The Circles of Literary Hell

"But, you don't actually think that's good, do you?"

It was usually Harry Potter they were asking about. It's the kind of question you get asked when you're a writer, and the kind of question you get asked even more when you're a literature professor.

I always watched to see if they were surprised or disappointed when I said yes, not only did I like the Harry Potter books (and I do - I usually reread the series once a year), but that I also thought they were good. I've taught the books at two different universities. 

(We all understand that there is a difference between liking a book and thinking it is good, right? And that we can acknowledge a book is good without liking it, and that just because we don't like it doesn't mean it's not good? We get all that, right? Excellent.)

Though now that I'm not teaching, the question takes on an expectation of professional jealousy. Like, what do I think about E.L. James, or Stephenie Meyer, and doesn't it bother me that they sell all those copies when "good" writers don't?

I use the scare quotes for a reason.

You may have noticed that Dan Brown has a new book out, and so the literati are yet again having convulsions over the fact that he is going to sell eleventy million copies, and make approximately a bazillion dollars, and that this is clearly horrid, because he can't actually write, and really, wouldn't it be better if someone actually good made those sales and that money.

Look, Dan Brown is not my kind of writer. I don't like his prose on the sentence-level (and sentence-level prose is something that matters to me as a reader) and if you ever want to see me go into a wild-eyed and snarly-haired rant, do ask me about the portrayal of medieval history and theology in The DaVinci Code. But the fact that he (or James, or Meyer, or fill in the name of whatever writer we're collectively grumpy about this week) is going to sell all those copies doesn't bother me in the least. In fact, as a writer, I find it very interesting, because clearly he is doing something in his writing that a lot of people respond to. 

When we read, we read for any number of reasons. Maybe we read for beautiful prose, or for hot sex, or to watch clever people solve mysteries, or to educate ourselves, or to scare ourselves silly, or because of great characters, or a fast-moving plot. Maybe we look for a combination of those things. And writers tend to have different things that they are interested in doing in their writing, sometimes even from book to book. There isn't a magic formula for success - either critical or financial. If there were, we'd get the checklist with our editorial notes.

And I have a real problem with this idea that only what is "good" deserves financial success, or that something is off when what is "not good" sells eleventy billion copies.  Because I think there is a judgment implied there that carries over to the reader - like, we can dismiss the thoughts of Twilight fans, because we've already decided we can dismiss Twilight.

One of the best undergraduate papers I ever received was a comparison of lycanthropy in Twilight and in the lais of Marie de France. It is - and I know this is going to shock some of you - possible to like to read a wide variety of books from a wide variety of writers. People read for all sorts of reasons.

I'm not saying that I think writers and books should be immune to criticism, that we cannot rigorously discuss the flaws in a work. I absolutely think we should have those discussions. But I think they should be discussions based on the actual works, not our perceptions of what they will be, or must be. And that we should be very careful in our evaluation of a book (or of anything else), not to imply that there is a right way to respond to it, that there is something lacking in a reader who actually thinks it's good.

The end. And where we start from.

I keep thinking about what I want to come here to say. I used to blog fairly regularly. Never every day, but a few times a week. And then this year, it's been almost not at all. Nearly a month since I posted last, and only two posts all of last month.

And some of that is the feeling that I'm on the internet all the time, babbling away on twitter and posting things on tumblr and what do I have left over to say, anyway? Like, maybe I shouldn't be talking here unless there's something important, which is kind of ridiculous, because this is my blog, and I'm the person who decides what gets said here (or not) and when. But there you go.

And some of it was finishing a book which was written in a voice that is very different to the tone of the blog, and when I was finishing it, it felt like that was the only voice left in my head. I could barely even talk to my friends, because all the words I could think of were words for the book.

And some of it was, my God, this was a tough winter. Maybe you don't understand why I'm saying that now, now when it's May, and quite thoroughly spring, but let me tell you that it was snowing last week. Even here, that doesn't happen, and there was this sense of being out of time and elsewhere, and a longing for green and warmth and light. And it was a tough winter personally, and for people I loved. And those aren't the sort of things we are supposed to talk about, you know? No one wants to read about your troubles. Don't whine.

I am so envious (speaking of thoughts and feelings we're not supposed to discuss) of the people who seem (because it is always seem, there is always a filter) able to say anything anywhere. To speak, without worrying about what people will think, and say. Or to worry about it, and have the ability to say, fuck you, and speak anyway.

