Yet more thoughts on Authorial Constructs

I suspect that one of the big disconnects some people are having with the discussion is in seeing this as the authors involved complaining about a problem.

I don't think the discussion is primarily about a huge problem anyone is having at all, so much as it about talking about cognitive tools for understanding a phenomena that is encountered in greater and greater degree the more broadly you are known of beyond the circle of people who simply know you.

For some people it certainly does become a problem. For some the idea of authorial construct is a handy tool that allows them to separate from their work. For some it's simply a fascinating cognitive phenomena. It's also important to note that it's not only or even mainly about a person's deliberate public persona.

In the case of authors, at least, people form opinions about who a writer is sometimes based entirely on what they've read in the writer's books, and without any clues other than that and name.

This is one reason why several of my readers have been quite startled to find out that I'm a burly bald man and not the bookish woman they built in their heads by working with my gender-ambiguous name and the stuff of mine that they've read.

A Further Exploration of Auctorial Constructs

This started out as a response to Lyda's post below, discussing Elizabeth Bear's post on auctorial constructs. It got big enough that I thought I would post it here.

Two explanations explorations of what I think Elizabeth Bear is talking about.

1. I have a picture of Tate Hallaway all dressed up and wearing great makeup, and I have met her at cons. If that was who I was expecting Lyda Morehouse to be in real life, I would be disappointed to discover that she is a totally different person. This is true whether or not you use a psuedonym, though I think in Lyda's case, she can dissociate the Tate persona a further degree because it's not the same name as she uses in day to day life.

But for many authors, it is the same name, and that sales pitch/con job/show they put on at conventions and readings and on the internet is who fans think they really are.

2. You may know details of my life. (Some of you know too many...) Most of those are completely different details, though, than the details the people who attend the synagogue I run would know. If you met someone from the synagogue and began discussing me, you would find out very soon that they have a completely different story of who I am in their head than you do in yours.

Yet, for many people, that story in their heads of who a person is is who the person is. This is completely understandable; we have to rely on the information we have learned about the world in order to make any decisions at all, or risk being paralyzed by constantly questioning absolutely everything. (Is the ground actually solid, or will I fall through it if I step ahead? Or behind me?! What if electricity can leap out of those wall sockets and burn me?) To be rational is to rationalize, to construct a mental definition of the world or some component of it, and then operate according to the definition we have determined. So we beleive that the things we know about someone, or things we think we know, are true things about that person. And we make judgements about people based on the things we think we know about them--what sort of person they are, whether or not they are reliable, flighty, serious, playful, etc.

With anyone you don't know personally, and especially anyone who has a public persona, this effect is magnified by a further remove. Not only do you have details that you beleive you have learned about them, but you also don't have the opportunity to verify those details in person. Yet by default we make determinations of value about details we think we know. Think of the game of Telephone and add in moral evaluations, and suddenly, you've got the internet and the gossip channels and auctorial constructs.

Thoughts on Fame/Authorial Constructs

I spent a long time on Friday trying to digest Elizabeth Bear's comments on authorial constructs, and I don't think I really understand what she's talking about.

Over the weekend, I had an interaction with some people who happened to be readers of my work, and that made me understand her comments even less. I tried to talk about it here on my livejournal, but as I said in my comment to Kelly's post on Friday. I think I'm laboring under a misunderstanding about what this thing is -- authorial construct, because if I have one, I've never properly used it.

I mean, I understand that one ought to be professional-looking/acting at a con. I also understand that, to some extent, my life on "the Internets" is a kind of a lie. I, in point of fact, HAVE a pseudonym. But, I don't really understand how any of this is something that is going to confuse a reader of mine when I meet them in person. Perhaps this has to do with my position in the strata of famousness. I get squeed at, sure. But, I think my writing is pretty awesome too. So my experience tends to be a mutual squee. Then we talk about LotRs or Battlestar Galactica or Latin clubs and life goes on....

But I will admit to bouncing off her post initially. I'm absolutely certain there's some key component I'm not getting.

Smart Things

Elizabeth Bear saying very smart things about the way that a public figure's image becomes a separate entity from the actual person. It's a really useful tool for thinking about authorial image and for dealing with the places where what people expect you to be and what you are diverge.

Friday Cat Blogging

Mug shots are such a pain. I need to get arrested less often.



Sometimes lazer eyez need kickstart



Not paranoid, the aliens really are out to get me.



Told ya I could see over my belly, now help me outta here!



Marge, pass me the remote, wouldja.

