Lately every time my mind wanders, it goes limping down memory lane. Maybe it’s a sign of early-onset senility. Maybe it’s just that time of year when one reflects on one’s life. I can’t say I’ve done much reflecting; I’ve done a lot of cringing, remembering stupid things I’ve done and embarrassing situations I’ve been thrust into. But while dodging the specter of my humiliating freshman Latin class or trying to forget how I lost a track meet by two inches of distance on a shotput throw, I stumbled across another memory: my English teachers.

I only had two between 6th grade and senior year; I had the good fortune of being in the AP English & Creative Writing class, which meant the same teacher guided our progress year after year and gave us personal attention when developing our speaking and writing skills. For my freshman through senior years, that was Mrs. N. She was utterly out of her mind – and utterly brilliant. She was the one who shaped my love of reading and writing, and encouraged me even when others admonished me to get my nose out of the books and go do something normal kids would do. Her lessons have remained with me for my entire life, along with her frizzy yellow hair and enormous coke-bottle glasses.

Actually, she looked a hell of a lot like the principal on South Park. Only crazier. A lot crazier. We’re not even getting into the incident with the eggs and the beeswax.

No matter how dotty she was, though, Mrs. N was a great teacher…and she saved me from Mrs. L, my teacher throughout the three years of middle school.

Mrs. L was a nice woman, for the most part – in that rather false way that said she was only being nice to her students because it was her job, though she really did work hard at teaching us the foundations of proper English while still letting us have free reign to develop individually. She even tried to stimulate our creativity, which led to our 6th-grade project.

We had to write a book.

Oh, not a full-length book. Forty pages, double-spaced…which was still quite daunting to a 6th-grader. We had a semester to write it. Most of us dove in with eager enthusiasm, chattering about our ideas all through class and completely ignoring Mrs. L when she tried to call us to order. I still remember my book; if I recall, it was called CAT PRINCESS.

I was in 6th grade. Shut the bloody hell up.

My heroine was Taylana. Her mother was a postal worker, just like mine. She was as confused about girls as I was about boys. I was projecting just a little – no, a lot. I was young, and at that age where every story I read cast me as the hero inside the shell of the author’s character. So when I wrote my own story, I wrote a story I’d want to be in and a persona I’d want to adopt, with the gender reversed. Taylana had bright green eyes, because I thought mine were too brown and ordinary. She had long, dark hair that didn’t need special treatments to be straight, and because she was a girl she didn’t have to argue with her mother about keeping it long. She had a black cat just like mine.

And she had brown skin, just like mine – though darker. She was purely African-American, while I’m only part.

There were a few other influences; Occula from Richard Adams’ MAIA, along with another story I’d recently read (but can’t remember now) about a middle-aged woman who was transported to another world and at some point discovered her real heritage…about the time her inner self transformed her into an angry mother bear. Literally. Thus Taylana was the lost princess of the cat people, who’d been sent to the human world to keep her safe; the black cat was actually her guardian, and could talk to her. She shapeshifted into a panther.

Let me remind you: I was eleven. Maybe twelve.

I wish I still had the story, for nostalgia’s sake. Other than a 3rd-grade effort about Dolores the talking hamster, it was my first real work of fiction. Well, it would be if I’d finished it. I failed the assignment, because about two thirds of the way through I put it down with no desire to ever touch it again. It was stupid, it was wrong, it was bad, I shouldn’t have even bothered. Or at least…that’s what Mrs. L led me to believe. During our progress check-ins, she’d read the stories and offer a little advice.

In my case, her advice was to make Taylana white.

“Why?” I asked.

“Well, why is she black?”

“Because she just is.”

“She needs a reason to be black.”

“Why?” I asked again, confused.

“Because without a good reason for her to be black, no one wants to read about her. Nobody wants to read a story about a black person. Those stories don’t matter.”

And that was it.

Just like that she’d rendered my character and my story invalid without any consideration of its merit, its worth; all that mattered to her was that the character was black, which made it wrong.

