February 2015 – J.K. Pendragon

Editing As You Write

Posted on February 26, 2015February 26, 2015 by J. K. Pendragon

So lately I’ve been seeing a lot of writing advice that seems to be suggesting that if your first draft isn’t a steaming pile of absolute crap that you wouldn’t show to your dog, you’re not doing it right. “Write with abandon!” they say. “Don’t worry about the writing quality, or whether everything makes sense, or whether your grammar is any good! Just get the words down, and you can go back and fix everything later.”

Which is great if that’s what works for you. I know a lot of people have problems with staying motivated and getting through their first draft without stopping and nitpicking forever. But the problem, for me, is that I absolutely hate having to go back and fix everything later. When I’m done a first draft, I want it to be something resembling a book. Now, I’m not saying that I don’t do developmental and line edits, because I absolutely do. But by editing as I go, I mange to reduce my line edits humongously, and bring my developmental edits down from what would be catastrophically awful need-to-rewrite-three-quarters-of-the-book edits, to oh, okay, I can change this and add this and the book will be much better kind of edits.

What I’m saying is, it is absolutely possible to edit a book as you write it, and come out with something fairly clean that you’re not incredibly ashamed of. The actual process of writing the book will be harder. It will take longer, and it will be very frustrating at times. But in return, your editing after the fact will be much diminished, and you can focus on making the book even better, instead of just focusing on making it good.

So, without further ado, here are my tips of editing as you go.

1. Set measurable goals for yourself.

Obviously the number one issue with this method is the temptation to just keep editing and picking at the first chapter forever, and never move forward with the story. I’m usually incredibly impatient to get the story down anyway (“I don’t like writing, I like having written”) so I don’t have too much of a problem with this, but I do have a wordcount that I try my hardest to achieve whenever I sit down to write. Sometimes I’ll write 800 words that don’t work for the story, and in that case, I’ll scrap them, but I’ll still count those 800 words towards my daily wordcount. And then I’ll write another 1200 words. Even if it’s two steps forward, one step back, you’re still moving.

2. Edit every session.

This one is simple. Every time you sit down to write, read through what you wrote last time. Fix any grammar mistakes, awkward phrasing, etc that you see as you’re reading. Try to get a feel for how the story is flowing, what kind of pace it’s moving at, what direction it’s going, and what your instincts and/or outline (don’t be afraid to pit those two against each other either) tell you should be happening next. Then start writing, and keep going until you hit your wordcount.

3. Develop your ability to sense when something isn’t working.

I’m still working on this myself. Sometimes I’ll write up to 2000 words, the whole time completely ignoring that little nagging voice in my head that’s telling me: This isn’t right. This isn’t how the story is supposed to go. Then I’ll finish and wonder why I’m not satisfied with the day’s writing. For me, it’s essential that I listen to that voice. If I don’t, everything I write after that will be flawed. Pushing on with the knowledge that that one scene is wrong will colour everything else in the story, and when I do have to inevitably go back and fix it during edits, there will be a million other little things in the story that I’ll have to fix in order for everything to line up. Sometimes it will have changed the whole course of the story! Instead, I prefer to stop and rewrite before continuing, so that my path is clear. Unfortunately, this requires you to be really in tune with your story. It also requires a lot of patience, and a touch of perfectionism. But if you can do it, you’re saving yourself a lot of time and frustration later.

4. Don’t think this gets you out of editing later.

I know, I said it already, but I mean it. Writing like this will keep you from having to spend too much time getting your story submission-ready after you’ve finished the first draft. But you should be prepared and willing to make it even better with the help of a professional editor. And that’s a good thing. Having a professional editor is a great privilege, and listening to them and being willing to rip your book apart and put it back together for the sake of the story is incredibly rewarding. Going through and fixing all the typos and grammar mistakes you made the first time around? Not so much.

So there you have it, a peek into my writing/editing style. Let me know in the comments if you write like this too. Or if you’re the type to write without doing any editing until after, let me know how that works for you! It’s fascinating how different writing styles can be, and what works for some authors and doesn’t for others.

Thanks for reading! Oh, and have a picture of my cat. She loves to sit like this. It’s the weirdest thing.

reviews

SEAN BEEEEEEEE!!!!!–ahem, I mean: My Thoughts on Jupiter Ascending

Posted on February 18, 2015February 18, 2015 by J. K. Pendragon

So my reaction to this movie was pretty similar to a lot of other reviewers’. Basically: “It was so awful, BUT I LOVED IT.” There were so many things wrong with the movie, but it somehow managed to keep me riveted and genuinely enjoying it for the duration, and I’m not sure why.

