I Like My Hatred Like I Like My Coffee: Black, And Internal
“Because you are a slacker, and not very good at math,” Mr. Macaluso told me. “You’re failing Trigonometry because you’re not smart enough to do the work.”
This would have been bad under normal circumstances, but Mr. Macaluso had the kind of breath that could melt a cockroach. So I was not only being berated, but feeling that nasal tingle that only comes when the nerves in your sinus cavities are being eroded by toxic emissions.
I left Mr. Macaluso’s office clouded with hatred. I fucking despised that man for his awful haircut, his soup-stained tie, his sewage pit of a mouth, and his mastery of an arcane field of mathematics that he could never quite explain why it would be useful to anyone. He’d told me I would be a failure?
Fuck. Him.
So I clawed my way into Trigonometry, one semester at a time. First, I changed that oncoming F to a D. Next semester, a C. Then a B, and finally I finished with an A.
Mr. Macaluso complimented me. What neither of us realized is that the best way to get me to do something is to tell me that I cannot, and then provide me with someone I hate in order to keep me going. I still despise Mr. Macaluso, even twenty-five years later, but I acknowledge him as simultaneously annoying and useful – the way a cow views a cattle prod. It concerns me sometimes that I’ve never been able to master the Light Side of the Force… but when you can’t be Luke you have to admit that Darth had some pretty mad chops.
Unfortunately, I’ve never had anyone I hated sufficiently tell me that I cannot write.
So in the absence of a viable enemy, I chose myself.
I say this because I had a long conversation at WorldCon with the redoubtable Cassie Alexander, who told me that all my self-hatred and doubt was going to “smother my muse.” She was concerned that my constant despite about my writing was, eventually, going to cause me to stumble into a vast desert of writers’ block, from which I might never emerge.
Thing is, Cassie knows a lot about writing. Her three-book urban fantasy series Nightshifted is about to come out, and she’s writing a magnificent series of posts on How to Write a Novel in Six Months, which I advise you all to read. And in general, she’s correct when she dispenses advice.
But for me, what drives me is in my inadequacy. It’s an advanced technique, certainly not for beginners, but the way I work is that I find what I loathe about myself and rub salt in that wound until I hate myself so much that it triggers my FUCK YOU I’LL SHOW YOU instinct. If I look at something I’ve done and see no flaws, then I kick back on the couch and start up a new game of Dragon Age – hey, I’ve done some good work, time to fuck around on Twitter! But if I look at something and notice a flaw, my HOW COULD YOU BE THAT STUPID kicks in. And for me, HOW COULD YOU BE THAT STUPID triggers an instantaneous, and violent, FUCK YOU I’M NOT STUPID I’LL SHOW YOU HOW TO FIX THIS.
There’s a reason I wear a white gold ring. It’s not that I’m exactly a fan of Thomas Covenant the character, famed leper rapist. But his white gold ring was the symbol of a vast, untapped power that he could only summon at moments of apoplectic purity of emotion; the rest of the time, he was helpless. And so it is with me. All of my tightly-bound neurosis is actually how I work, the way I channel my muse. My muse is not a flittering angel with hummingbird wings but a BDSM leather bitch who glares at me the first time I swing the whip and sneers, “Is that all you got?”
It leads to awful moments, I admit. Every time I proof a story that I’ve sold, I have to suppress the bubble of vomit that pops in the back of my throat, and then my wife has to physically hold me back from tearing the proof up and rewriting the story entirely. It means I hate doing readings, because I’m reading a tale that, to me, is nothing more than a handful of clever sentences afloat in a sea of flaming dog crap. And don’t even get me started on self-promotion.
Yet what comes out each year is better than the last. My prose is tighter, my characters more human. And I want to write every day, because when I sit down I’m doing battle with a grand opponent who wants to defeat me. You can’t write a story anyone will want to buy, it once said. Now it whispers, You can’t write a story anyone will want to read. Eventually, if I get enough fiction-fans to disprove that notion, it’ll be You can’t write a story that will win an award.
It doesn’t matter. That voice is my Macaluso, that shit-breathed fuckface panting my my ear, driving my fingers to the keyboard because this time, I’m going to do it. See that flaw? I’m going to make it a goddamned stain on the wall. You can’t tell me what to do, me. I’ll show myself. I’ll consume this black hatred and shit beauty, see if I don’t.
Apologizing For Being Here, There, And Everywhere
I’m on a lot of social networks, and I try not to spam. Still, about three times a week I have something important enough I have to mirror it on LJ, Dreamwidth, Facebook, Twitter, and Google+.
It is moments like this that I feel like a choad.
But last week, when I announced that I’d sold a new story to Escape Pod, I forgot to post it to Twitter. Two days later I said, “Oh, hey, I forgot, in case you haven’t seen…” and got at least ten replies going, “Why, no! I hadn’t seen that! What great news!”
