Challenging Destiny #24: August 2007

by Crystalline Sphere Authors

  But it was an interesting discussion, and it was all very polite.

  CD: What's the difference between writing for Luna versus writing for DAW?

  MS: I think of them as tonally very different. I approach the Luna novels almost as if they were short stories. I start, I go. Alis read the first four chapters of the first book and said she was screaming “Slow down! The set-up and everything else, it could be so good.” I said, “What you mean is it could be as dense as anything else I've ever done, which would make it four times as long with 16 different viewpoint characters."

  I'm trying to write something that's accessible enough that people can read it for story. One reader said that it was only on rereading that he actually realized that there was a surprising amount of detail. It was very easy to miss it.

  That said, I don't want to not write the West novels. The West novels are a story in progress—they're not finished. I have never reached a point where I think, “Oh my God, is it done yet?” I have only just started to finish one of the earliest envisioned character arcs. Although one of them might change. Something happened in Sea of Sorrows I really hadn't expected and the ramifications of that might change one arc. I'm not quite sure how that will play out. It's a tricky thing because you always have to know where you're going but you also have to be willing to go someplace else. My subconscious is really good at coming up with something that intellectually and emotionally works, so I just go with it.

  The Luna novels are my attempt to write a series as opposed to a trilogy—like a television series like Buffy with episodes where there's a background arc and foreground closure. I'm not sure that I've succeeded. That's something new for me. The tone is new for me—people like it because it's a more contemporary tone. It's so hard for me. The way that people think in a contemporary novel is not my writing voice. The West novels, everybody says they're so stylized. Actually, they're not stylized. That's the way I write. That's why I can be weeping through something and writing it at the same time. It's my invisible language, my voice. Which is unfortunate, because clearly it's not a voice that is easily accessible. I would like to be entertaining and moving—mostly I care about moving. As a reader I don't care about the flashy gadgets—I care about the people and what happens to them. But I often have to go back over the Sagara books and weed out the heavier use of metaphor and a particular turn of phrase—it's actually more difficult, for me.

  The publishing cultures between DAW and Luna are also entirely different. My editor at Luna will often put happy faces in the margins of the manuscript when she likes a particular turn of phrase. She is incredibly tactful, incredibly diplomatic. Since I came up through the SF ranks, I sometimes don't know how to take what she says—I don't actually know how to read between the lines. Both Veronica Chapman and Sheila Gilbert would give tact one good try, but basically, they were blunt as a mace. If they didn't understand the point of something, they made damn certain that it was going to be corrected Right Now. I got used to that. So it's been very different.

  CD: What do you have coming up?

  MS: Cast in Secret is coming out in August. The working title was Cast in Streetlight but “streetlight” was considered too mundane, not fantasyish enough. I'm not hugely wed to titles. The same with names. I'm perfectly happy to go with a different title if it's suggested. I generally whine if my title is judged unsuitable and I'm told to come up with a better one, though.

  I don't tell people in the store that I wrote the books. I'm not hugely wed to the acknowledgement of that. I want people to read them, to be moved by them. I don't need the personal interaction. I also don't need to interact personally with authors of books that I absolutely adore. If I really adore something and I haven't met the author yet, I frequently won't meet them. Sometimes you can't separate them. If I have a bad impression, it will adversely affect my reading of their books. And as I get older, I find less that I adore.

  The first volume in House War is coming out in March 2008. I think it will be four volumes—originally I was thinking two. I knew where the first book had to end and I'm about halfway to where the first book had to end at the end of The Hidden City.

  I wrote four or six beginnings. In general, I know when I start what the beginning of the book has to be, but getting tone or voice right can mean that I'll take several running starts. When I finished the first twelve pages of the third attempt, I knew it was the beginning of the book. Unfortunately, this particular beginning was going to destroy the structure I had intended. So I hopefully gave all of the putative chapter ones to my husband and when he reached the fourth one he said, “This is the book.” I said, “That's what I was afraid of."

  It's the only beginning that demands regular chronology—because it was the only beginning that was done in the viewpoint of a character who is dead the first time you see him in Hunter's Death. I'd intended to do a braided narrative—one that starts in the present, but winds in and out of the incidents in the past to give the present more weight. If the viewpoint character was dead fifteen years before current events, there's no possible way to do that (I've never done viewpoints of dead people in the present time).

  One of the characters who dies after four pages in Hunter's Death was the resident psycho of a small band of orphans who survived in the poorer section of town. She was called Duster, and she was a very damaged individual. She was loyal to Jewel, but she had her issues. It's funny because she figures, dead, very prominently in the rest of the books. Even dead, because Jewel remembers her so clearly.

