The Sunday Washington Post magazine has a nice one-page feature called "First Person Singular" where each week a DC-area person talks about some aspect of his or her life. This week it's Virginia Democratic Senator Jim Webb, who starts out by saying, "The most disciplined thing I've ever done in my life is probably the act of writing a book — and novels are harder than nonfiction."

For a guy who wrested a Senate seat back from Republicans in a state so red it's practically blushing, that's quite a nice compliment to writers. There's some stuff on the how-I-finally-got-published logistics in the middle, along with some nice metaphors on politics ("dancing with a bear") and then he closes with, ". . . nothing gives me greater pleasure than to write something that I believe is really good. Writing is what I will always do, no matter what. My mind always writes. You never stop writing if you're a writer."

Here, here!

A recent article on The Guardian titled "Chick lit author on Dream Street with literary prize" describes the Melissa Nathan Award for comedy romance, which was recently won by novelist Lisa Jewell for her book 31 Dream Street. To quote the article, "The book tells the story of the burgeoning love between a misfit, failed poet and his neighbour, who has for years been watching him and his string of unusual tenants from her house across the street."

The article quotes Jewell as saying, "The award is definitely something the genre needs, and more importantly is something the reader needs. People say 'chick lit' and what they mean is 'crap'."

I'm sure most spec fic writers could empathize. And unlike the Hugo, which is nice but comes with just a statue, this award comes with £5,000 (about $10,000 USD, these days). Not that I'm sneering at the Hugo, but extra bucks to go along with the honor never hurts.

I was watching some of the extra stuff that comes on the DVD for the Golden Compass, (a movie I enjoyed a lot) and I heard Phillip Pullman say that as he was working on the story, at one point he realized that because it was a fantasy he could do anything he wanted to do.

I could identify! I find fantasy a very liberating genre to work in, even more than science fiction. I also thought it was interesting that Pullman wrote not just YA but actually children's books. There was a tremendous fuss in the UK when The Amber Spyglass became the first children's book to win the Whitbread Prize. It also won the Whitbread for best Children's Book that year, so it's not like they were saying it wasn't a children's book.

An item on GalleyCat reports that Harlan Ellison is putting a bunch of his work on E-Reads. The item also includes a video trailer for a movie about Ellison called "Dreams with Sharp Teeth" that's coming out this summer.

Watching the video brought back memories of hearing about (and thanks to YouTube, in one recent case, seeing) Harlan Ellison's past escapades. He has for decades been the "bad boy of science fiction." Yes, he's a great writer; yes, his work has been to some extent ignored by the mainstream because he worked in spec fic (even though he gets mad if people call him a science fiction writer); yes, he is, in fact, a genius. Equally clear is that his ego shines through his public performances every bit as much as his talent shines through his work.

I don't buy the argument that being a genius gives you the latitude to behave like a jerk. It's not like every great writer does. Look at Neil Gaiman, Joe Haldeman, Nancy Kress, and Connie Willis—all known for unfailing politeness to fans and fellow writers as well as the excellence of their prose.

Maybe Harlan Ellison is just insecure where they are not.

The Guardian had an interesting article about Joanna Kavenna winning the Orange New Writer Award. Her novel Inglorious is by no means spec fic, but I liked what the author had to say about the seven novels (or in a different article, 13) she wrote before she got this one published: "I see it as an apprenticeship, rather than thinking I squandered 10 years."

I think that speaks to the importance of optimism as a trait that furthers one's goals. I also liked her comment on the chick-lit label: "I don't understand what chick-lit means, and to a degree it's just used to dismiss quite a lot of writing by women. ...It's a blanket term that renders a wide variety of literature frivolous. It's used either to dismiss the writing or to avoid thinking about it."

Considering that the related Orange Broadband Prize, the British award for the best English-language novel published in the UK and written by a woman, exists because some people felt that women writers weren't getting enough recognition, it's an interesting comment. I don't know of such an award in the US. Does anyone else?

Following up on yesterday's post about writers who are jumping into the web feet first, GalleyCat had a post about writer Dennis Cass' book trailer. Cass spends the whole video talking on his cell phone with an unseen someone who seems to be urging him to tackle the plethora of technological outlets an author can use to publicize his book. The ironic thing is, it's a YouTube video about how little Cass wants to make a YouTube video. I loved the line about not needing a face to be on FaceBook.

On a related note, GalleyCat also mentioned this Granta article on "The Web Habits of Highly Effective People." They quoted author A.L. Kennedy: "I avoid going anywhere near YouTube because that can eat up a day. I don’t blog or Facebook. If I want to write, I’d rather do it to some kind of definable end."

True, but blogging has its own rewards. The trick is not to get addicted. Me? I can stop blogging anytime I want to....

