It may not be what you expect. According to a survey done by the Jenkins Group, over 80% of Americans want to write a book, and I wouldn’t be surprised if the number is that high in other countries too. You’ve probably even heard this figure, often accompanied with laments about how hard it is to be a writer, and how unfair the market is. While I’m sure there are a few unpublished gems out there, in the majority of cases, how many of those 80% of people actually do what it takes to get a book finished, let alone published?

There are several major aspects to being a successful author (and the kind of success I’m referring to is an author of fiction who is published by a conventional publishing house, multiple times). The first is getting that first draft done. The second is turning your work into something publishable (this often occurs after you’ve started sending it out and getting feedback). The third is being able to handle everything that comes after the publishing contract is signed. But you’ll never get that far if you don’t get the book written in the first place.

I’ll go through some things that will be obvious and some that will not. I won’t delve into character creation, plot arcs etc. I’ll link to some good advice on those things another time, but this is really about getting the writing done – not what to write. So here are some of the major areas you’ll need to master.

Preparation

Discipline to write regularly is the first thing that must be established, and preparation will make this a whole lot easier on you. Here we have some advice from Sara Douglass, and it is advice you will find mirrored almost anywhere you look.

“I find writing very hard, and literally have to force myself to do it. Getting that first draft down is very, very difficult. Personally I find that the only way I can write is to discipline myself into a routine, and I think most writers have their own discipline and routine. You have to find your own routine, but once you find one that works for you, then you have to discipline yourself to keep to it, and not to waver and wander. If you set aside Saturday to write, then write on Saturday, don’t keep running out to do the shopping, or going off for a few hours to watch the kids’ football. If you set aside one day a week to write, then be totally selfish – that is your day to write, and nothing comes between you and your writing.”

If you want to get that first draft finished (or started), do whatever it takes to set aside this time and stick to it. Create a space where you won’t be distracted. Turn off the phone and the internet. Tell everyone to leave you alone. Set a word limit to reach. Or if you prefer, set a time to write for. Whatever gets words on the page (or the screen).

When you’re not writing, carry a notebook with you everywhere, and write down any ideas that come to you straight away because if you don’t you’ll probably forget them later. Wait a while before you analyse anything. You don’t want to lose the essence of the original idea by over thinking it before you get it down. If you find inspiration in your dreams, it’s extra important to write things down as soon as you wake up – don’t wait even a few minutes – because dreams are even easier to forget. As a side note, endlessly buying pretty notebooks only counts as preparation if you write something in them.

Make sure you do most of your major research before you start writing, so you won’t get distracted looking up when hamsters were first domesticated when you’re supposed to be completing that vital first draft (1930 by the way, and they came from Syria. Who’d have guessed). You want to get everything ready beforehand so nothing interferes with your momentum. Once you start writing, anything you missed can simply be marked in the text and left until later.

Preparing what to write is also important. Some people like to write as they go, but at the very least you need to know roughly the start and end of the book (from the wisdom of Jennifer Fallon). Or you can plan out an entire plot. Write character notes, and know scene by scene where you’re going. This may change, but it gives you a guide. You can use a combination of these approaches, but if you don’t want to end up with a complete mess, at least know where you’re going with it. Having this in mind will help you avoid getting stuck later. And on that note…

Half a Draft is Hardly a Draft at All

Completing the first draft is in itself if an incredible feat, and it is here most people falter. Like many, I know what it’s like to have a half finished book that has been lingering for years, taunting me with its incompleteness. Others remember when you enthusiastically began and got so far, and years later will ask you how you went with that bestseller you were writing. If you’re like me, you’ll avoid the question, change the subject, forget to respond to friendly facebook posts from people you really would like to talk to, if only they hadn’t asked that question. The thing that helped me get writing again was some more very practical advice Sarah Douglass posted on the Writing page of her website.

“MOVE FORWARD. PUT THOSE DAMN WORDS DOWN ON PAPER. Write, and keep writing until an entire draft is done. Then you can (and, indeed, you must) revise it. Steeling yourself to constantly move forward is something you must do.”

If you’re the sort of person perpetually stuck with half a novel, Sarah’s advice could be the best thing that ever happens to you. Essentially: don’t revise until the first draft is completed. This will be a lot easier if you have a plot outline to refer to, but don’t worry too much about changes. You can edit, alter, switch scenes and change things to your heart’s content – once that first draft is finished.

Some people, of course, have the opposite problem – not enough editing. In a writing workshop I attended that was run by Jennifer Fallon she told us it is surprisingly common for publishers to receive first drafts of novels. There are wonderful initiatives out there like NaNoWriMo that help writers by getting them to focus on nothing but writing. With Nano, you have one month to get 100 000 words on the page. In a scenario like this, editing goes out the door – with good reason. At the end of the month if you have the 100 000 words, that’s an amazing accomplishment. However, whether it took you a month or a year or ten years to get that first draft done, you have to remember this is only the first draft. Don’t send it to a publisher yet.