Even worse, she’d rendered me invalid. She’d told me my perspective, my voice didn’t matter…and never would. She’d told me that even though I grew up around people of so many races – most of them not white, especially the majority of my family, my neighbors – there was nothing important about the stories they had to tell, real or fictional. There was nothing important about their thoughts, their perspectives, their cultural insight. There was nothing she could ever possibly relate to, simply because of the color of their skin. The color of my skin.

I felt small. I felt transparent, invisible, dehumanized. I was already a wallflower before, but after that I became wallpaper. I retreated into my books, hid my notebooks full of scribblings, and avoided my friends…my primarily white friends, who found plenty to relate to in our common childhood experiences and had no idea what Mrs. L was talking about, or why it should matter. They liked my story, with the unbiased view of the young – but it was too late to change my impressionable young mind, as an authority figure had already told me it was worthless.

It took another authority figure to straighten me out: Mrs. N. She gave us creative writing assignments starting in freshman year, and noticed mine were a bit stiff, unnatural. I wrote about white boys and white girls, not as normal people, but as ideals of what Mrs. L had told me people wanted to read. I wasn’t comfortable with them, and she could tell in every word – when I even did the assignments, as I felt like there was no point in even picking up a pen. She tried to work with me, despite my mutinous silence and withdrawn nature. After some patience, she managed to pry an explanation out of me.

And when I finally told her about my misgivings, she laughed.

Not at me, no. At Mrs. L. She also called her a few interesting names I won’t repeat here. And then she told me,

“Adrien, who cares what color they are? Who cares what color you are? Every day African-Americans and Chinese people and Arabs and Malays and Latinos and hell Nigerians – everyone’s out there having the same experiences as you and I. There’s a fourteen-year-old Mexican girl somewhere right now staring at a handsome boy with her heart in her throat and hoping he’ll notice her, and just because they’ve both got brown skin and black eyes doesn’t mean she doesn’t feel the same damned things as the blonde white girl when she’s looking at her handsome green-eyed boy.” Then she rapped my knuckles with her pen.

“Ow!”

Then she rapped hers. “Ow!” And she laughed. “See? I’m a nutty old white lady, and you’re a stubborn mule of a young – wait, what are you?”

“I don’t know.”

“Well, you’ve got pretty skin. It’s like nutmeg. And mine’s like flour. Young dark boy, old pale woman. But the pen still hurt us the same way. And if you wanted to write about it, you’d write it the same way, because we have the same experiences, and they mean the same thing. Exactly the same thing. Your pen smack isn’t my broken leg. Do you get it?”

I nodded slowly, though I wasn’t sure I did, and wasn’t sure I wholly believed her. I’d been burned once already.

“Good.” She started to smack my knuckles again, then grinned when I yanked my hand back before she could. “You learn quick. Let’s see if you’re as quick with a pen. Throw this shit away, don’t tell your mom I said shit, and start over. Write stories about people who matter to you, and if they matter enough…they’ll matter to everyone.”

It took years before I had the maturity to really grasp what she was trying to tell me, but I’d already grasped one important thing: the hand she offered to lift me out of the pit of misconception so I could stand on even footing with everyone else. And what she taught me stuck with me beyond even high school and college, even though I didn’t know until five or six years ago that I wanted to be a writer. I’d thought about computer programming for a while, ended up in data analysis before moving on to full-time writing and editing…but thanks to Mrs. N I never stopped writing on the side, whether it was college assignments, fanfic, or random little drabbles of no importance.

And there was always someone brown in the stories – not just because Mrs. N said it was okay, but because it was what I wanted, and most importantly Mrs. N had taught me to stand up for what I felt was right regardless of any authority figure’s opinion. Whether the protagonist, antagonist, or supporting cast, there were always brown people as part of the landscape of the story – because brown people have been part of the landscape of my life. We’re part of the landscape of your life. You interact with us every day; maybe we’re part of your story. Or maybe you’re part of ours, and we’re the star; that doesn’t make the story any less valid, especially if you stop to think about the fact that we have enough in common in our lives for them to overlap. You talk to us every day; you know us. We’re your friends, your coworkers, people you pass on the street. We have the same concerns you do, the same joys, the same fears.