NanoSail!

Featured in this artist's illustration, NASA's NanoSail-D finally unfurled a very thin, 10 square meter reflective sail on January 20th, becoming the first solar sail spacecraft in low Earth orbit. Often considered the stuff of science fiction, sailing through space was suggested 400 years ago by astronomer Johannes Kepler who observed comet tails blown by the solar wind. Modern solar sail spacecraft designs, like NanoSail-D or the Japanese interplanetary spacecraft IKAROS, rely on the small but continuous pressure from sunlight itself for thrust. Glinting in the sunlight as it circles planet Earth, the NanoSail-D solar sail will periodically be bright and easily visible to the eye. In fact, skygazers are urged to participate in an ongoing contest to capture images of NanoSail-D. The images will help NASA monitor the satellite before it reenters the atmosphere in April or May.

5 Things

K.M. Walton has this to say about 5 Things I Wish I Knew Before I Queried. Not sure all of it applies to genre writing, but I like what s/he has to say about the power of a good critique group.

Erotica? Sadly, No.

I haven't done much of anything this morning other than sneeze. I don't quite know what happened, but I didn't just have an allergy attack... it was some kind of ambush!!

But my eyes and nose are starting to recover, I think. And, I did manage to get two other things done.

1) The dishes. This was a rather monumental feat, as we had a full-on Sunday dinner yesterday, including a roasted chicken, gravy, fried potatoes, beans, and a salad. I think I pretty much used all the dishes in the house, especially since I'd made scones earlier for breakfast. While I was doing said dishes I got a call from the folks at Mad Norwegian. They had just one more thing for me to look at...

So, I downloaded the file and 2) I went over the final proof of the short story included in RESURRECTION CODE, "Ishtartu." After having re-read that I have to say that there is absolutely NO HOPE of me having a lucrative side-career as an erotica writer. It's actually not a bad short story (which, again, is not one of my stronger suits), but there's not a lot of sizzle. There's sex, and, you know, I spell some of it out, but it's actually quite *sweet.* You could actually read it out loud at a late-night reading, because, while *I* might blush at some of the words, there's actually not that much that even happens on stage. Much of it is left to the imagination.

It's kind of sad, really.

If only because I have this weird notion in my head that some day I'm just going give up on this hard stuff and write fun, "trashy" erotica. Yet, you'd think I'd remember that every time I sit down to write something I think will be fun and "easy," it's still writing, and writing is always hard. And, sadly, writing something good enough to be published still means I need to have character development, plot, etc., which is all that stuff I find "hard" about writing in the first place. And, frankly, writing graphic sex scenes really difficult for me. Oh, I can imagine them, no problem. Write them down? That's a bit harder. I'm easily embarrassed by committing the erotic things I imagine to print, and also, like any description, writing a good, graphic sex scene takes practice that I just don't really have yet... you need to know when to brush stroke and when to stroke stroke, you know? Gah! I just embarrassed myself!

You see the problem.

Anyway, I need to get writing on Ana. My cat, Ms. All Ball, has just curled herself, like a baby, against my chest, so I guess that means I'm stuck at the computer anyway. I might as well be constructive.

Friday Cat Blogging Guest Cats

My feets, I hugs dem!



No, Mr Bond, I expect you to die.



I playz dead gud, even got the bloating thing nailed



I command you to bring me a…zzzzzzzz



BONUS CATS

My proud lion pose, you take pixure, yes?



All shall love me and despair!

NASA Photo of the Day

The big, beautiful Andromeda Galaxy, aka M31, is a spiral galaxy a mere 2.5 million light-years away. Two space-based observatories have combined to produce this intriguing composite image of Andromeda, at wavelengths outside the visible spectrum. The remarkable view follows the locations of this galaxy's once and future stars. In reddish hues, image data from the large Herschel infrared observatory traces enormous lanes of dust, warmed by stars, sweeping along Andromeda's spiral arms. The dust, in conjunction with the galaxy's interstellar gas, comprises the raw material for future star formation. X-ray data from the XMM-Newton observatory in blue pinpoint Andromeda's X-ray binary star systems. These systems likely contain neutron stars or stellar mass black holes that represent final stages in stellar evolution. More than twice the size of our own Milky Way, the Andromeda Galaxy is over 200,000 light-years across.

Mammoths!

Real life imitates Eleanor Arnason! (Found by Naomi Kritzer.)

Philip K. Dick Nominees!