Things wrong with this movie:

The romance is AWFUL. We’re supposed to believe that the characters have fallen in love with each other, in fact large parts of the plot depend on this, but like… it would be literally impossible for the characters to fall in love because they don’t know anything about each other because there’s nothing to know?
- Seriously, who are these people? I know nothing about them. I mean, I know that Jupiter is an immigrant maid and Caine is a disgraced soldier, but their personalities? Interests? Hopes and dreams? What do they do in their spare time? What do they think about… about anything? I got nothing.
- And it’s really, really not that hard to write a convincing romance, and flesh out the characters at the same time. All you have to do is take out five minutes of explosions, and add five minutes of the characters talking quietly, sharing some intimate details about each other while looking into each others’ eyes, because that’s how people fall in love!!
The Wachowskis don’t have time for your “show don’t tell” bullshit. There are things happening! More things are happening! Explosions! Aliens! We can’t possibly slow down long enough to explain all this stuff to you by showing. Listen up while this character explains everything in quick soundbites, because that’s all we got time for. More things!
Jupiter has no agency. I’m sorry, she doesn’t. She is dragged around, manipulated, she falls a lot, and is caught by Caine. She makes one very big decision at the end, but other than that, she’s basically a pawn.

HOWEVER:

It kind of works? Jupiter is kind of every 14-year-old’s wish fulfillment. She gets to leave her boring, monotonous life and discovers that she’s a SPACE PRINCESS and omg everyone is paying attention to her and she gets to wear pretty dresses and go toe-to-toe with clever sparring diplomat-types. And there’s a mysterious, brooding guy with his shirt off a lot, and he’s a little scary and she probably shouldn’t be into him, but she is anyway, and no one can tell her no. Oh, and she gets a fancy glowing tattoo that shows that she’s a princess. SO COOL.
The breakneck “this is the way it is, okay ACTION!” actually kind of works too? You kind of feel like you’ve already been here, like either you’ve already been introduced to this world, and the soundbites are just for the newbies, or else like this is just the way things are, and you should know about it because, um, you live here.
Sean Bean is an alien bee guy, but also inexplicably northern (probably because “lots of planets have a north” x) He’s part bee, guys! SEAN BEE!
Eddie Redmayne. I seriously can’t. He’s an ancient space capitalist with a tortured, evilpast, and I TOTALLY BOUGHT IT. I can’t even argue about this.
There’s a space-ship with a plucky crew a la Firefly, and I’m not sure where they came from or why they’re helping Jupiter, but the captain is a badass black lady and I’m totally down.
This film is BEAUTIFUL. It just is, it’s glorious. Rich sumptuous colours, lots of burnished golds and hardwoods, and then giant cathedral-looking factories on Jupiter (the planet) and a gorgeous planet that looks like Rivendell in space, and really cool, well-thought out space-ship designs, and the 3D is EXCELLENT. I actually flinched from something coming towards me at one point, because I’d forgotten I was wearing the glasses.
The plot is actually really good too. A lot of people complain about it being predictable and/or confusing, but I really, really enjoyed it, and thought it was well done.

I mean, I could go on about it for ages, but the fact is, even though there were glaring issues with the film, I really did enjoy it. And I wonder if that says something about what we think a film needs to have to be a “good film” and whether or not it’s true. I wonder if it says something about our review culture that we can fill in a check box like, “this film did this wrong and this wrong and this wrong and therefore it’s a bad film” but it’s really not?

Or maybe movies lately have just been so bad that the bar is set really low. I don’t know. All I know is that I got genuine enjoyment out of this movie, despite my being able to tell, theoretically, that it was a “bad movie.” And I think that’s really interesting.

Also, the space-scapes are awesome.

Blog

The Pronoun Talk

Posted on February 4, 2015February 6, 2015 by J. K. Pendragon

I wasn’t going to write this post. Originally this was going to be some “How to Review Trans Books” shit, but I reeeally didn’t want to do that for two reasons:

1. I really, professionally, do not want to ever write something that would suggest I have anything to say to reviewers about how they should review my books. I understand that reviews are not for me. I also understand that there is a long history of authors being absolute shit to reviewers, despite the fact that reviewers are pretty much integral to their success. Reviewers should be lifted up on a pedestal by authors, not dragged down and attacked.

2. I had really hoped that the few particularly transphobic reviews out there (not of my books, actually, but of other trans books) were just an anomaly. I wanted to believe that they were just trolls who were being mean or transphobic because they could, and that ignoring them was the best course of action.

But more and more I’m seeing reviews of trans books pop up where the reviewer genuinely seems well-meaning, and doesn’t realise that what they’re saying is something that trans people hear over and over, micro-aggressions that end up being incredibly hurtful at the end of the day. I know that if I was doing or saying something that was hurting someone in that way, I would want them to tell me, and I would hope they were comfortable explaining why.

So I’m gonna talk about it.

I am a genderqueer individual. I was assigned female at birth, and I present largely as female for various reasons (see my post about it here) but I’m not really a girl. Not at all. The way my dysphoria manifests changes from day to day. Some days I can’t stand my body. Some days I just feel vaguely disconnected to it. Sometimes when people call me “miss” or “lady” I get a pang in my stomach, like “no, that’s wrong”. Sometimes I just feel tired. But I always have, deep in my gut, this knowledge that I am not a girl, and I’m not a boy either. I just am.