Just like you, we read. We write. Yes, there are higher rates of illiteracy among the ethnic population, but we’re fighting to change that. We’re fighting not only to make our voices heard, but to learn the right ways to communicate our message on common ground.

We’re fighting to tell stories that give us a little something more to identify with. We’ve grown up reading stories where the white person is the star, and anyone dark is a marginalized token that’s often stereotyped. Yet we’ve found something to identify with in those stories; we’ve found something to love, something that fires our imaginations and makes us want to write our own stories with people like us. People like you, with only a few differences of language, culture, and coloration. We’re trying to be recognized as part of the mainstream – because “mainstream” shouldn’t mean “white only.”

And it doesn’t, anymore. Despite some old voices who still insist no one will buy books with an ethnic protagonist, more and more writers are striking out to speak with colorful voices on every page of their stories. Are readers having trouble identifying? No. No, instead they’re falling in love with the stories and the characters, because good fiction is good fiction – period. They’re proving the status quo wrong.

One day I hope to prove Mrs. L wrong. One day I hope to see Kensington, Akhilesh, Sujit, Hai, Rio, Crow, Akai, Vice, all my rainbowed cast in print – and not just the ethnic rainbow. Grayson, Vee, Marcus, Sebasien, Kira – another rainbow, on the LGBT spectrum; another set of voices who are just as mainstream as the heteronormative ideal.

We aren’t any better than you. You aren’t any better than we.

We’re all the same, but no one asks if there’s a good reason for your characters to be white.

So why do we need a good reason not to be?

“Interesting” is a strange word, with so many positive and negative connotations in modern vernacular it’s a wonder anyone can be sure what you mean when you use it. It can mean fascinating, disturbing, intriguing, annoying, fantastic, or “oh god, the horror, the horror! Mine virgin eyes; what has been seen can never be unseen!” There’s also the Chinese context, my favorite proverb of “may you live in interesting times” – which basically boils down to a polite way of saying “I hope you die in a fire.”

Trust me when I say I’ve used it in all these contexts after nearly a month of digging through the Lyrical slush pile.

I’ve seen some great queries. Compelling writing, clear plot summaries, professional address and presentation. I’ve also seen sloppy, poorly-written queries, bland queries, queries that aren’t queries at all…and some delightful gems bordering on sheer cracked-out insanity. These wanderers off the beaten path have informed us of everything from their life stories to their sexual fetishes to the weight of their dogs’ testicles in precisely measured ounces, which is key to the accuracy of the were-sex in their paranormal romance. (The latter two are thankfully not linked. Um. I hope.)

What were these writers thinking? Sure, these facts are…interesting. Informative. Sometimes unique. But they’re also far too strange and intimate, and vastly off-topic from what your query letter should be about: your book, your previous publishing credentials (if any), and why you chose this publisher or this agent. I doubt anyone would feel their precious Rover’s harbls were an appropriate topic of discussion in an official letter to a business partner – so what’s the logic of mentioning it in a query?

To start with, let’s take a look at the erroneous assumption that your query is wholly private. It’s a special secret between you and the agent or publisher, a little locked diary entry with a single key that you share between you, making moon eyes at each other as you pass it back and forth and hold it to your pulsating hearts (which, naturally, beat as one when you love someone – thank you, this has been your 80s flashback for the day). You poured your heart into it, your soul, and included every quirky, offbeat detail that you hope will make you unique and endearing – no matter how inappropriate those details might be. And when the day’s done you’ve made a special connection, because of this private thing you’ve shared with that precious someone.

Wrong.