For Immediate Release

2010 Philip K. Dick Award Nominees Announced

The judges of the 2010 Philip K. Dick Award and the Philadelphia SF Society, along with the Philip K. Dick Trust, are pleased to announce seven nominated works that comprise the final ballot for the award:

YARN by Jon Armstrong (Night Shade Books)
CHILL by Elizabeth Bear (Ballantine Books/Spectra)
THE REAPERS ARE THE ANGELS by Alden Bell (Henry Holt & Co.)
SONG OF SCARABAEUS by Sara Creasy (Eos)
THE STRANGE AFFAIR OF SPRING HEELED JACK by Mark Hodder (Pyr)
HARMONY by Project Itoh, translated by Alexander O. Smith (Haikasoru)
STATE OF DECAY by James Knapp (Roc)


First prize and any special citations will be announced on Friday, April 22, 2010 at Norwescon 34 at the Doubletree Seattle Airport Hotel, SeaTac, Washington.

The Philip K. Dick Award is presented annually with the support of the Philip K. Dick Trust for distinguished science fiction published in paperback original form in the United States. The award is sponsored by the Philadelphia Science Fiction Society and the Philip K. Dick Trust and the award ceremony is sponsored by the NorthWest Science Fiction Society. Last year’s winner was BITTER ANGELS by C. L. Anderson (Ballantine Books/Spectra) with a special citation to CYBERABAD DAYS by Ian McDonald (Pyr). The 2010 judges are William Barton, Andy Duncan (chair), Bruce McAllister, Melinda Snodgrass, and David Walton.

New Fan

A couple of nights ago, and I don't quite remember how it started, I ended up telling Mason about an incredibly charming character that my friend and fellow Wyrdsmith Eleanor Arnason created for her Lydia Duluth short story series named "Three Hoots." Alas, the story "Three Hoots" appears in hasn't been published yet, but Mason has been at the coffee shop with Eleanor when she was struggling with the plot of that exact story. Anyway, it's been marvelous to hear Mason running around the house shouting, "Fierce! Fierce! Many bodies in the shadows, ready to defend!" (which is a paraphrase, but close to some of the dialogue in the story.)

At any rate, I knew I had some Lydia stories around, so he read all of "Tomb of the Fathers" and pronounced it, "nearly as cool as Harry Potter." So, I spend a few minutes this morning searching my house of the rest of the series. I found Asimov issues that contained "Cloud Man," "Lifeline" and "Moby Quilt," but couldn't locate my copy of "Stellar Harvest" to save my soul! Mason is quite determined to read the Lydia ouevre. I'm sure he could read the other stories out of order, but he's kind of stuck on reading "Stellar Harvest" first. (Note: if someone could find me a non-pirated version of this story on-line, I'd love the link. An inital search only turned up Torrent.)

Can I say, too, how amazing it is that I can share stories with Mason that, if he has some question about, he can just ask the author? It's super-cool amazing. I don't know if he realizes *just* how super-cool amazing that is. I mean, he's growing up in a house where his ima is a published writer, so I'm sure he kind of expects that anyone can be.

But it is one of those things I always remind my students. If someone as dorky as me can get published, there's a pretty good chance you can too. Not that it's an easy road, mind. Just that it's possible.

Friday Cat Blogging-Lame Captions Ed.

Don't take my picture, Dude.
Can't you see I've been drinking?



Somewhere over the rainbow…



It's not the camera, I really am blurry!



Wide-load cat, is wide.

Don't Pull Your Punches, Not on My Account... Ow!

I don't really feel like writing today, especially since I read one of the WORST (as in harshest) reviews of ALMOST TO DIE FOR this morning on Red House Books. Check it out. I'm not saying it's unfair, it's just kind of brutal. It's never good, for instance, when the one thing the reviewer liked about the book is its cover. The one thing, in point of fact, I have zero control over.

Yowch!

I suppose it's better than saying they only liked the font... but wow. I think, too, one of the reasons that this review hit home for me is that, most of the time, I *know* when I've written a book that isn't my best. It's not something you're ever allowed to say out loud, and, you always kind of hope that no one else will notice. In fact, with ALMOST I've been quite taken aback by the fact that Publisher's Weekly liked this book enough to give it a starred review, when I personally believe EVERYTHING the reviewer at Red House had to say (before she said it.) I worked hard on the book, but I thought it was fairly deeply flawed from the beginning. And, you know, try as you might, not every book you write is going to be your best.

The Emperor, in case you wondered, has no clothes.