I dealt with this, the sort of weird to uncomfortable feeling I get from being called “she”, by adopting the pronoun “they.” At first it felt weird to me, and sounded off to my ears. But I wrote up an author bio using it, and immediately felt a sense of relief, because even though it sounded a bit weird, it also allowed me to be perceived, at least by people passing by on the internet, as someone who is not female or male. And that was a big, big deal.

So here’s the thing. I know that gender-neutral pronouns are a bit weird. They’re new, and they take a bit of getting used to. Remember when apple came out with the iPad and everyone laughed, (menstruation is hilarious, you heard it here first) but now people say it all the time without a second thought? New words take a little bit to catch on. But they do, and it’s normal. In this case, it’s desperately needed. We have a whole population of people who don’t identify as male or female, and don’t wish to be gendered in every single sentence used about them. The solution was to come up with new pronouns (and I say “new” but most of these pronouns have been around for decades) or to use the pronoun “they”, which has already been used to refer to someone when you don’t know their gender yet (albeit in a slightly detached way) for a very long time.

If you’re not familiar with the term “micro-aggression” it’s basically a very small, minimally offensive thing that someone says or does that would be fine on it’s own. But when it happens time after time, again and again, it’s like Chinese water torture. It becomes unbearable. That’s why a cis person might laugh off having the wrong pronoun used for them once, but for a trans person who has been having the wrong pronoun used for them their whole life, it becomes an awful, hurtful thing whenever someone does it. Here’s a quote from my book, To Summon Nightmares, that explains it a little bit:

“Well, you’re my little sis—” She cut off with an intake of breath and Cohen flinched violently. Niall who had gone into the kitchen to put the kettle on, glanced at Cohen, looking concerned.
It’s okay, Cohen mouthed at him. The line was silent.
“I’m really sorry,” said Halley, sounding wretched. “Cohen, I’m really sorry, okay? I just forgot.”
“I know.” Cohen nodded, trying to breathe. “It’s fine, really Halley. I appreciate that you’re trying.”
“I am trying,” she said. “Really, I am.”
Niall took a step into the living room. “Do you want me to go?” he asked, and Cohen shook his head.
“It’s okay.” Cohen forced a smile into his voice. “You’re my sister, so I can’t be mad at you.”
“Yeah, right.” Halley gave a forced laugh. “Okay, call me tomorrow, kid. You hear me?”
“I will,” he said. “I promise.”
“G’night little brother.”
“Goodnight.”
He hung up the phone, leaning back against the couch and breathing slowly. His tolerance for being misgendered had gone down now that it wasn’t happening all the time. When it had happened all the time, it had just been like a slow burning, unidentifiable sickness. Now every ‘he’ was a relief, and every ‘she’ and ‘sister,’ every mention of his birth name was like a punch to the gut. He hated it.

So we choose a gender-neutral pronoun to avoid the feeling of being misgendered, but all too often a new micro-aggression takes it’s place, in the form of people complaining that our pronouns are too difficult for them. And I understand that it’s a normal reaction to want to talk about how the words are confusing, you don’t know how to use them or how to pronounce them. But trust me, we’ve heard it before, a lot. We know you’re going to have trouble with it, so did we. But it was worth it for us. And if you respect us at all, it’ll be worth it to you too.

The problem that’s come about, particularly with reviews, is that when you’re writing a review for a book, it’s normal to pick apart and critique aspects of the story. The world building didn’t make sense, so-and-so’s character was hard to understand, the made-up language seemed needlessly complex. Those are all valid critiques. The trouble starts when you treat something like gender identity or pronouns as something that the author has similarly “made up” to put into their book. There’s a difference between a world that an author has created from scratch, and a world that actually exists, that the author has researched or lived, and is representing in their book. One is open for debate and critique, and the other is just the way the world is. Complaining that you don’t like it doesn’t really add anything.

And I mean, it’s perfectly acceptable to read a book about, say, a sheep herder, and then say in your review: “I’m actually not a big fan of sheep, and I found it boring and confusing. Your mileage may vary.” But sheep herders don’t hear every day, in a million different little ways, that their profession is stupid and confusing and ridiculous. Or maybe they do. Equal rights for sheep herders?

For me, as a genderqueer person looking for books to read about people like me, it’s really difficult to get on goodreads, find a book that looks promising, and then scroll down to the reviews, just to read a bunch of reviews about how my pronouns are too confusing to be bothered with. And obviously this is a problem that extends beyond and didn’t at all originate with reviews, which is why I didn’t want to make this post all about them. But book reviews seem to one of the spots where the problem is really showing, so I wanted to address it.

Please, if you meet a person who asks you to use gender-neutral pronouns for them, don’t tell them that it’s too difficult for you. If you mess up, don’t go on about how it was because their pronouns are just so complicated, and it’s hard for you to learn how to use them. Just say sorry, and move on. And if you’re reading a book about a genderqueer character, and you don’t want to be bothered with the pronouns, just put the book down and go read something else. Don’t write about how difficult it was for you, or how you felt put off the book by their existence, because genderqueer people are going to see that, and read it.

And trust me, we already know.