  Writing her alive was hell. Something falls out at the end of this book that upset me so incredibly much, I had trouble writing the penultimate chapter. I really dithered; I didn't know why. But I finally had to face the deadline, and sit myself in a chair. I wrote two paragraphs, and I suddenly realized exactly where the chapter was going. I stopped. And I spent another two weeks trying very hard to get it to go anywhere else. In that period of time I realized there's no place else for it to go. All the questions about why the characters do certain things, about their motivations, given my understanding of their characters—they're all answered, but only if the book goes forward. It's the only thing that will make it make sense. My editor said, “Given how attached you are to these characters, I'm surprised it didn't take you longer to write this book.” I didn't want to go there, but that's where it went.

  I have very few first readers. I send a book to my editor when I hate every single word I have written. Once I cannot move a word around any more and I think it's all garbage I take a deep breath, throw it in the mail, and do something else. There are authors who say, “Don't send something out until you're happy with it.” If I did that I would never be published. It's never going to be perfect.

  The one thing I learned from the first volume of House War: do not try to backfill stories, ever. This advice obviously applies only to my own experience. When I write in the past I'm stuck with everything I've already written—the future the book is approaching has already been decided. I lose flexibility and I lose freedom. I like approaching a story when I know it can go anywhere at all at the whim of the characters. The reality is it can't really go anywhere—I have to tie up certain plot arcs. The only thing I'm having stress about at this point in time is there is a definite future—the end of Hunter's Death—that the first two books must close with.

  I started a different series in the same universe before I sat down to write the first volume of House War (it's set in the Hunter Kingdoms, at least to start, and it occurs after House War, albeit not by much) and I decided I had to go back and write House War first. There is a seminal turning point in House War, a choice given to one of the characters, and I don't actually know until I see how the war plays out what the person will do. If I wrote the second series first, I would have to make the decision on the fly, and then live with it.

  CD: It sounds like you'll be busy for a while.

  MS: I will be working on the second House War for DAW, which I haven't started y
et. I sold Luna a fourth and fifth book in the Cast series. And I'm still writing the review columns for Fantasy & Science Fiction.

  CD: You've worked in a bookstore for quite a few years. Do people have misconceptions about what a bookstore does, or what it's like to work in a bookstore?

  MS: People have misconceptions about anything they haven't done. I certainly do.

  I have a LiveJournal site. I decided at some point to explain how the bookselling part of publishing works in general, because so many questions about publishing are really about bookselling, and some of the terms I was using weren't obvious to people who'd never had to work in a bookstore. I started answering questions about how bookstores work—pub dates, returns, ordering from a sales rep.

  It's impossible to take the industry personally if you work in a bookstore. You know that there are brilliant books that die because nobody buys them, while crap sells. But you also know that there are crappy books that die because nobody bought them, and there are brilliant books that do sell. It ‘s a crap shoot. You can't always say what will work. You think you know when you're ordering books, but you're never 100% certain.

  At some point in time on LiveJournal, people started talking about first book sales and contracts. I decided I would go through a first contract step by step. And I happened to have one handy—mine. It made sense at the time because I could point to specific clauses, could say what had made me scream with terror, and could speak of what the fallout was.

  My Del Rey sale was a standard first book contract. It was not Terry Goodkind's, it wasn't exceptional. It's several years old, but contracts haven't changed that much except for electronic rights. Publishing does not move swiftly in that particular way.

  CD: So your words of wisdom would be to not take the process too personally?

  MS: It is a very unfortunate thing that mixes love and business. Generally speaking, people call it prostitution. I would not call publishing prostitution but I would say that publishing is a business. Put everything into your writing, and then step back and look at it as a business. You're going to be one of many books on the mass market list. There are no guarantees. All of your best work, all the emotional, personal involvement should go into your writing.

  However, if you are personable and good at PR, having a public profile is not a bad thing in this day and age. It's not something I actively pursue, because I'm not altogether that personable, and I tend to just open my mouth and say whatever I'm thinking—which has its uses, one of which is not being the Welcome Wagon. Also? If you really hate people, skip conventions. Offending people isn't likely to be the kind of PR you want.

  Nobody's out to get you. An editor did not sit in their office throwing darts at your future. The editor's career is based on whether or not they can turn a profit for the company that's paying their salary. There are editors who have read things they've adored but did not think they could sell. And they've had to say they can't buy the book. I've seen people get very bitter and unhappy about the publishing industry, the way their books are treated. It's not personal, and it happens. The thing you have control of is the writing. Your energy should be put into your words, and then some energy into other words you can use to put towards marketing, if you can. And none of it into feeling that you are being persecuted.

  * * * *

  The ecosystem is like a vast life-support machine. It is built on the interactions of species on all scales of life, from the humblest fungi filaments that sustain the roots of plants to the tremendous global cycles of water, oxygen, and carbon dioxide ... How does the machine stay stable? We don't know. Which are its most important components? We don't know. How much of it can we take out safely? We don't know that either.

  —Stephen Baxter, Evolution

  [Back to Table of Contents]

  The Chermasu by Brian Patrick McKinley & Mark Jenkins

  In the early afternoon of the day she felt would change her life forever, Alia Cheveyo ground blue corn. She ground in the traditional way, using the same three stones that her Mother and her Mother's Mother used before her. The scuff of the hearty, dry corn upon the rough surface of the stone lulled her, her hand moved in practiced, automatic rhythm as thoughts flowed through her. For her, grinding in the old way connected her to the land that gave the gift of this sacred blue corn. It connected her to her ancestors as well, who tended the fields of the Wolf clan before her.