Read til Your Eyes Bleed and Write til Your Fingers Fall Off

This is advice that you’ll have heard before, but it bears repeating briefly because it really is crucial. Read all you can, and not just in the genre you’d like to write in. Join a site like Goodreads and write reviews of what you’ve read. You’ll get ideas, you’ll learn what works and what doesn’t. You’ll enjoy it! And if you don’t, why do you want to be a writer anyway?

The same goes for writing. As Jennifer Fallon says on her blog:

“My advice is simple… write. Very few authors get their first work published. I have a closet full of half-written, unfinished work, dating back to 1973, but every word of it was valuable and a lesson in getting to the point where I could produce a saleable piece of work.”

Sometimes it’s even a good idea to intentionally write trash – indulge your most tacky fantasies to get them out of your system. We all have ideas we cherish, characters we are totally in love with, that we secretly know won’t really work for anyone but us (or they might, but we’d be ashamed to put our name to them – or we should be, Ms Meyer). That’s okay. They can be your stepping stones.

In his book Outliers Malcolm Gladwell came up with the idea that in 10 000 hours, anyone can be a master of their craft. And while obviously not definitive, this theory generally shows evidence of being true – he cites Bill Gates, Mozart and The Beatles as well as general studies in a wide variety of fields, including writing. Just go to Deviantart and find a great artist. Then go back and look at their first picture. It takes years, but the differences are staggering.

It can be really easy to believe that if you don’t start out amazing, you never will be. But this simply isn’t true. Put in the hours, and you’ll get there. The interesting thing about Malcolm Gladwell’s theory is that he’s saying that anyone can be a master with the right amount of practice, no matter how they started out. The hours may not be as specific as he says, and it most likely varies between people, but nonetheless, the argument makes sense. When all you see is a published novel, it’s easy to forget all the years of discarded writing that went into making it possible.

Get Feedback

This is another obvious one, but there are a few pitfalls here that you may not be aware of.

Don’t put work you hope to see published online. Putting your short stories, your chapters, anything you’ve written at all online technically means you’ve published it. Many competitions will not accept previously published work, nor will many publishing houses (even simply because they don’t want writing that’s already been in the public domain, as Sarah Douglass points out), and it is hugely disappointing to find out that work you put on the internet is no longer eligible for submission to these places. Instead of posting your work in public forums or writing communities, try making private blogs you can share with certain people, to keep your writing out of the public, and published, domain.

Other than getting feedback online, friends and family are great first steps, but objective, third party advice is even better. Writing groups are useful, but try to find a friendly one. Though not vital, it can be a good idea to pick people who read in the same genre as you write, otherwise criticism they offer may not be as helpful as it could be. When accepting criticism, try to find a balance between your own judgement and other people’s suggestions. Don’t just take everything on board, and also don’t reject everything. Try to be as objective as you can, and read other peoples work to get an idea of where they are coming from. And remember that even if you find people who don’t like your work, you can use it to your benefit and find out what they don’t like and whether the problem is something that more than one person notices independently, because if it is then there’s a good chance it should be changed. If they just say it’s crap then you know that you can push aside their opinion completely for someone else’s who isn’t a jerk.

From here, professional advice is the next step. Just make sure any assessments you seek out are reputable and offer you good value (and useful criticism) for your money.

If You Get Stuck

There are several ways a writer can get stuck. I was diligently following the ‘write the whole first draft without revising method’ for the first half of last year, maniacally charging on ahead until I came to a gap in my plot planning and simply couldn’t think of what needed to happen. So I stopped, and I pondered, but still nothing came to me. Six months later I was still stuck and hadn’t written another word.

Looking back, there were a few ways I could have dealt with this better. Firstly, I could have just moved past gaps in the text and kept going until I reached the end. Then at least I would have had most of a draft done, and afterwards I could have focused my energies on figuring out the inspiration-devouring black holes that littered the text. This would have been much better than stopping. However, whether stopping in the middle or at the end, I still needed an approach to solving the writer’s block.

More often than not, writer’s block is just our inner critic being too finicky about what we put on the page. Just forcing yourself to write can sometimes overcome this. Abandon the desire for quality and just ramble: eventually the writing will start to flow. As my sister so astutely observed, perhaps this is why so many famous writers (not to mention artists and musicians) have been into drugs or alcohol – with all their inhibitions lost, they will write whatever they want, and can worry about making it good when they’re sober again. Of course you don’t have to be drunk or high to get past writers block – there are other ways to banish your doubts.

I find that writing in a notebook makes me feel less committed to writing down something perfectly, so when I want to encourage a flow of ideas, I leave the computer and go back to pen and paper. I create a mess, writing all over the page, drawing arrows, squeezing in words down the side and even upside down if that means they’ll fit, but the ideas come. Find something that works for you. Don’t overdo it though. Set a short time limit – 10 minutes works well – and see what you can come up with. Don’t be critical of your ideas, just get them down. You may find that when the ten minutes is up, you don’t want to stop writing.