First off, it’s possible you’re sending your super special query to an intern who’ll take one look at it, make a face I won’t even try to describe, and toss it in the trash. Second, if it makes it to the agent or to your chosen contact at the publishing house, it’s quite possible they’ll pass it around to everyone else at the establishment. Not to be malicious, no, but for one of three reasons: 1. they’re interested in the project and want counsel from their peers, 2. they’re not interested but think someone else might be, or 3. you sent a query with pictures of cats doing the nasty as relevant to the theme of your supernatural shifter story, and they want to be sure everyone knows your name in case you come across their desks with a fresh pile of crazy.

Do they do this out of spite? No. But industry professionals do talk, they do look out for each other, and at the end of the day memorable queries do sometimes come up. “Memorable” is a word like “interesting;” it can mean something awesome, or it can mean you’ll go down in infamy as the Cat Smut Dog Harbls writer.

Recently literary agent Michelle Wolfson got dragged into a bit of intarwebz drama on Twitter. She posts #queryquotes as she reads queries, with 140 characters of insight into things that make her go “hmmm.” (And “ech.” And “what is this i don’t even.”) Although she makes sure the quotes are anonymous and removes any identifying details of the stories, this sparked an argument with a published author who felt she was demeaning writers for the sake of her own cruel amusement. Many writers, editors, and literary agents jumped to her defense (although it proved pointless; it’s hard to argue with someone who’s fencing with a Nerf bat yet is convinced he’s holding a rapier). They pointed out that #queryquotes is meant to be humorously helpful, not hurtful. Yet many detractors were less worried about what she said, and more worried that she posted excerpts publicly. Was Michelle violating writers’ privacy by publicly posting lines from their queries?

No. Not just no, but hell no.

Step back and look at this with a little perspective. You’ve written a book, and now you’re letting that little bugger out into the world. Fly, little pages, fly, and hope that one day you’ll be read and appreciated by thousands or even millions of people. When you’re actively seeking publicity, you have no right to privacy as far as those words are concerned. People will read your book, they’ll talk about it, they’ll quote you, and sometimes they’ll say not-so-nice things – and you can’t do a damned thing about it other than wear yourself out flailing about. You can’t even cite copyright law, as long as they’re only quoting a few lines. Fair use is a bitch when it’s used against you, but it’s still fair use.

Your query is an extension of your book. You’re sending it out into the woolly wild hoping to find that one person who’ll love it enough to launch your publishing career. If you aren’t prepared to have your query seen publicly, then you aren’t prepared to deal with the ups and downs of making a published book available to the widely diverse and highly opinionated world at large.

So here’s a rule of thumb when crafting a good query: if you’ve written something you’d be embarrassed to see on #queryquotes, read to your mother, or have flashed on the big screen during the Superbowl halftime show, stop and take a closer look at your query. Ask yourself why that section is embarrassing you, then delete it. Keep deleting until you have something you’d be proud to place on public display. Rover will thank you. So will all the agents and editors whose minds you saved from irreparable scarring via TMI.

Because if it’s too embarrassing to be seen by the general populace, it doesn’t have a place in your query.

So as I said in my last post, I’m now a traitor (if you ask Kerry, Michelle, Janet, and Jeffe, anyway – I see ya’ll over there). I’ve crossed over to the other side, and am now an editor for a small publisher. I not only work on refining accepted manuscripts, but also review submitted manuscripts waiting in the publisher’s slush pile. We’re always looking for great new manuscripts in the submissions pool, and it’s part of my job to throw in my two cents on acceptance or rejection.

That’s right, I said it. The R word. Dreaded, hateful, but inevitable, it’s something I’ve dealt with often enough from a writer’s perspective. It’s a little strange from the other side of the desk, and frankly it sheds an interesting light on the entire process when I think of sending my own books out to agents or publishers. When I look at my own work I now try to see it as another editor would, weighing its merits and seeking out its flaws with a more detached eye. Honestly, I think it would do most writers good to spend just a month reading through the slush pile at a publishing house or literary agency to really hone your critical perceptions.