  She'd always found joy in the simple pleasures of life on Third Mesa: the sight of Father Sun appearing boldly every morning on the horizon, garbed in His golden-white glory; the clean, thin air that filled her lungs while she ran herself to a pleasant fatigue over the parched, amber surface of the mesas; tending the corn through its season and watching it rise from its Mother's protective bosom, nurtured by her ancestors who sent the life-giving rain; sharing a good meal and conversation with Father after a productive day's work and sitting together by the fire afterward, just enjoying the melody of his voice while he recited one of the old stories. These were the memories that represented home to her.

  But then there were the dreams.

  ( ... wolves, ceremonies, monsters, battles, fire ... )

  Strange dreams. Not quite visions, but with a strength and richness similar to the ones where her mind took her back to childhood and her Mother. Almost like memories but they couldn't be, since she'd never experienced anything like them. She'd had these dreams maybe once or twice a year, ever since she was ten. She'd had one again this morning, more powerful than usual.

  The dreams were something she pushed aside upon waking. Usually, her thoughts were peaceful as she ground, but today she couldn't quite rid herself of the apprehension that had hovered around her since waking.

  After greeting Father Sun this morning, she'd made a particular effort to complete the day's tasks early. She'd beaten the dust and dirt from their colorful Navajo rugs, swept the flagstone floor beneath, given Grandmother's cast-iron stove a good cleaning, and prepared the ingredients for dinner tonight (dried rabbit stew with blue cornmeal dumplings). She'd even been able to finish weaving the last of the oeungyapu plaques that they owed her seldom-seem clan cousins in Waalpi.

  She listened to music as she ground, a small battery-powered radio on the window ledge filled the air of her home with song. A local FM station played “light” Pahana songs and she remembered Mother listening to it.

  She sometimes found herself wishing that she were more like other people her age, that she could regain the warm circle of school friends that her traditional views and lifestyle drove away years ago. Would it be so hard? Simplify her daily routine a bit, take advantage of some modern conveniences, and make time to join some of the girls from the other villages who played basketball. Get them to teach her, be willing to spend time with them afterward...

  And be another selfish kahopi throwing the world off balance. What's wrong with me today? Why am I so unsettled?

  Outside, Father Sun hid behind the thickening Cloud People again; the day was mild for October, but overcast with the strong winds that were typical of the mesas.

  The shelves above her grinding area were filled with sacks of cornmeal, a sign of industry that made her an attractive marriage prospect to some. At her request, Father had turned away several would-be matchmakers over the years. He sometimes joked that she'd grow to be a lonely old woman indeed if she waited for a husband equal to the standard of her Father.

  She forced her attention back to the rhythmic rasp of corn on stone. She'd give this batch to the trading store at Kiqotsmovi to be sold on consignment. At least there was one positive aspect to the modern tendency toward laziness: spare products of their work could be sold for some extra money.

  Of course, they could just go on government assistance, as many did, but Father always joked: "Why, yes, just look at how much the government's assistance has helped the Hopi so far." They lived in harmony with the people around them and the land that supported them. She knew her place in the world, in the universe, in the
Creator's plan, and accepted it.

  That's when she heard the singing through the open window.

  The song was in Navajo: she recognized the language but the voice was unfamiliar. This was the visitor's way of announcing himself and giving her time to prepare (a custom among older Navajo and Hopi). Since her home lay at the outskirts of Hotvela, on the edge of one of Third Mesa's many outcroppings, none of her neighbors were close enough to be disturbed.

  She set down the corn and grinding stone, shut off the radio, and moved quickly to the kitchen cupboard. She put a roll of piki bread out with a jar of wolfsberry jam, plates, and glasses. She decided to heat up the leftover chile rolls now and hoped that Father returned before they got cold again.

  As she got the chile rolls and a pitcher of suvipsi out of the icebox, she noticed that the singing had stopped. He must have seen her in the window and now waited for her to receive him. After setting out the suvipsi, putting the chile rolls atop the stove, and starting the fire, Alia answered the door.

  The man was ancient, in his eighties if not older, but had the most powerful eyes she'd ever seen: deep and gold-flecked, they had a clarity and calm she'd never encountered before. He wore a red velveteen shirt which, while not uncommon among older Navajos, was the kind of dress generally reserved for ceremonies and special occasions.

  "Good day. I am John Begay from over in the Canyon de Chelly,” he said. His voice, with the breathy Navajo pronunciation, was melodic and genial. The name Begay, she knew, was a common product of the early Pahana schools, an Americanization of the Navajo term for “son of.” Normally, a Navajo with such a generic name would introduce himself further with his “born to” and “born for” clans and other things they felt would help distinguish them, but Begay said nothing.