Another very useful idea, which usually works quite well (although in my particular case, it didn’t), is to just let the idea go for a few hours, or if that doesn’t work, a few days. Let your subconscious work on it. More often than not, when you’re thinking about something else entirely, the answer will come to you.

Reading can have the same effect. Ideas can pop out of anywhere, and the more stimulation you give your mind, especially if it’s focusing on something other than the problem, the more likely you are to come up with an answer. It was possible that had I finished the draft, the answer would have occurred to me in the process.

Sometimes going back over early notes, character sketches and ideas can give you inspiration, or finding character quizzes and writing exercises and applying them to your setting.

The thing that got me writing again, this time at least, was brainstorming. I hate to admit that, because for as long as I can remember I’ve dismissed brainstorming as a random waste of time. How wrong I was. While mindlessly listing ideas has never worked for me, focused brainstorming (and I have no idea why it took me so long to figure this out) is amazing. I took the point my characters were at in the novel, and just listed every way I could think of that they could react, even mundane things. Some ideas on the list generated more, and I followed branches that showed promise, until one thing led to another and I had something I could use. Roll your eyes at me if to you this was the most obvious solution in the world, but I thought I’d share it, just in case there are a few people out there like me who try the most obvious solutions last.

This also works really well in a small group of people who you are willing to share your story with – I’ve done this many times with my sister and roommates. Present situations and ask people what they think the characters would do. The good thing about it is even if the person only has a rough idea of your character, their ideas can be enough to spark an idea in your mind where you go “that’s not going to work at all, but it’s made me realise exactly what my character would do!” And other people will often point out things you’ve missed or that may have never occurred to you on your own.

Sometimes being stuck means you’re bored of the story and you just don’t see the point anymore. Everyone feels this way at one stage or another, so don’t give up before letting yourself have some space from the work for a while. Time will often be the only solution needed, so be sure to take some and then come back with a fresh mind later. If this doesn’t help, try the above strategies to see if you can get your inner muse working again.

Grammar and Spelling

This is something else that should be obvious, but from my experience with all the submissions we receive for Shades of Sentience, apparently it’s not. Yes, you can tell a good story without having good grammar and spelling. But bad spelling and poor grammar are incredibly distracting. Even if you find an editor kind enough to not throw your work aside due to its complete lack of professionalism, the mistakes will make the reader pause: every time they are forced to do this, the flow of the story is disrupted, and its effect is lost.

This won’t really matter in the first draft – you’re writing that for you. But it is something you should definitely get right before giving it to anyone to read, if you want them to get the full impact of your story. If you do send it to people like my sister, for example, the entire story could be lost on them amidst their grammar Nazi rage where they throw the paper in the air and yell, “I can’t read this shit, LOSE is spelt with ONE o. ONE FUCKING O!” She is referring to the common confusion between lose, as in to lose something, as opposed to loose, as in loose morals. They are two completely different words.

It’s always possible to miss mistakes, especially in your own work. Just do your best to avoid them, and always get at least one other person to check your work for you. And if there are any mistakes in this article, I apologise for my hypocrisy.

Comic by Lara Horgan

Voices is comprised mainly of voice-over monologues by both Mikako and Noboru, but there’s also some action as Mikako pilots her mech in space battles against the Tarsians. Though the action is well-implemented and helps to vary the pacing, there should be no doubt that the real draw of this film is its emotional impact. Over the course of Voices‘ short runtime, Shinkai captures the beauty and heartache of Mikako and Noboru’s relationship to create an extremely engaging and moving film that accomplishes a greater resonance than its length might suggest.

One of the remarkable things about Voices of a Distant Star is that it was created almost entirely by Shinkai himself, and for a one-man job the animation is quite an accomplishment. There is some roughness throughout (for me, the CG mechs were the source of most of this), but the film also manages to impress on at least a few occasions and never looks bad. It’s certainly easy to see how this, as a groundwork, blossomed into Shinkai’s now-recognisable visual style. While Shinkai took on all writing, directing and visual production duties, the beautiful, largely piano-based soundtrack is provided by Tenmon, who has worked on all of Shinkai’s films to date. It’s a moving score that complements the story perfectly and plays a large part in the emotional impact of the film.

Voices of a Distant Star is a film that will probably – hopefully – be looked back on in years to come as the start of something special. Makoto Shinkai decries claims that he is “the new Miyazaki”, and I’d rather not make such judgements myself, but Voices is a testament to his dedication, his vision and his ability to create films with a real emotional resonance. If, like me, your experience of Shinkai began with the more recent 5 Centimetres Per Second, you’re doing yourself a disservice if you don’t trace his works back; Voices is a beautiful film that should not be missed.

Steve writes more about anime, figures, videogames, blu-ray and more at autaku.com.