While Michael Chabon's The Yiddish Policeman's Union didn't win the Edgar, it did win a Nebula, and it is still up for a Hugo. Since I am going to Worldcon and voting in the Hugos, I decided I should read it. How often does a book get this much multi-genre buzz?

So I started it last night . . . and it's present tense! Argh! How can you do this to me, Michael Chabon! I don't care if a book is first person or third (although I find second person annoying for anything except short works), but I loathe present tense.

And it's 411 pages long!

An item on GalleyCat tipped me off to the new 2008 TIME 100 list of the 100 folks Time magazine considers "most influential." GalleyCat noted some of folks were authors. I wasn't that excited to see Suze Orman or Elizabeth Gilbert there, but number 74, was Stephanie Meyer, is the author of Twilight, a teenage vampire series that is wildly popular. I'm not a fan of vampire fiction, in general, but it is spec fic, and so I cheer to see that she made the list. Although, truly, I fail to see what makes Robert Downey, Jr., "influential."

Stephanie Meyer is an observant Mormon, and one thing that sets her vampire fiction apart (aside from huge sales numbers) is that there is no sex. There is lust, yes, there is heavy breathing, but there is no actual sex. Interestingly, Orson Scott Card wrote her bio for the Time list. He compares her to Jane Austen. I'm not sure I buy that comparison, but that might be because he's messing with my literary pantheon. But also, Austen's heroines, eve the quite young ones like Emma, were plainly women—old enough to marry, and by the end of the story, ready to marry. Meyer's heroine in this series is plainly an adolescent—more Dawson's Creek than Pride and Prejudice.

Her next series, however, is out and out science fiction—alien parasites invade the earth. The heroine is a grown-up woman with a job. It will be interesting to see if Meyer can draw the same level of audience with an adult story.

In other words, will she be on Time's list next year?

Why should I follow all the publishing/author/book trade blogs when GalleyCat does it for me? Today's issue has a good example, an item on how John Scalzi has posted some of his one-star reviews from Amazon.com, perhaps in reaction to the mad stalker.

Or maybe he's truly mature enough to understand that tastes vary and there's no such thing as universal acclaim. Or perhaps he's got an odd kick in his gallop that says, "Maybe I can make other people think it's cool to show off their bad reviews." Because that's just what happened.

Then again, maybe he's Mark Twain reincarnated. Sure reminds me of Tom Sawyer and the fence that needed whitewashing.

Okay, really it's just one author. The Dear Author blog has had a lot of chatter (as in 477 comments!) lately about the recent attempt by a romance author to whip one of her her readers into line (and I don't mean that in a nice way) after the reader dared to give her less than a stellar review. Seems counterproductive to me. Why go online if all you're going to do is make people dislike you? It's not like there aren't other books and other authors. And if you can't restrain yourself in calling a reader to task, for crying out loud use a spell checker and edit your comments before you post!

Sounds like someone needs to cash a reality check. Very appropriate on April 15 (at least here in the USA).

I browse the Why I Write section of The Guardian every now and then, just to hear how other writers got started and how they think. I noticed crime novelist Reginald Hill had some interesting answers, especially these three: questions

How do you survive being alone in your work so much of the time?
You are never alone with a novel. The characters become as real to me as real people. But I don't shut myself away, incommunicado. I've got my laptop in front of me and you've just interrupted me in mid-sentence. I'll finish that sentence, but I will never be sure that it's sentence I'd have written if you hadn't phoned at that moment. That is part of the excitement of writing.

What advice would you give to new writers?
When I was young, I was full of good advice. Then after a while I realised I knew nothing. The only bit of advice I would give is: when you finish that first manuscript and send it off to a publisher, start your second immediately. It will be infinitely better and you will have it finished by the time you get a reply about the first.

Is there a secret to writing?
It's just perseverance and hard work. If you've got something to say or a good story to tell then the greatest problem is writing to the end of it. If you can do that, then even if it's not that good you have got something to work at.

I love that first sentence, "You are never alone with a novel"! And I also like that he says frankly it will take as much time to get an answer from a publisher about a book as it will to write the book in the first place!

I seldom blog about my own writing process, mostly because there are already tons of blogs about that. But I will say that one of the most satisfying things in the world is not so much to finish writing a book, but to finish reading a book you just wrote. The thing is, if you like a story well enough to invest the time and effort to write a whole book, you want to read that book!

And I just did. (sigh of immense satisfaction) Anyone got a light?

Why is it now that I have an agent I keep tripping over helpful sites about finding an agent? One of the comments on Kristin Nelson's PubRants blog included a mention of a Writer's Digest site that lists the best agent blogs—useful in terms of helping writers seeking an agent. Although it does list Ms. Snark without mentioning her unique blog is no longer updated.

Of course, by now I knew about all the agents on the list, but it was nice to see them all lined up in once place. All the agents on the list blog about being an agents—things writers should know like what they look for in query letter or m.s.s or how contracts work—but some post more often than others.