But, reading that first thing this morning kind of sucked the life out of my already fairly weak desire to work today. Alas.

Now don't feel compelled to tell me how awesome I am or run out and post "you're so wrong" over at Red House Books. Well, okay, you can tell me I'm awesome, but you know... don't harrass the reviewer. She's just expressing her honest opinion, which I actually respect. I post critical reviews of books by colleagues all the time. I think it's part of the deal I signed up for when I took on this writing gig.

It's all part of the life of a published writer. You get to take the good times (like finding out yesterday that ALMOST will be published in Chinese!) and you take the kicks in the teeth, too. I don't get mad when people honestly express their opinion of my work. It's sometimes demoralizing to read, but what can you do? If I could write a book that pleased everybody all of the time I'd be a best seller....

...Oh. Hmmmm.

:-)

NASA Photo of the Day

Gorgeous spiral galaxy NGC 3521 is a mere 35 million light-years distant, toward the constellation Leo. Spanning some 50,000 light-years, its central region is shown in this dramatic image, constructed from data drawn from the Hubble Legacy Archive. The close-up view highlights this galaxy's characteristic multiple, patchy, irregular spiral arms laced with dust and clusters of young, blue stars. In constrast, many other spirals exhibit grand, sweeping arms. A relatively bright galaxy in planet Earth's sky, NGC 3521 is easily visible in small telescopes, but often overlooked by amateur imagers in favor of other Leo spiral galaxies, like M66 and M65.

Speaking of Me...

Or of my debut, "Among Thieves." Or of writing. Or of all three, and a bit more...


I have my very first, honest-to-goodness interview up over at Fantasy-Faction, a U.K. fantasy blog (the name kinda gives it away, am I right?). We go into everything from writing to where I got my inspiration to pressure on writers to making people hungry. It's rather long, so instead of re-posting it here, I'm just going to say: Go read it.

And, just because I'm shamelessly plugging myself, I should also mention that "Among Thieves" is available for pre-order in the U.S. (at Amazon, or wherever else you shop), as well as the U.K. and Australia (again, Amazon U.K., and elsewhere).

Things a Writer Thinks About*

One of the things my family and I did on Sunday as a sort of post-stripe (I got my first belt stripe in the martial art I practice) celebration was go to the bookstore to stock up on winter reading. We did our usual used book circuit, which includes HalfPrice Books and Sixth Chamber. I spent much of Sunday resting my aching muscles on the couch and reading various Avengers comics.

Since then I've been struck by a bunch of strange observations about various superheroes. Like, how many superheroes must smell like Icy Heat... or, how do you suppose Peter Parker explains all his bruises? Do you think he just does what Bill Henry -- who would occasionally show up to Wyrdsmiths with a black eye -- would do and mutter, "soccer" or "rugby," and lets people just assume he's not out crime fighting in the streets on his off hours? Or why is it that no one pulled this skinny, nerdy kid away from his Aunt May and asked him, "Do you need a SAFE PLACE???!"

Seriously.

I read one of Brubaker's Marvel Age issues about Pearl Harbor and the Invaders, and that just really got me thinking about my grandparents and about all the strange things Captain America probably says/does/eats because of the era he grew up in. My grandparents always had coffee after dinner ....and ate bread with butter, like as a side dish. I'm being told on FB that much of this is probably ethnic (particularly my example of liver and onions), but you've got to figure there's something that Cap used to ask Jarvis to make for dinner that had the rest of the Avengers groaning.

Also on FB, my friend and fellow writer Jon Hansen are having fun imagining the weak coffee he probably made at Avenger's headquarters and exactly how insane that made Tony Stark.




And does he smell like Old Spice?

I mean, you could not go into a grandparent's bathroom without seeing that white bottle with the blue ship on it. And old people just smelled -- not like "the man my man could smell like" -- but like my grandpa'a Old Spice!

So, yeah, this is the kind of thing I spend my days thinking about.

----

*excerpt x-posted from LJ.

Ficcing Myself, In a Way

I was thinking, which is, of course, often a dangerous thing.

I was thinking that I should really do something fun to get people excited about the upcoming release of RESURRECTION CODE in March. And, it occurred to me that, because of the plot requirements of RC and the story I wanted to tell, there was a lot of Mouse history that didn't ACTUALLY make it into the book as scenes per se. Some of it ended up as pseudo-memoir or as commentary by Page or news articles or other things, but, the point is, there was all this stuff that I'd pre-imagined, if you will... some of it even got written out a bit.