They only sell it in 50g tubs, but that’s enough to last you ages – even though it’s lovely and makes you want to use it many times daily, forever. Keep yours in the fridge though, because I haven’t and it’s gone a little lumpy – tropical weather isn’t a good thing.

It has a lovely fresh smell (as the title suggests it would) and it really does wonders for your nails. I’ve bitten my nails for as long as I can remember – I only truly gave up the habit about a year or two ago, and still I relapse a little if a nail breaks off and I chew it smooth again. I also chewed/chew the skin around my nails, and they used to look horrid. Using Lemony Flutter fixed it all, and my nails look rather nice now. I won’t go as far as to show you before and after photos of my nails – though I’m sure I could find some on request – but I will honestly say this is my favourite of all Lush products.

Grease Lightning – Spot Treatment

This is a recent purchase, and I’m very surprised by the results. It’s a gel that you dab onto your spots, and I notice results quite fast. Within a day, they’re gone. As it always is, I had spots appear overnight right when I was to be in a film (just a little Government documentary) and as I had a speaking role, I was really in a thither. This saved me, and now I’ll swear by it.

I find a bit too much comes out at one time, but at 45g in a bottle, it’ll last forever. The smell is fine – not overpowering or noticeable – but be sure to put it on in time for the chance to wash it off after it’s had time to work – sometimes it can leave a white residue (which rubs off easily.)

(It also cleans off keyboards well, which I’ve just discovered.)

WHOOSH – Temple Balm

Not to get into my personal life too much, but sometimes I have trouble sleeping. Let’s blame the over-active imagination of a budding author.  This is a balm you massage into your temples and they say it’s a ‘reviving and revitalising balm to balance your mind and reduce stress’, but I find it fantastic for relaxing me to sleep – maybe even more so than the Dream Time temple balm.

I love the smell.  It has lime, lemon, grapefruit, rosemary and geranium – but the lime is the flavour that comes out the most. It can also be used as a perfume – it may be a little subtler than the Sakura solid perfume they sell, if you found that too strong.

Breath of Fresh Air – Toner

I usually hate toners, but I love this one. It leaves you feeling so light and bright afterwards, and for those who work in air-conditioning all day, you’ll wonder how you lived without it.

It reduces redness and aches – probably because it has aloe in it. It also has seaweed in it, and sushi is pretty awesome… That’s got to mean it’s amazing, right?

Basically, I don’t have much to say about this one. Just that if you want a Lush toner, I’d recommend this one.
 

Yummy Yummy Yummy – Shower Wash

The smell of this one. GUH.

The only bad thing about this one is that it requires a very good shake every time you use it. Oh, I also find it a bit too runny, and that you can’t really squeeze it from the bottle, you just let it pour out however it wants to…

So maybe that’s a few bad things.

But the smell!

It’s made from strawberries, honey and almonds. It’s amazing.

It’s a shower wash, but can also be used as shampoo if you’re in a hurry. It makes your skin incredibly smooth and smelling fantastic, you won’t need to wear perfume after washing with this.

Even though I’m not a huge fan of pink, I adore it.

Angels on Bare Skin – Cleanser

I need to buy more of this, I love it. It only requires a tiny amount every time you use it, nothing more than the size of a pea. It has seeds through it and doesn’t look attractive at all, but it leaves your skin incredibly soft afterwards. It has glycerine in it, which helps your skin absorb and retain moisture, and it has lavender oil to help balance oil production. It also has kaolin (china clay) in it, which I’ve heard in numerous places as being great for your skin.

Apparently Lush based it off a medieval recipe, and we all know those medieval types knew what they were doing!

For the uninitiated, The Dresden Files is an urban fantasy series following Harry Dresden, the only wizard listed in the yellow pages. He makes his living hiring out his services to people who need that bit of supernatural help with their supernatural, or just unexplainable, problems. He works with the Chicago Police Department from time to time, gets into a lot of trouble, gets beaten up a whole lot, and with a bit of magic, a lot of wiseassery and a stiff drink of dumb luck, comes out on top and thwarts the forces of darkness that are wreaking havoc on his city. At it’s most boiled down, it’s a formulaic hard-boiled detective series that just happens to feature a wizard as the main character. But there is so much more to this series. Wizard politics, problematic relationships, and an ongoing war between the wizarding community and the nasty Red Court vampires are just some of the long term plot arcs.

From the very first, I had extreme difficulty walking away from this instalment. I resented every distraction in the few hours it took me to finish it. Butcher has a skill in drawing the reader in from the beginning, and nothing changes here. The revelation of Dresden’s daughter by Susan Rodriguez, and her kidnapping by Red Court vampires, is the sucker punch that hooks you in from the start, and Butcher barely lets up the tension for the entire novel. With Dresden’s weakness for damsels in distress, this is a case that not only one that touches on his own principles of defending the weak and innocent, but pushes him emotionally and morally. He has some very demanding moral decisions to make, and is pushed to go beyond his ordinary limits; with his daughter in danger, he sacrifices more than I ever thought he would, in true Dresden style.