But since not everyone can do that, I thought I’d share my first week of wading through the slush. Not to be cruel to the authors, or to embarrass them; any identifying specifics have been removed so not even the authors themselves could tell if any of these refer to them, and this is just a small sample from the overall submissions pool so it’s a bit of a roulette as far as which ones I chose. Despite a tendency towards overt honesty and tactless dissection, I don’t want to hurt or humiliate anyone; I’m just offering a glimpse of what goes through my head as I review, and an idea of what factors led to my final vote – not just the negative comments, but the positive ones as well.

The process:
For every submission I read the query, the synopsis, and the first and last chapters. Generally I can tell about halfway through the synopsis if a story’s just not for me, if it’s not right for the publisher (Lyrical publishes genre fiction, primarily with romantic or erotic themes), if it’s starting to fall apart, or if the story and writing suffer from problems that just can’t be blamed on the fact that synopses exist to torture authors, editors, and agents alike. Still, the chapter review gives them a chance to surprise me – to grip me so thoroughly I don’t want to put the story down. If the first and last chapters look solid and the synopsis offers hope of a well-constructed plot, I skim through the rest from beginning to end to look for major deal-breakers and mentally note any issues that could make me lean toward no, but aren’t killing it yet.

Only if it passes that trial do I stop and make the time for an in-depth read from beginning to end, in the hopes of saying yes.

I haven’t said yes yet – but here’s my commentary from ten instances where I had to say no.

The Rejections:

1. Interesting premise, but feels contrived and a bit unfinished; the synopsis indicates that some plot threads are closed off messily or simply as an afterthought when they’re no longer convenient. Writing is fairly solid in technical construction, but lacks style or an engaging voice. Could be workable, but would require a great deal of author/editor collaboration to tighten up the prose and give it a decent hook. As a whole, it didn’t really pull me in.

2. Bill Engvall calls himself “15 degrees off cool.” I love him anyway. This author’s story is 15 degrees off right, but I kind of like the idea anyway. It has promise, although I admit I was fairly lukewarm on the idea and probably would have skipped reading a sample if not for a good hook. The synopsis starts off strong, but doesn’t deliver on its promises; the plot seems to get lost with characters whose behavior erases any chance of empathizing with them. Looking through the first chapter, there’s a strong voice, good characterization, but very poor technical execution and sloppy prose (and some painful comma abuse), as well as a tendency to use words that aren’t quite what the author means. Overall it just doesn’t work, but I wish it did. The idea really interested me, but I think the author should have done some major paring, rewriting, and strengthening before submitting.

3. Keep wavering between hot and cold on this one. I love this genre, so that caught me…but just reading the quick outline made me say “And…? Is that all?” (Which could be a good thing or a bad thing, as it did leave me wanting more.) Unfortunately the synopsis did the same. Although it clears up some questions, it feels lacking in substance and impetus once it nears the end – as if the author got close to the end and said “screw it, let’s just be done with it.” Which is a shame, as I think the concept is strong enough to hold up when written well – although it is a little derivative and the conclusion seems to come too easily. The writing’s mechanical, but can be fixed with variations in structure. There’s a lot of potential, but there’s also a chance it’ll fizzle badly and require a lot of work, especially in the latter half.

4. It drew me, but something’s rather off about it. I couldn’t help but wonder why the author chose this perspective. I’m honestly not sure what to make of the style. It’s very literary and atmospheric, but suffers from poorly fleshed-out characters. I’m…puzzled by the story, to say the least. Very intrigued, yet at the same time a bit put off. It seems a bit stereotypical, and the main characters seem detached from from the conflict. And even though it’s interesting, I don’t think Lyrical’s the right market.

5. I’m already shaking my head before even opening the docs. Heavy, heavy, heavy. I love a weighty story with some good meat and a penchant for subtlety in conflict rather than outright slap-dash action, but this just takes it too far. It’s dry, very dry. Too much navel-gazing, not enough actual story. It’s too bad, because the prose is good, the voice strong, though it’s repetitive – and I think the author is a little shaky on perspective. Entirely not suited for Lyrical.