And so here I am. And it's spring, I think. And I've started a new book, and one of the things that matters very much in it is who gets to speak, and about what, and how seriously are they taken when they do.

So maybe I'll stop worrying so much, and talk. Or maybe I'll keep silent, but the silence will be mine.

I read banned comics

Edited to reflect new information: Based on this statement, it seems like Saga #12's unavailability through the app store was not a result of any action by Apple, but a result of Comixology misunderstanding Apple's policies. I am very glad to learn this. I have crossed through my earlier, incorrect text.

Issue 12 of Saga, the very smart comic written by Brian K. Vaughan and drawn by Fiona Staples comes out today. If you're not already reading it, I highly recommend you do so. It's great. Although, even if you are reading it, as of this writing, you cannot buy it through the comics app in Apple's iStore because it has a frank depiction of male-on-male gay sex.

Let's get the boilerplate out of the way. No creator is owed a space to sell their work. Apple is completely within its rights to decide what to carry. They need not have a good reason, or any reason - the app store is not a constitutionally protected free speech zone. Apple is within its rights to make the choice it has.

I am within mine to say what an idiotic and small-minded choice it is.

Apple, you see, has had no problem carrying the other issues of Saga, which contain frank visuals of sex and violence. They also carry other images of sex, sometimes quite graphic, and simultaneously violent. For example, please see the following for the contrast. (Note: this link goes to an NSFW image of nonconsensual sex, as well as the contested panel from Saga.) So clearly, the problem isn't with sex, the problem is with a specific kind of sex - consensual, male, homosexual sex.

Which makes Apple's decision gross and offensive. (And also, inconsistent, because, as of this writing, you can buy the issue in the iBooks part of the store. Inconsistent bigotry just looks stupid.)

I first learned about book banning when I was in grade school. I was reading a magazine, probably Seventeen. I don't remember the precise details of it, but I do remember that the book in question was Romeo and Juliet. Which clearly, one ought not read because teenage sex and suicide. Teenage marital sex, but you know, details. It was a safe book to write a don't ban books article on, because what kind of an idiot wants to ban Shakespeare?

But I was upset about it, especially since the article also mentioned book burnings, and that seemed really, really bad. So I talked to my Mom, and I went to the library, and checked out a ton of banned books. Lots of Judy Blume, and S.E. Hinton's The Outsiders, and Fahrenheit 451. The Diary of Anne Frank.  I had already read Romeo and Juliet. I am proud to say these books helped make me the person I am today. 

(Even after playing my Cyndi Lauper cassette multiple times, I still couldn't figure out what was so naughty about "She Bop," which had also been mentioned in the article. I was precocious  in a very limited sort of way.)

Look, you don't have to like everything. You are within your rights to find art everywhere on the scale from bad to tasteless to offensive to obscene. You need not ever spend your money to support art or artists that you don't like or agree with. I have a very low personal tolerance for on-screen violence. Even in a film like Kill Bill, where it is purposefully over the top, and stylized, and clearly part of Tarantino's artistic vision, I can't watch. But I shouldn't get to say that just because it makes me feel uncomfortable, you don't get to watch it either. No one should get to say that.

Art should be one of the things that makes people uncomfortable. That challenges, that calls into question, that makes big claims. And sometimes, that discomfort is going to be powerful. Sometimes, it's going to be ugly and offensive. Sometimes, it will be just plain gross. As a creator, as someone who makes her living making art, it is my responsibility to support the right of other creators to make their art, no matter what it says. We don't just get to support the speech that is nice, that is pretty, that we agree with. Because then the question becomes, who decides? And we discover that we live in a world where two penises in proximity is just too much to handle.

Please consider supporting art and the first amendment by supporting the Comic Book Legal Defense Fund.

And the lingering of winter

It's grey outside, and rainy. Cold, too, with snow in the forecast. Not today, but the next three days. It won't stick, I know, but still. Snow, and no sign of green or bud.

Winter is worse in February, of course, where the snow does stick, where my eyes freeze shut when I walk the dog. But that is February, and while I dislike that cold, it's this part of winter, when it has gone on far too long, when it seems like spring never will arrive, when I think seriously of buying a plane ticket I can't afford to my parents' in New Hampshire - New Hampshire! - because it will feel like spring there, where winter hurts. I am depleted. There is nothing left.