Butcher keeps true to the formulaic style that is characteristic of the Dresden Files, and doesn’t break any new ground here, though I can’t help but feel this is a good thing. If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it. One thing I can say without being spoilertastic is, the suspense does not let up. Just when you think you can relax and let out that breath you’ve been holding for six chapters, something else comes along and kicks you in the metaphorical gut. And trust me, this time, Butcher keeps this up right up until the last page. I had been waiting for Changes more impatiently than my eight year old brother waits for Christmas, and now, I have another full year to wait for the next book. If there is one thing I can criticise about Changes, it is that while the story itself is well ended, the cliff hanger at the end has me, and I’m sure many many other Dresden fans, screaming for more.

Disclosure: The following is taken from questions given to Nick via Facebook because he has trouble speaking over the phone.

Artwork by Nick Dupree

Q. What do you think about the current changes in health care coverage and why does the issue matter so much?

A. Well, the issue is life and death. Without health care, which too few have easy access to, preventable death and illness is high.

The United States is the richest country on Earth, but among OECD nations, our health care is at the back of the pack. No country with our level of wealth has our level of dysfunction.

The goal of the Obama reforms is to give more Americans access to the health insurance market, more people buying insurance, with subsidies to help the poor afford private insurance. The health insurance industry stands to rake in BILLIONS.

Q. Why are some people so against the reforms?

A. The frenzy on the right wing about these changes taking us to “socialism” are patently absurd. I’m like “really? The first thing communists do when they take over a country is enact tepid, insurer-friendly reforms that set up a free market exchange so more people can buy insurance plans? Seriously?

The root of the dispute here is the right-wing’s belief that government shouldn’t have the right to interfere in the market AT ALL.

That health care is better left to private citizens.

Of course, from the disability rights perspective, Obama’s reforms don’t go nearly far enough, because they only make meaningful changes in private insurance, not Medicaid and Medicare, which most of us with disabilities rely on for our care.

Medicaid and Medicare are BADLY broken and rapidly going bankrupt, but nearly NO changes are being made there.

People like me will continue struggling to wring bad care from what’s left of Medicare and Medicaid; our lot will not improve at all after “Health Care Reform.”

Especially since I know that Congress exhausted itself scraping through this tinkering with private insurance, and most likely won’t have the political will or sense of urgency to revisit health care issues for another 10, 20 years.

I hate being stuck with our dysfunctional system. But that’s what we are, stuck.

Q. How do you think society treats those with disabilities and how does your case tie into the bigger picture?

A. It’s frustrating how stubborn society’s lack of consideration has been, how resistant people are to change. For example, Congress passed the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) 20 years ago this July, and that banned inaccessible buildings, but here in NYC, you find yourself on so many blocks without an accessible entrance in sight.

Society’s got a long way to go.

Q. What keeps you advocating for others?

A. Sense of self-preservation.

I can easily be victimized by the same dysfunctions in the system that torment others. Thus, advocating for others is really self-advocacy.

Q. What inspires you to keep a positive outlook in life?

A. I cope by drawing comic books, escaping into other worlds.

Q. What is the most important lesson that you want people to take away from your story?

A. David can beat Goliath.

Referring to this http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:NickDupree#Activism_Successes

Usually Goliath wins, but sometimes not. So, it’s worth taking a shot.

Nick Dupree at Alabama State Capital

]]> http://sentientonline.net/?feed=rss2&p=1779 0 http://sentientonline.net/?p=1776 http://sentientonline.net/?p=1776#comments Fri, 14 May 2010 01:16:10 +0000 Katharine Stubbs http://sentientonline.net/?p=1776 Penny Arcade love this book, and so do we. And so will you. No arguing. Katie tells you why. We also offer the chance to win your very own copy!]]> The Name of the Wind runs the danger of sitting forever on your bedside table, staring at you. You want to pick it up, you want to read it… but for some reason, it seems to take a while to get into. A number of my friends have read it, and we all went through the same thing – we’d take ages to actually start reading it, then maybe even a few months to get past the first few chapters… but after that it’s no holding back as you race for the finish. Going to work, being social, cleaning your house… all of that becomes unimportant.

If it’s such a good book, why does it take so long to get into, you ask? I think it’s the anticipation. Holding it, you can almost sense how epic it’s going to be. You want to wait until you have the time to appreciate it fully… until you realise you can’t wait that long. The Name of the Wind can’t be delayed. Everyone reading this review must go out and buy it this instant. Go find it in a library. Beg it off a friend. READ IT.