So it looks like there’s a significant number of people who only Twitter-read me, or only Google+ read me – which means that if you’re meticulous enough to follow me consistently cross-network, you’ll occasionally see the same damn thing repeated across the Intarwebz. Sorry. That’s why I do it sparingly.
Why The Hugos Should Have A "Best YA Novel" Award
I remember a TV segment that had reporters walking up to random people in Hollywood to ask, “How’s your screenplay coming?” No matter who they ask, every single interviewee brightened – never doubting for a second that someone would want to hear about their pet project – and said, “Well, I’ve got a guy who’s interested in it…”
I never understood that “everyone’s doing it” culture until I went to WorldCon, and discussed YA fiction.
Young Adult fiction is hot – blisteringly so. Novels that would be lucky to sell 10,000 copies in the “adult” section suddenly move 50k when slapped with the YA tag. And these kids are fans deeply invested in the books, huge fans who rave about it to their friends, so there’s a loyalty factor that’s through the roof. This is, literally, the next generation of fans – and if this is the future, then it looks like speculative fiction is going to thrive.
As such, almost everyone I talked to was working on a Young Adult novel – some even cynically retooling old pitches into sleek modern “YA” books, often without changing the content. It got to the point where I felt like I could shout to the crowd and ask, “So how’s your YA-Dystopian-Science-Fiction-Novel-With-A-Love-Triangle coming along?” only to have everyone turn, stunned, to ask, “How did you know?” (I’m no exception, of course.)
So why do the Hugos have no “Best YA Novel” category?
The Hugos need a YA category, for two reasons: first and most importantly, it helps the Hugos to stay relevant to the next generation of readers. They’re going to charge ahead with or without us, so putting a “Hugo Nominee: Best YA Novel” on the front cover will help kids to learn that the Hugos can pick some pretty damn good books. If and when they feel like reading more adult fiction, there’s a good chance they’ll remember that Hugo name and start checking out the adult fiction.
And if not, well, the Hugo will lose some luster. The next generation of readers is going to go ahead with or without them. But why not be inclusive? Why not nominate YA authors, who will tell their fans they’ll be attending WorldCon, which will encourage a younger audience to attend WorldCon to see them? Hopefully, they’ll even become a part of the WorldCon culture, thus combating the endless complaints about science fiction’s graying fan base.
The other reason is that, just as it does for “adult” books, a Hugo nomination can give a boost to novels that haven’t received the attention they should have. The goal of the Hugos (and yes, I know, it doesn’t always succeed) is to spotlight the best books, and in doing so hopefully to point people at them – in the process, giving the authors a useful sales boost that often allows them to write even more and better books. Having a category that would allow some underpublicized YA books to shine can only be a good thing.
The biggest problem with a “Best YA Novel,” of course, is that it risks becoming a ghetto. A nomination for YA means that you can’t win the “big” prize of “Best Novel” – so past winners like Neil Gaiman’s “The Graveyard Book” (2009) and “Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire” (2001) would be “reduced” to the YA category. As someone who’s been pulling for Pixar to win a “Best Picture” Oscar, it’s a valid concern.
At the same time, though, how many YA books are actually ascending to the “Best Novel” category as it is? You have the occasional breakthroughs like “Zoe’s Tale” and “Little Brother,” but those are mostly works by authors who are already prominent in “adult” speculative fiction. Where are the Westerfelds, the Collins, the Larbalestiers, the Pierces, the Blacks, the Goulds, the Nixes?
With five nominations, we can start spotlighting books that are YA-specific, and bring authors in that field to the wider attention of the Hugo crowd – because dammit, man, the stuff being done in YA right now is good. It’s a win-win, where the current Hugo fan base gets to look at some most excellent fiction, and the YA fan base gets to think of the Hugos as something relevant to their interests, and the Hugos get to look at the rising fanbase of What Is To Come and go, “Yes, we’re a part of this.”
The best thing is, the Nebulas have already done it. They have the Andre Norton award – an award that helped build buzz on Catherynne M. Valente’s online work “The Girl Who Circumnavigated Fairyland,” which later went on to become a New York Times bestseller. In other words, the Andre Norton award took a good book that could use some recognition and spotlighted it, helping the author and bringing it to wider attention.
Which is why we need a “Best YA Novel” category. And we need it soon.
Where, Where The Hell Is Ferrett?
I’m at WorldCon, wandering the floor and looking vaguely baffled. Oh, wait, that’s me normally.
In any case, my blogging will be light; if you wanna see what I’m up to, check my Twitter account (or maybe Google+ if I’m too lazy to condense), which will probably consist of a handful of observations and a fair amount of “Hey, where is everybody?” But that totally worked last night thanks to the kindness of Christie Yant, so I’m going for it.
As I’ve said before, if you recognize me (in my hat!) feel free to say howdy.