Last summer PW ran an article on social networking sites for book lovers, describing how the web now offers places for books lovers to catalog their collections and share their literary tastes with each other. It's heartening to know there are enough book lovers in the world to make sites like LibraryThing and Shelfari viable. Now the New York Times has run an essay on a different aspect of book lover relationships—people who make dating and relationship choices based on reading preferences. The essay is titled "It’s Not You, It’s Your Books." In some cases, one person's love of a specific book was a deal breaker for the other (I guess Ayn Rand is one writer you either love or hate). In another, mere ignorance of an author was enough to doom the relationship. Yet another way in which writers touch their readers lives!

Well, I'm not the only one wondering why everyone is obsessing about spec fic covers. I saw the topic first on GalleyCat, but with goes-around-comes-around karma, it's everywhere. I blogged about it, and then Lou Anders of Pyr commented on my blog (technically, he commented on Scott Edeleman's astute observation about not alienating readers) and then he blogged about my post on his blog Bowing to the Future, where he also described Orbit Books blog. Meanwhile on GalleyCat there is yet another post, this one mostly on Tor art director Irene Gallo's blog entry on the topic.

Well, as she is an art director, I guess she gets paid to worry about it. I guess Lou Anders does, too, as he is kind of an everything director at Pyr.

I'm not getting paid, but I do find it interesting, especially because one of the covers Lou mentions is for Matter by spec fic writer Iain M. Banks (a.k.a., Iain Banks when he's writing mainstream). It's a fantastic cover, but it's the M in his name I'm wondering about. Who else uses a middle initial to distinguish himself/herself by genre? Do anyone know of other authors who do this? Unlike Margaret "Don't call it science fiction" Atwood, he's not saying he doesn't write science fiction, just that some of his books are spec fic and some aren't, and you can tell by the M! Kinda a neat idea, actually.

The April issue of Scientific American arrived this morning, with a wonderful editorial about the close relationship between science and science fiction, I checked out their website but couldn't find the editorial. I did find a nice obit of Arthur C. Clarke. a summation of his career and the honors he received. I loved the closing line:

"His impact, you might say, was indistinguishable from magic."

As a good example of the difference in perspective between a writer and a literary agent, now that Lucienne Diver is an author as well as an agent, she has started blogging. I noticed that her blog was listed on Kristin Nelson's blog along with Kristin's other clients (this says good things about Kristin&mdash"where agents go when they want a good agent"). One of Lucienne's posts was on things she had learned from wearing a corset while at a Renaissance Faire. My favorite 3 observations from Lucienne's list:

6) The fainting scene at the beginning of Pirates of the Caribbean is totally convincing.
8) Bend at the knee, not the waist.
9) Men seem to like it when you laugh.

So is there anyone in the biz who doesn't want to be a writer?

Arthur C. Clarke will be remembered for many things, including his three laws.

1) When a distinguished but elderly scientist states that something is possible, he is almost certainly right. Corollary: When he states that something is impossible, he is very probably wrong.

2) The only way to discover the limits of the possible is to venture beyond them into the impossible.

3) Any significantly advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic.

The third law is most famous, but I'm personally fondest of the first one. I think it's particularly important to remember in writing science fiction. A lot of writers slam "bad science" in stories, and they have a point. But beyond the need to describe things like loss of gravity or the effects of faster-than-light travel accurately, there is the simple fact that we today cannot predict what will be possible in a hundred years, or a thousand. I don't care how an internal combustion engine works, I care what it means to a person to own a car.

I've read several obituaries of Clarke and liked the one on Yahoo best.

Writing a synopsis is just plain difficult. I compare it to going through labor and then discovering you've given birth to a bowling ball: it's painful and the results aren't what you wanted or expected. I find the synopsis much harder to write than the book.

Author Josh Palmatier (a.k.a. jpsorrow) has started a wonderful project that demonstrates how much writers help other writers. He's asked published authors to post examples of the synopses they used to sell their books. With the zeal of good neighbors after a house fire, that's just what a boatload of folks have done. You can see a list on Josh's blog at the above link, or you can do a Google blog search for "synopsis" and "project" in case he missed someone. I really liked Maria Snyder's post, because she had two different examples and some useful info on how to write a synopsis, and also Mindy Klasky's entry (mindyklasky mostly because I had read the book and she helpfully pointed out the things she had left out as well as the things she put in.

Cool idea! Kudos to jpsorrow !

This morning's Washington Post The Writing Life feature is by Lois Lowry, author of, among other YA and children's books, The Giver. Written in first person, the article relates how she became a writer because she found lying such a useful talent. It's only half tongue in cheek.

There was a related article on her life with some details I had not known, like she was born in Hawaii because her father was stationed there (me, too!) and she married at 19 (not me!).

Lowry sounds like a fascinating person. But then writers so often are.