I apologise. Maybe you haven’t heard of this book yet. It only came out in 2007 and it’s the first of three books in the Kingkiller Chronicles series by Patrick Rothfuss. It tells the story of a young man called ‘Kvothe’ (pronounced as ‘Quothe’) who has led a full life. By the time he’s fifteen, he’s already been a travelling performer, an arcanist, a practiser of ‘sympathy’ (magic), a famous musician and a student at the University. The novel is split – some is set in the present where Kvothe is hiding in plain sight running a tavern, and part is set in his past as he tells his story to The Chronicler, a man who has hunted him out to find the true tale of his life, for Kvothe is now a man of legends… and the stories told of him around fires and by bards and storytellers are gaining more and more untruths as they go on…

The story may sound too similar to other things. A young boy – who happens to be an orphan – studies magic at the best school, and becomes a prodigy… but do not fear. Patrick Rothfuss has made this so completely different to everything else out there that at no stage are you reminded of other books. When you read his book you instantly realise he’s a natural born writer – you can’t learn how to write this well, nor can you mimic it. The book reads easily even though it’s quite involved, and it’s eloquent whilst being unpretentious. The book is quite large, and yet it flies by, leaving you hungry for more. That could be because the book was originally written as one, and then had to be split into three… something you’re very aware of by the end of the book.

I won’t tell you what happens, but I will tell you what Rothfuss tried to avoid. As said in an interview with fantasyliterature.com: ‘No prophecies. No goblin armies. Nobody trying to destroy the world. No elves with bows, dwarves with beards, spellbooks, or fireballs. No irritatingly stupid protagonist. No wise-cracking sidekick. No loyal animal companion. Just to name a few.’

It’s worth a read though, especially if you liked The Lies of Locke Lamora by Scott Lynch. The release of the second book in the series – The Wise Man’s Fear – can’t come fast enough.

Competition!

Win a copy of The Name of the Wind by Patrick Rothfuss.  Just email us at competitions@sentientonline.net  and tell us this:

If knowing the true name of something gave you control over it, and you could only know the true name of one thing in the whole world, tell us what it would be, and more importantly, why.

Competition closes June 30th.

Much as I had to swallow my pride to say it, she was right.

I acknowledged it less than a year later; being surrounded by people who were willing to debate with me, and also being surrounded by other young women who were struggling to reconcile with identifying as a feminist meant that I realised sooner rather than later. But something I realised along with my own feminist awakening was that I always had been a feminist. It was just my reasons and rationale that were different to everyone else’s. I just refused to be labelled as a feminist because in my mind, and in the minds of many many others, feminism was a word with too many negative connotations to mean anything good. It was my “F” word when I was cussing freely like a sailor after a bit too much rum.

If I had to define what feminism is to me, I’d be hard pressed to do it in a sentence or less. It’s an exceedingly multifaceted issue, and means different things to different people in different parts of the world. To me, feminism is the freedom to choose; the freedom to pursue the same careers a man can pursue, and not be held back because I have a vagina; the freedom to be a mother and home maker and loving wife to a (hopefully) equally loving and considerate husband; the freedom to take another woman as my lover; the freedom to choose to have an abortion, or use the Pill; and the freedom to not do anything of those things. What it boils down to is freedom. We should not be restrained by our sex. When I was in high school, I really thought it was that simple.

Turns out that, while the above points are still on my check list, feminism has become more than that to me the more I learn about the world, and the still existent discriminations made against females. And just to make things more complicated, I widened my focus to include men too. Feminism isn’t just about women to me. Earlier attitudes towards feminism was that of equality between the sexes. Somewhere along the way, people either lost sight of that, or forgot about that in the wake of such outspoken feminists as Germaine Greer, who, while she is an influential and instrumental figure in the feminist debate, seems to me just a little bit discriminatory towards men. To simplify matters, I simply told people I was a ‘humanist’. Which I very much am; I’m just finding that I have a growing interest in making sure feminism doesn’t get shunted off to the side while young women both remain unaware of their shackles, and think that feminism is no longer needed.

A few days ago, I picked up a copy of Lip Magazine, a small run magazine produced in Canberra. It caught my eye because of an article on band tee shirts, but as I read through, I was pleasantly surprised to find a large number of them were very intelligently and articulately written articles concerned with feminism and the current generation of young women in their late teens and 20s. It raised a number of issues I’d previously not been exposed to. How many young women reading this can honestly say they identify as feminist? How many of those who said yes are completely comfortable with broadcasting that fact? Isn’t the very idea that we as a sex are not comfortable with identifying as feminist yet another indicator of a form of oppression?

Maybe I’m sounding a little dramatic here, but it’s not far from the truth. We are subtly and sometimes not so subtly encouraged to disregard feminism, to move past feminism and be “self-empowered”, to disregard all the hue and cry feminists made in the past. Are we to believe that there is nothing left to fight for?

Well, I call shenanigans.