Through much of this winter, I have been working on a book. Rewriting it, so that I could show it to beta readers, and now revising it. I am pretty much immersed in the process - I occasionally surface to faff about on twitter, or do other work, or buy groceries, or walk Sam, but mostly, it's me and the pages, and I don't get to come out until they're all good.

They will be. Soon.

I get bad at taking care of myself when I'm this deep in a project. I forget that coffee is not the only food. I don't return phone calls or emails. I cancel plans. I become like winter, grey and clinging, and no new green or flowers.

Winter is not a good season to live in, creatively. You discover there is nothing left. 

We learn, as writers, as artists, as people who make things, how to make our own spring. For me, much of that creative spring is found in the art of others - books and poetry and music and photography, and all the different things that help me see the beauty and the strangeness in the world. That make a space in my head where mystery can live. Which sounds very "let the muse come," but it isn't that. It's the artistic equivalent of taking care of myself, of remembering that vegetables are a food, and that I'll feel much better if I go for a run. If I don't remember to look outside of myself, I become like winter.

I am ready for the thaw.

"And both will be exalted"

"The Art of Asking." It's the title of the TED talk that Amanda Palmer gave, talking about the relationship between musician and fan. It's a great talk, and Amanda says a lot of things that are well worth listening to and thinking about.

(Watch it. Really.)

One of the things that really resonated with me in her talk was the idea that there is a connection between the artist and the fan, that when that connection is made, it's a way of seeing each other. It kept calling to mind this quote from the novel Howards End, by E. M. Forster:

"Only connect! That was the whole of her sermon. Only connect the prose and the passion, and both will be exalted, and human love will be seen at its height. Live in fragments no longer."

Here is Forster himself, talking about writing novels. Two things from this brief excerpt stuck out for me. When he explains why he stopped writing, he says that part of the reason was "the social aspect of the world changed very much." And when he talks about what is in his writing, he says, "and anyone who has read my books will see what I high value I attach to personal relationships."

Here is one more thing I want to add to this mix of things that I am thinking about, in terms of art and connection. It's Chuck Wendig's post in response to Amanda's talk, where he ponders whether the philosophy she's set out can work for writers as well:

"The audience is empowered. The artist is among them, not outside them.

We must make the connection easy. The bridge must be a short walk from audience to artist, from creator to collaborator. We all have to be a simple tweet away. A digital handshake, an invisible high-five. Stories that are not scarce or hidden but set on the box in the town square for all to see. Is that enough? Too much? Is that right for everybody? Wrong for too many?"

If you're reading this hoping I'm going to tie all these things up together and give you an easy answer, probably you should stop now. There aren't any easy, one-size-funds-all, answers here.

But.

Part of why I make art is to connect with people. I sit down at my desk and write because I believe that I have a story that is worth telling, and that only I can tell that story in that particular way. I publish my writing because I want to share those stories, because I feel that in them, I can make some sort of connection with the people who read them. I believe that, because that is how art affected me, how art continues to affect me. I have been moved to tears - of sorrow and of joy - by book and film and painting and sculpture and dance and music. Art matters deeply to me. It is a thing that helps me reach outside of myself, to be bigger and better than I was before.

The social aspect of the world has changed. The artist is among the audience. I see you. You see me.

When I had my first signing, I had been a published author for less than 24 hours. And it wasn't for a novel. It was for a short story, "A Life in Fictions," in the anthology Stories, edited by Neil Gaiman and Al Sarrantonio. The event was at Columbia University, and it was a reading with Neil, and Joe Hill, and Jeffrey Ford, and Walter Mosley, and Larry Block. And me. When the reading was over, I was so sure no one would want me to sign the book (as one of my friends said, "Kat, you're the only one in here I've never heard of."), I went straight back to the green room to thank the organizers. Except there was a woman (Teresa Jusino, who I will always remember as being the first person I ever signed a book for) waiting for me in the hall. And someone else who stopped me later. And a man on the stairs, who said, "I thought maybe you didn't want to talk to anyone."

I did. I just didn't know anyone wanted to listen. The social aspect of the world has changed. 

The thing about asking, is that by asking, you're saying what you do has worth. I have never doubted that art matters, matters a lot, can honestly save a life, but it is hard for me to say that  my art matters when saying that it matters is attached to saying, "give me money or other non-monetary support, and help me make it." It's not that I don't believe artists should get paid - I do! Believe me. I don't send my work to markets that don't pay professional rates, and I believe those stories are worth the checks I deposit. But saying "here is this thing, and I wrote it, and it's on my blog, and if you like it, maybe you could pay me so I can eat and have coffee and also an apartment and health insurance? Or even if you can't pay me now, maybe later? Or send cookies, or a nice letter?" that's a scarier kind of asking. That's saying, "this matters because it matters."