So starting on Tuesday, February 1, 2011, I'm going to post one Mouse/AngeLINK original vignette my LJ once a week until the book comes out. I've already written two.

How about them apples, eh?

I can't promise they're going to be great literature or even entirely typo-free, but hopefully they will whet your appetite for what's to come.

Okay. Back to writing!

To Twitter or Not to Twitter...

On Twitter, Victoria Strauss linked to an article from the LA Times that implies that social media doesn't work for retailers.

I think that may be entirely true for people selling cans of beans. Personally, I can't imagine following a promotional link from a twitter from JC Penny to buy socks or whatever at half price, though I could see how some people might. But I think that to say this is an argument for not bothering with social media as an author misunderstands how readers interact with authors (as opposed to booksellers) these days.

I have to admit to finding an author not only through Facebook, but also through silly videos of cats on YouTube. I actually went out and bought books by these two people after my interaction with them (or their cats) on-line.

And I don't think I'm the only one.

I think that an author, these days, is expected to be available for the consumer almost like a product him or herself. You like my blog? Try my book! This may seem crass, but we -- at least in the science fiction community -- should be used to the concept of this. It's really not unlike the idea of going to a convention and being on panels so people can get an idea of who you are. It's the same, only a lot more international (and a lot harder to stand out.)

Also, frankly, I'm glad retailers haven't figured out how to dominate Facebook and Twitter entirely yet. I'd like to keep my social media fairly social, and leave the ads elsewhere.

Happy Birthday Tolkien*

We decided on a whim over this vacation, on Friday, to start watching the Lord of the Rings trilogy on DVD. Mason wasn't interested at first, but got caught up when Aragorn fights the ring wraiths and Frodo gets stabbed. When Boromir dies we all wept like dogs, and Mason was totally hooked. After that, it kind of became a thing. We met upstairs in the afternoon and sat down to watch the next one. Which went along fine until Sunday night, when --right at the point when Frodo is stung by the giant spider queen, Shelob -- the DVD flaked. We washed it. We tapped the DVD player. But the disc would spin no more.

So began my quest.

I drove out to Target just up the street on University, but they didn't have it. I called Borders on University, but they only had "Two Towers" in Blueray. Moving northward, I tried Barnes & Noble at Har Mar, called HPB in Roseville, went to Best Buy, called the Borders in Roseville Mall... NO ONE had it.

The guy at Barnes & Noble thought that there might be a copy in Maplewood, but he wasn't sure. I was losing hope. Then, I remembered who I was. I am a proud geek, member of the nerd herd. I got the phone and started calling my friends. Someone that I know must be a fan of the LotRs enough to have a copy! Or at least, maybe they would know someone who knew someone. I mean, come on, this is fandom, I figured I was probably only seven degrees of separation from Peter Jackson himself.

When I called around, my friend and fellow writer, Naomi Kritzer happened to be talking to friends who had a copy. I could meet them at their place and they would "but lend it to me." (Remember the scene in Fellowship with Boromir and Frodo? "If you would but lend it [the ring] to me...")

Hooray!

So we were able to watch the end last night. Now Mason is thinking we might do a "Harry Potter" with the Lord of the Rings -- which means read each book out loud and at the end of each book, watch the movie again. I'm totally up for that. I'd forgotten how much I loved the movies and how well I remember the first book. Speaking of fandom, it is my utter shame that I have, in point of fact, never read beyond Fellowship. What can I say? I was thirteen and dyslexic... still, I've always been embarrassed by this and usually deny it, if pressed.

Kind of cool, too, that today is J. R. R. Tolkien's birthday. It's almost like we planned this (only we didn't.)

-----

Excerpted from my LJ.

SF in Trouble

This is from an interview with Ted Chiang, though this quote comes from Gavin Grant:

“Science fiction is one of the biggest threads in popular entertainment,” Grant says. “There are lots of big movies, lots of TV shows based on science fiction premises, but science fiction is having this real trouble looking into the future and imagining what will happen. To look a decade or a hundred years in the future is very difficult, and there are a couple of outs that writers have been using. One, they say it’s too difficult to look into the future so we don’t have to, we can just write fantasy. Or they just look in the past and write steampunk and things like that. Don’t get me wrong, I like these things, but I think one of the things Ted does is to extrapolate rigorously and somewhat harshly, in a way that people can recognize from the life they’re living.“

The quote interests me, because it answers part of my question, where is SF going? What has been happening in the field?