6. So derivative of other published novels that it borders on generic and wanders dangerously close to plagiarism. Plus the plot seems to peter out in the last third; an attempt to create tangled threads just makes a muddle that loses my interest. I rather enjoyed the writing style, though; it’s clear and fairly well-paced, and with editing could make for a tight, strong voice. I’d be willing to take a look at a more original revision.

7. Couldn’t get past the first page. The technical problems hinted at in the query and the synopsis just exploded in the story itself, along with a much larger dose of Mary Sue than I can generally handle. Too much backstory, and no appeal whatsoever. Might work for someone who really loves the concept, but it’s not for me.

8. Strong voice, compelling, an entertaining and funny homage to its genre. I haven’t had time to read through the whole thing so I can’t say for certain without a synopsis, but if the rest of the book lives up to the promise in the first and last few chapters I’d say yes – although there are some issues in the last few chapters that need clearing up, as this is another one that peters out towards the end. Too much exposition, not enough action, and the wrap-up is a bit inconclusive. Really would need to see the synopsis to give a solid stamp of approval.

(Note: yes, this is still a no. If I don’t see a synopsis to tell me there’s something worth reading in the meat of the book, I don’t have hours to spend digging to find out. Not everyone uses synopses, but when they’re the only thing standing between you and a full they’re evil, maddening little lifesavers. Sometimes I might be able to set aside time for a full read before a submission rotates out, but when I’ve got production schedule deadlines looming that won’t always be the case. I won’t always have time to give people the benefit of the doubt without the synopsis to justify the effort.)

9. The setup picked me up, gave me hope, then dropped me on my face. All this buildup to gloss over the central plot? Don’t do that to me; my fragile heart can’t handle it.

There are stereotypes that could easily alienate readers. The author can write, but can’t tell a story. There’s no plot here; just events. The symbolism is much too overwrought, a flimsy skeleton that can barely support a story that didn’t have much meat to start with. I’d pass.

10.Totally the wrong genre. MG or YA pitched as adult, when the voice and storyline aren’t even remotely suitable. The synopsis spatters events together with little connection, yet for such a busy story nothing of significance to the plot seems to happen very often. The writing takes a lot of risks, but lacks the technical ability and style to support any boldness.

Pass.

Well, hope that’s been enlightening (or that you at least found my sad attempts at humor somewhat amusing). Who knows, I might do this again at some point – but for now I’m signing off, and hoping that next time I dive into the slush pile I’ll find something that makes me say “yes, yes, a thousand times yes.”

Disclaimer: This post does not represent the opinions or commentary of other Lyrical Press editors or employees. These comments are my opinions only; the comments of other editors are private and confidential, and should not be inferred from my statements. In other words, we’re different people with different thoughts on why stories do and do not work, so don’t assume that my decision to publicize my thoughts means my comrades in slush would say the same things.

Lately I’ve seen a rash of writers with the idea that they don’t have to perfect their book as much as possible – because surely when they’re discovered, agents and editors will recognize the potential for greatness and fix the flaws in their book. What? Rejected? But why?

Yet if they do get a critique with their rejection, rather than being grateful they whine because while the agent or editor told them what was wrong, they weren’t given explicit, line-by-line instructions on how to fix it or what they wanted in place of the problem areas. Why? Why didn’t the agent/editor/etc. tell them what to do to make their book great, so they could go on to become the darlings of the publishing world?

News flash: because that’s not their job.

Agents and editors don’t fix mediocre books. They hone and sharpen already-good books. If they tell you there’s a problem, it’s up to you to fix it. When they give you a critique, it’s not a guidebook that you follow letter by letter: swap characters A and B, change this letter, that color. It’s an open-ended ticket, a road with many directions, and it’s up to you to have the talent and the maturity as a writer to decide which path to take. Your critique will tell you the problem; your ingenuity and hard work will uncover the solution.