Women still do not earn the same amount of money as men for doing the same job, the discrepancy being somewhere around the 17% mark. Women who choose to pursue a career are expected to balance this ambition with running their household and raising their children. And when women choose not to have children at all, they are frequently made to explain and justify their decision. Powerful women in business are derided, called “ball busters” and “dragon ladies”, while their male counterparts are slapped on the back and cheered along for their latest achievement. Women who choose an education over motherhood are not only made to explain themselves, but according to good old Kevin Rudd, Prime Minister of Australia, they are just using education as an excuse not to breed (Don’t believe me?).

Oh yeah, I can see how the fight for equality is over.

But as with all things, there is a flip side to this story. Young women today are faced with an incredible amount of pressure and expectation, and everywhere we look, there is something telling us that we aren’t good enough as we are, that we’re not the way we’re supposed to be, that the choices we’re making aren’t the choices we should be making. When feminism is one of those voices telling us what choices to make, rather than telling us we have the freedom to make any choice we want, I can not only see why other young women are disillusioned with feminism, but exactly why I used to be so reluctant to use that “F” word.

So what can we do about it? Is it even possible to do anything about it? Sometimes, it certainly doesn’t feel like it. We, the young women of Generations X and Y, are not just battling against the patriarchy this time; we have to fight our own kind, and that makes a hell of a daunting challenge. We have to go head to head with other women who deride feminism, and who believe that everything is ok now, that feminism is no longer relevant. And perhaps harder still, we have to go up against the great intangible colossus that is society. Social attitudes are still infused with misogyny and sexism, however subtle. Media bombards us with anti-feminist ideas, and does a scary amount of damage to women’s self esteem and self image. Our very culture is, at it’s heart, patriarchal. As modern feminists, we don’t have the luxury of a tangible and definite opponent like the law, or voting rights, or contraception methods. We face the very fluid and unpindownable part of our lives that feels too big and too ethereal to be able to fight. It’s almost enough to make one want to give up.

But we can’t. We owe it to ourselves to rise to the occasion, and start embracing our own flavour of feminism. A big part of that means embracing feminist history rather than throw it away, and an even bigger part of it means looking at ourselves and our futures, and fighting for the kind of change that will make our lives that much more free.

1. Welcome, Trudi! Could we start with who you are and what you write?

I write fantasy books. Not the sort of fantasy with dragons, elves, vampires and the struggles of royalty, but fantasy with magic and magicians, and the struggles of ordinary people who find themselves in extraordinary situations.

2. You say that you plan out your novels in detail. Do you find you generally stick with your plan to the end, or do you sometimes let it take over and run wild?

The overall story idea stays the same, but details and subplots tend to develop and change as I write. So the destination is set, but the paths there can diverge in unexpected ways.

3. You have The Ambassador’s Mission (the first book in the The Traitor Spy Trilogy) coming out in May this year. This series will be the sequel to the Black Magician Trilogy and will revolve around Lorkin, Sonea’s son. What else can you tell us about it?

I had a lot of fun imagining what would have changed in this world after twenty years. For a start, the main characters are older and have greater responsibilities. The different lives they led might age some faster than others. Cery’s life as a Thief has been far more dangerous and taxing than Sonea’s as a magician, for example. The world around them has changed, too. Of course, a big event like the Ichani Invasion at the end of the The High Lord has had an impact on the whole region. But small decisions have had an effect, too. The Thieves, for example, no longer have the Purge as a motivation to co-operate with each other, so there has been a lot of infighting.

4. Out of all the stories in the Dreaming Again anthology, The Lost Property Room was the one that stuck in my mind the longest… then I finally looked at who wrote it and found it was you! What inspired that short story? Did you write it randomly, or specifically for Dreaming Again‘?

The idea of a lost property room filled with all kinds of objects came to me over twenty years ago when a friend left her umbrella on a train and went hunting for it. But the idea didn’t come with a story attached. I’ve learned that stories often spring from bringing two ideas together, so I’ve been waiting for the second idea to come along. It turned out to be the drought here that provided the second idea, which made it a story about ownership of property and getting more than you wished for.

5. When it’s time for the editing process, most authors find that they have to cut many scenes from their manuscript. Can you tell us one scene (from any book) you had to cut that you would have loved to keep in?

It’s been a long time since I’ve cut a scene – and then not one I was attached to. There were a few chapters in The Novice where Sonea had a silly Austin/Bronte-like holiday in Rothen’s country estate, but I got rid of those before I’d even finished writing the first draft. My agent told me, in the early days, that I was unusual in that she had to tell me to add more to my manuscripts rather than her usual advice of giving it a good trim. Even now, I know there will be the ‘could you add another scene with…’ requests after I deliver a book.

6. Some writers still write most of their novel by hand, or by typewriter. Others have certain programs they love, like Storyist or Scrivener. Some others stick with Microsoft Word. Where do you write your novels?

