but also isn't quite how I think of him. But he's pretty easy on the eyes I think. Poor Erris is probably jealous (although I'm not sure he should be, since Ifra has plenty to be an angst-puppy about himself).



(Click for larger image)



Also, NEWS FROM SPAIN, for my Spanish readers: I am told the Spanish version of Magic Under Glass will be released in February! I'm so excited!

2010 Writer-ly Year in Review!

I'm too braindead to do much of worth today, so I compiled my year-end roundup. What a year! I went to tons of events and met more cool people--fellow writers, bloggers, teachers, librarians, booksellers, publishing house people, etc. than I can count, including a good solid critique partner, which is kind of a first! *waves at Jess* I can't believe how many long-time internet friends I got to meet for the first (and sometimes second!) time this year. I can't even begin to list the amazing experiences I've had this year (and a few that were funny in hindsight).

People often say writing isn't glamorous, but you know what? I think it can be pretty darn glamorous. I get to do what I love every day, even when I'm tearing my hair out, and make friends all over the country and world so I have friends wherever I go. Sure, I'm not a big author who gets invited to BEA or does tours or has people clamoring for signings, I did most of my traveling on my own dime thanks to my proximity to a big airport with a lot of cheap flights and friends that are willing to offer spare beds to me. But I can't imagine I'll be much happier even if/when I am that kind of author, because this year was full of great moments with wonderful people, wonderful books, and at its best, wonderful food.

I also had constant deadlines for the first time ever, so I felt very official. This year between February and November I wrote Magic Under Stone, the short story for Corsets and Clockwork, and did two rounds of revision on Between the Sea and Sky. In my "off time" I worked on revisions of Alfred and Olivia for my agent and got to work switching my Grim Reaper WIP over to middle grade. I'm not really sure what 2011 is going to bring me, but I'm trying to enjoy my temporary freedom from deadlines. (I both miss and do not miss deadlines when I don't have them...)

Just a few photo highlights from the year, from top to bottom:

1. Me and the luminous Kathleen Duey at Miami SCBWI
2. Me reading at my debut party
3. Amy Brecount White, Maggie Stiefvater, and me at ALA
4. Tenners lunch at ALA (delicious tapas and L to R, Amy Brecount White, Karen Kincy, Christina Diaz Gonzalez, Lindsey Leavitt, Holly Hoxter, Margie Gelbwasser)
5. The Bloomsbury/Walker crew at NCTE: Danette Haworth, Kate Messner, Katie Fee of Bloomsbury, Mickey Mouse (we were all trying not to be the one snuggling up to Mickey, lol), fellow Bowie-fan Jessica Warman, me, Beth Eller of Bloomsbury.

Thank yoooou!!! + Magic Under Glass comics!

Today is the last day of my debut year. And what a year it has been. There were times of immense stress...and times of immense joy. But the best part of all was getting to meet and talk to fans, and seeing that, a year later, my book is still being talked about here and there. Still getting reviewed, still getting added to Goodreads. I appreciate all these signs of life SOOO much! I hope that you'll like the sequel in 2012 and, before that, Between the Sea and Sky. I couldn't really do too many nifty things for Magic Under Glass because I had a repetitive stress injury at the time, but I have a few neat little plans for Sea and Sky.

For today, however, enjoy these Magic Under Glass comics I made (a while back, actually...I've been lazy about scanning them, as you can probably tell since one addresses the new cover which only came out MOOOONTHS ago). Click to see them bigger! (Sorry the text is kind of hard to read otherwise...>_<)