Will it be the right solution? That depends on how good a writer you are. Agents and editors can give you guidance, can catch your mistakes…but it’s your job to know how to improve your book. It’s your job to use that guidance, to not shirk change, to know your craft well enough to take flaws and turn them into answers. Whether you seek an agent or take other routes to publication, you’ll never find your way if you embark with the idea that your book is “good enough” because someone else will whip it into shape.

Your book is like your child. You wouldn’t expect someone else to raise your children for you, to teach them the values you want them to possess, to show them right from wrong. So don’t expect agents, editors, or even critique partners to fix your book, or to nanny you through fixing it yourself.

Thank them for pointing you in the right direction, and then take responsibility and nurture your book to maturity on your own.

Irrefutable fact: what you do on the internet can affect your life. Spouses have found evidence of marital infidelity on Facebook; people have been fired for things they said on blogs; friendships have ruptured over tweets; and on a more specific front, agents have passed over writers because they found blogs, Twitter posts, MySpace journals, and the like badmouthing agents and publishers, demonstrating overall diva-ish behavior that bodes ill for working with them, or just showing off their crazypants. The crazypants they wear on their heads to hide the tinfoil hats that keep the aliens out. By the way, the aliens are the subject of their next book. It’ll be all about the probes. No one understands their genius, and the publishers are all secret pawns of the aliens who are trying to keep Mr. or Ms. Crazypants from telling the world the truth. Zardoz has spoken.

You get the idea.

At this point you can no longer assume that the internet grants true anonymity, or that your internet life can somehow remain separate from your real life. We live in a digitally connected world where screen names are now tied to photographs, business is conducted over e-mail, IP addresses can be traced, and one part of building an audience is becoming known in online venues and maintaining an identifiable presence.

So when doing that…how much do you hold back?

I hold back a hell of a lot. I keep a lot of my personal life and frustrations out of this blog, because I don’t want the world at large to know my private business. My insecurities, moments of doubt, and worries over rejection are just that: mine. No one wants to listen to whining about that crap. I curb most of my fouler language; I want to publish YA novels, and it’s generally not a good thing if YA writers are slinging the F-bomb about. I barely mention work, partially due to a non-disclosure agreement and partially because I learned my lesson about being indiscreet with work a long, long time ago. Political rants – well, sometimes I post those, but tend to keep them to myself more often than not simply because they aren’t very interesting. I’m neither radical left nor radical right, and with my tendency to overthink everything and try to see all perspectives, it’d make for pages of political reasoning posts that no one wants to read. The only things that’ll get me to flare up are gay rights or rabid, hurtful intolerance of any kind.

Thoughts on the publishing industry? I’d say I curb those, but there’s really not much to curb. It is what it is, and frankly energy is better spent trying to work with the machine and joining the effort to correct its flaws rather than railing against it.

At the same time, I don’t hold everything back. I’m gay and love my boyfriend very much, and I don’t care who knows it or who has a problem with it. I’m a sarcastic asshole, and I think everyone knows I make little attempt to hide that – no matter how I might try to hide how squishy I am underneath. Western centrism in fiction, the dearth of accepted minority main characters, and token stereotypes of exotic/ethnic characters bug the hell out of me, but don’t stop me from enjoying a good book no matter the race of the characters. I have an unholy love for weirdly-flavored martinis, and if anyone takes issue with a legal adult having a drink on weekends (YA writer or not), they can unwad their damned panties. I’m an atheist, and have spoken freely about the fact that while I have no problem with any organized religion as long as they don’t advocate harm to others, my lack of faith is my choice – and I expect my choice to be respected as much as I respect others’ choice to believe whatever they believe in. My family and I haven’t gotten along in the past and I’m having typical comedic problems integrating with my boyfriend’s family, and it’s not a big deal who knows it. Everyone has family problems of some sort, and I feel it helps me identify with people I meet online to know we share that common bond of familial frustration on one level or another. It’s a very human experience, a very relatable experience, and one I don’t mind sharing with others as long as that sharing doesn’t delve into any private things.