I write in Word, first draft through to final polish. The moment I started writing on a computer, in my late teens, it felt absolutely natural. I could construct and order sentences, paragraphs on screen, moving back and forth until I was happy with the result. It was a very non-linear way to write and it suited me perfectly. Now that I’ve had plenty of practise, I don’t move around as much, but I do tend to plan a scene out before I start. It also helps that I got myself into a typing class as a teen because I knew it would help with writing, and not long after got my first a computer I could type faster than I could think!

7. You maintain a healthy twitter account which is a rare thing, particularly among Australian authors. Do you see it as a publicity tool, or do you enjoy twitter as well?

Though I decided to give Twitter a try because so many of my fellow Aussie authors were joining up, and my publisher had suggested I establish a greater presence on the internet, if I hadn’t found I enjoyed it I wouldn’t have stayed for long. I find the short format works well. I don’t usually have time to write long blog posts – in fact, I’d often start write a post to announce or comment on something on my blog and find I’d summed it up so quickly I ran out of things to say after one or two sentences. Those posts work much better in Twitter. I also like how it provides links to news and articles that other people recommend, so I don’t have to trawl a lot of blogs and websites to keep my ‘finger on the pulse’, as they say.

8. What conventions do you plan to attend in the near or far future?

Aussiecon4, this years Worldcon, is the next convention I’ll be attending this year. I haven’t made any plans after that, since my publishers have been throwing the ‘tour’ word about and I don’t want to sign up to anything I won’t get to.

9. Do you have anything else you’d like to say?

I have a shiny new website! (http://www.trudicanavan.com/) I’m still excited about that!

Thank you very much for your time

Trudi’s new book comes out soon. Expect reviews on her books in the coming weeks!

This book is a collection of new short stories by award winning authors from Australia and around the world. From our very own Shades of Sentience Short Story Competition, to the international Aeon Award, these writers have won competitions and been published in an array of prestigious speculative fiction journals. This collection of short stories includes all the finalists and winners from the Shades of Sentience Short Story Competition, as well as a select group of other writers who have been featured on Sentientonline.net.

The book is only $19.95, with postage anywhere in Australia of $7.99. If you live outside of Australia, Lulu will give you a postage quote.

“Shades Of Sentience is an eclectic collection of twenty gripping yarns. From the flash vignette to the fantasy epic, from cutting edge sci-fi to disturbing horror, this is a gripping collection of great variety. So many different styles and voices are included here, with such a broad scope of tales, that it never gets boring. Well worth a read!”

The Pocket had a much nicer screen with a grey background instead of whatever that yellowy-green colour on the original was. “Nicer” is a relative term, because of course both are pretty bad by today’s standards. Even at the time, the lack of backlighting was the source of much frustration as you’d need a solid light source shining onto the screen to really get the most out of it and playing in the dark was, of course, impossible. Now not only do we have backlit screens, we have two of them and one is a touchscreen. What a difference fifteen years makes!

Back when I was still playing the Game Boy, this seemed like a huge collection. There’s another relic of the past in there, too: the Game Link Cable. That thing was essential for Pokemon, because the Game Boy was around long before games consoles (and most other things) started ditching wires. While I’m glad that cables like that are no longer essential, I still prefer playing multiplayer against someone in the same room. Maybe it’s the nostalgia of nights spent playing split-screen multiplayer, but even with voice chat online play just isn’t quite the same as actually being in the same room.

The Game Boy Pocket was significantly smaller than the original, but managed to keep the same screen size (I think it’s technically 1mm smaller, if you want to be picky). It also took just two AAA batteries instead of the original’s four AAs.

Good old cartridges. There’s something oddly satisfying about popping a cartridge into a console that you don’t get from discs; I guess it’s more tangible.

Then, of course, you have the old “blow on the cartridge” thing, one of the most nostalgic hallmarks of the cartridge era. When I booted up the Game Boy earlier today the picture was a little distorted, but a quick blow into the cartridge and the slot on the Game Boy itself fixed that right up. If anyone’s wondering what the hell I’m talking about, the basic idea is that dust might get onto the connectors on either the cartridge or the console and interfere with the data transfer, so the solution to most errors was to simply blow into them to get rid of the dust.

There’s not a whole lot of difference in size between a closed DS Lite and the Game Boy Pocket, and the original Game Boy is reasonably comfortable to hold despite being quite rightly referred to as a ‘brick’. If anything, it’s more comfortable for my hands than the Pocket; even when I was younger, I preferred using the original because the Pocket was a bit cramped.

It’s interesting to look back on gaming’s relatively short past and see how far things have come. While I certainly longed for colour and a lit screen when I was playing the Game Boy, I don’t think I ever imagined that I’d be playing a dual-screen handheld with a touch interface. With Nintendo set to lift the curtain on the 3DS – which is a new product line to succeed the DS, not just another DS re-hash – at this year’s E3, bringing 3D (without the need for glasses) to a handheld, we can only wonder how much will have changed in another fifteen years.

For more content about anime, videogames and more, check out my blog at autaku.com or stay tuned to Sentient Online.