I don't know if the kind of asking that Amanda talks about translates for a writer, is the other thing. Maybe it does - the social aspect of the world has changed. The artist is among the audience. Maybe there should be a traveling group of writers who go from city to city and tell stories, like musicians on tour. I'd sign up. I use social media all the time to tell people their work has mattered to me. I buy music direct from the artists. I've donated to writers who have been going through difficult times.

And yes, I know I could self-publish. I know I could crowdfund. But I don't want to be my own publisher (and editor, and cover designer, and copy editor, and pr person, and and and). And those things don't solve all the problems. Not everyone is online (most of my work is, and my Mom prints out copies of my stories to send to my grandparents, who want to read me, and can't unless they have physical copies.) Not everyone can afford an ereader. Self-publishing and crowdfunding don't get my work into bookstores, into libraries. I want to write. I want to connect.

Which I guess brings me back to the question Chuck asked: How do writers and storytellers ask for your attention and your help?

How can we better connect? How can we see each other?

Sweeney in New York

One of my favorite figures from myth is poor mad Sweeney, who angered a priest, and got cursed into being a bird.

You know, like this:

"My curse fall on Sweeney
for his great offence.
His smooth spear profaned
my bell's holiness,

cracked bell hoarding grace
since the first saint rang it - 
it will curse you to the trees,
bird-brain among the branches."

Seamus Heaney, from "Sweeney Astray." (Sadly hard to find in the States, worth whatever you have to pay to get a copy.)

Or maybe you recognize him here:

"The circles of the stormy moon
Slide westward toward the River Plate,
Death and the Raven drift above
And Sweeney guards the horned gate."

T.S. Eliot, from "Sweeney Among the Nightingales"

Buile Suibhne, or The Madness of Sweeney, is a terrific story, a national epic, like Beowulf. I love all the pieces of it.

And so I wrote a story, about poor Mad Sweeney, and took him across the sea to America, to New York City. It's called "Painted Birds and Shivered Bones," and it is out today, in the Spring issue of Subterranean. Thank you to Bill, for asking me to try my hand at writing something longer, to Geralyn, who knitted me the Scarf of Encouragement, to Birdy, whose cover of "Terrible Love" I listened to on constant repeat while writing this. Thank you to my beta readers, and to my excellent agent Joe, who took me for soup dumplings once I had sold this. Thank you to Seamus Heaney, who first introduced me to Sweeney, and to Neil Gaiman, who was the reason my students had any clue at all who Sweeney was when I taught the poem.

I hope you like it.

That has such people in't

The internet can be a strange place. Every place can be, of course, and maybe I'm wrong to think of the internet as somehow separate. But. Still.

I don't have any alerts set up. Not for my name, not for my stories, not for anything I've been involved with. I don't vanity search. I do, occasionally, read my reviews, but even that tends to be something I'm careful about. I avoid these things because, honestly, I feel like there's some sort of unspoken internet rule that as soon as you set these things up, the universe will slap you - the first review you find will be bad, the first mention will be something hurtful. And I know how I am, and I know how my brain works, and so I know that I am much better off missing the good stuff, if it means that I also miss the bad.

And we hear all the time "don't read the comments" "don't feed the trolls" "avoid the bottom half of the internet." There is, it seems, something in the fact that the interface is a screen, not a face, that allows people to be crueler here than they would be in physical life.

Though, sometimes, we are cruel face to face, too.

I was walking my dog this morning and a man I had never met before blocked my way on the sidewalk. "Your dog looks old," he said. "You should put it to sleep."

I'd like to say that I was tough, that I was a badass, that I said something cutting, and punched him for good measure. But my dear cat died in November, and it has been an awful few months for beloved pets among my friends and family, and so I did not act like a badass. Instead, I grabbed Sam I Am into my arms, and burst into tears.

And then I came inside and told twitter. 

And the internet was collectively awesome.

Maybe it doesn't seem a big deal, to type "hugs" or "I'm sorry" or "that guy was a jerk" in response to someone. But seeing a timeline fill up with collective support, it's kind of great. And in this instance, it was a really clear reminder that, even though there are cruel people in the world, there are also kind ones, that people can act from love, too.

So thank you, to everyone who took a moment to be kind today.