These are the things I keep to myself, and these are the things I place out in the open as part of my public persona. While part of having an online presence (and part of being an adult) is knowing when to speak and when to shut the hell up, and while discretion is the better part of valor…at some point you have to add some color and life lest you become just another faceless screen name with no voice and no lasting impression on anyone.

For the sake of online professionalism sometimes you have to hold back even when you don’t have anything really crazy to hide. Sometimes you have to play it safe, until you’ve felt out your place and know how to find the balance between speaking your mind and saying things that you’re afraid will come back to bite you in the ass later.

But at what point does holding back strip you of all personality, until you’re playing it so safe that there’s no reason for anyone to give a damn at all?

I’ve been reading posts all day about what people have learned in 2009, what people vow to do in 2010, how many old things are laid to rest and how many new beginnings wait in the new year. I have trouble joining in the uplifting of hope, the declaration of intent, the swelling of new vitality and new promise. Not because I’m feeling particularly Scroogish, no, but because to me 2010 means the same thing as 2009:

Keep trying, keep working, keep fighting, and never quit.

The rollover between one day and the next doesn’t change that. The shift in the last two digits of the year doesn’t make the anticipated victories of the new year any greater than those of the old year. It doesn’t make the failures hurt any less, and it won’t eradicate the many bumps in the road ahead. It won’t make it any easier to pick up and keep going after getting knocked down, and it won’t change the driving need to keep doing it over and over again until I find even footing and claw my way just a little further up. The attitude most assign to the new year, I keep all year round. I may suck at optimism, but I’ve got a goddamned monopoly on bullheaded stubbornness and determination.

Tomorrow is a new beginning, another chance, another day to try to make something happen – another day to do my damnedest, push another few steps along the road, and enjoy the sweat in my eyes as much as the quiet, sweet seconds when everything’s calm and for just a breath, I can live in the moment. Yesterday was the same sort of day, whether 2009 or 2010. The day after tomorrow will be the same – and the next day, and the next. The difference between one year and the next is all in your head, and if you really want to you can make a fresh start any day and every day.

Never forget that.

But don’t let that stop you from getting rip-roaring drunk, either, because I damn well know I’m about to. Happy New Year!

This morning I woke up and thought of all the things I planned to do today. Top of that list were proofreading my recently-rewritten manuscript, working on the crackfic, and reading a friend’s manuscript. Nowhere on that list was a dedicated effort to sit down and finish any of the half-read books scattered about the house, my place in their pages marked with scraps of paper, bills, bookmarks, even post-its.

Then I realized how long it’s been since I actually finished a book, and hung my head in shame – because by not reading more avidly, I’m doing myself an enormous disservice as a writer.

More than studying grammar, more than workshops, more than peer critiques, writers need to read. They need to read often, read widely, and read outside of their circle of comfort; read not just the kind of books they write, but the kind of books they’d never write. Reading offers insight, offers knowledge, offers a view into what works and what doesn’t; it provides inspiration, demonstrates the many proper ways to frame and pace a story, and gives the writer an intuitive eye for good story-crafting that no instructional lecture or essay can deliver.

When you read, you learn. You learn new ways to approach style, pacing, and characterization; you learn new perspectives, new ideas, new theories; hell, you even learn new words, and frankly I enjoy a book where every once in a while I have to stop and grab the dictionary because I didn’t know a word – though you also learn when not to take that too far, to the point of making a story incomprehensible. You learn what’s been done before, what’s been done to death, and what could be exciting if explored even more.

And if you ever stop learning, you stop growing as a writer.

The act of writing itself can serve as something of an isolation chamber. It’s easy to get so locked into the act of writing that you lose all objectivity towards your writing, all sense of how it pertains to the outside world. When your writing loses its connection to the outside world, you lose your connection to the reader. So read, to see views outside your isolation chamber. Read books, read the news, read blogs, read short stories. Read anything that makes you think, makes you question, makes you wonder “What would happen if I…?”

Just read. Find worth and merit in others’ writing, so you can impart worth and merit to your own.

Read, and remember why you wanted to be a writer in the first place.