What We Can Do

personby Nancy Jane Moore
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Reading Lyz Lenz’s latest newsletter (“Thank You, Dads of YouTube” ) brought me to the edge of tears.

It wasn’t her success at fixing her washer that got me. It was the fact that a woman much younger than I am still grew up surrounded by the belief that there were things women couldn’t do.

As someone old enough to remember how important this issue was in second wave feminism 50 years ago, it breaks my heart to know that so many people are still growing up with these stunted beliefs.

I don’t doubt that it’s true. It’s why I hope to teach some more self defense classes if we ever get enough of a handle on the pandemic for me to feel comfortable in a room full of people learning to yell “No.” Way too many women still believe that the fact that the average man is a little stronger than the average woman means they can’t protect themselves.

Spending half my life in the martial arts watching small people kick the asses of big people did that one in for me. I want to make sure other people know it, too.

We did make legal progress in the second wave, though the recent outrageous action of the partisan hacks on the US Supreme Court in nullifying the right to abortion by allowing a clearly unconstitutional Texas law to take effect is damaging legal rights as well.

(I was in law school when Roe v. Wade was decided. That was also a Texas case and I have met the lawyer who brought it — she was also my state representative back in the day.)

The same hacks also dismantled voting rights laws. It is not just women under attack in our society.

The extremist attacks make me angry, but the fact that so many women are still buying into the myths we fought to overcome in the 1970s is what breaks my heart. Continue reading “What We Can Do”…

Manners for Writers

personby Madeleine Robins
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Manners are important. I’m not talking about not chewing with your mouth open (though please, don’t). I’m talking about that old stalwart you heard when you were a kid: Don’t be a Brat. Don’t talk back.

Really: someone on Amazon doesn’t like your book? Pound a pillow, burn her in effigy, but resist the impulse to get on line and explain in detail why You are Right and She is Wrong, Wrong, Wrong. It’s a losing game, I promise you.  The best you can do is say “I’m really sorry it didn’t work for you.”  Silence is even better.

Don’t Talk Back to Editors. You’d think this was a no-brainer, but sadly: no.

Case in point. An acquaintance of mine, years and years ago, wrote a novel.  Friend, who liked my mother and valued her literary judgment, sent her a copy of the manuscript and asked if she knew any editor who might be willing to look at the book.  So far, so good.  This is how careers get started.

My mother, ever helpful, read the manuscript, was dubious, but sent it on to one of her best friends who was, in fact, an editor at a Major Metropolitan Publishing House.  And the friend, because she loved my mother, read the book. And sent back an eight page letter to my friend, explaining why the book was not commercially viable, and giving detailed feedback about what problems needed to be fixed in order to render the thing more commercial and, therefore, more publishable.

Think about this: this editor took the time to read the manuscript and give pages and pages of useful feedback to the author on a book that she had no interest in publishing.  She did it because she and my mother were friends.  And what did my friend do?

Fired off a letter explaining the ways in which the editor was Wrong Wrong Wrong.

Now, even if the editor had been wrong (and, at least in my opinion, she was not), what my friend should have done was say “Thank you so much for your time and professional expertise, for which I did not pay a dime. I will take your cogent suggestions to heart, and hope to submit the revised novel to you at a later time.” After that, she could have gone home, pounded that pillow, burnt the effigies, whatever made her feel better.  But writing a tantrum-like letter to the editor was dumb in a Big Dumb Way.  Not only did she burn that particular bridge; she burnt a lot of bridges with one fell swoop.  Cause editors talk to each other.  They go out to lunch, they call each other, they email, and you can bet that if my friend submitted a book to someone who mentioned her name to my mother’s friend the editor, the feedback would not have been stellar.

This doesn’t mean you can’t advocate for your work.  If someone says “we want to publish your book, but we really want the protagonist to be a lizard,” it’s perfectly reasonable to say “You know, that’s not the book I wanted to write, and while I appreciate your viewpoint, that’s a dealbreaker for me.”  But don’t tell an editor that your therapist, your writing workshop, or the guy who makes your latte at Starbucks think your book is a flawless work of genius as it is.  It’s the editor who’s going to have to persuade the company to spend money buying the book, and publishing and advertising the book.  Anything you can do to make yourself look like someone she wants to work with is a good thing.

Being a brat, obviously, is not.

_______
This was originally published at Book View Cafe.

September 11

personby Nancy Jane Moore
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Tomorrow is the 20th anniversary of the September 11 attacks here in the United States. Many people will give pious speeches and talk about “never again.” Perhaps there will be a reading of the names of the 3,000 people who died in the attacks.

I wonder if anyone will talk about how little we learned from the experience.

Don’t get me wrong: I was profoundly affected by those attacks. I lived in Washington, DC, at the time. My sister and her family lived (and live) three blocks from where the World Trade Center used to be.

I spent a couple of hours trying to get in touch with my sister that morning before it finally dawned on me to call my parents in Texas. My sister and her family were fine and so was their building, though they weren’t allowed to go home for a month. And I explained to my parents that the Pentagon was actually in Virginia so that I was not at risk.

Though I worked about six blocks from the White House. I’ve always thought the plane that went down in Pennsylvania was headed for the White House.

Anyway, I walked home that day, all six miles, because I assumed that anyone attacking Washington, DC, would take advantage of the chaos in traffic and public transit to do even more damage. And then I stared at the TV for the next couple of days.

Like many people, I wanted to do something useful after the attacks. There was a lot of talk of organizing neighborhood groups that could help people in the event of emergencies. Those emergencies would include disasters and pandemics. (Cell phone use was not widespread in 2001.) Continue reading “September 11”…

Zen Yoga Writing practice?

personby Deborah J. Ross
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A confession: I like to read at bedtime. In this company, that’s nothing unusual. All the sleep hygiene experts say not to, that beds should be used for sleeping and only one other activity. What do they know? I find something deeply comforting about curling up with a good–but not too exciting–book. Perhaps it evokes memories of my mother reading aloud to me, or it’s just “me time.”

Often I include in my nightly reading a page or two of something that stretches my mind. I don’t mean that in the intellectual sense, for I definitely want to be quieting my thoughts, not forcing myself to think critically. I try to choose books that get inside my brains and stretch them gently in unexpected directions, like mental yoga before settling into my comfort reading.

An example of this kind of reading is Natalie Goldberg’s LONG QUIET HIGHWAY. Goldberg is a writing teacher, essayist and novelist who is also a long-time student of Zen Buddhism. I was introduced to her work years ago with her WRITING DOWN THE BONES, and had always thought of her as a teacher in the style of Julia Cameron: “Morning pages,” keep the pen moving, let your thoughts flow, that sort of advice. LONG QUIET HIGHWAY is autobiographical rather than instructive. I was deeply moved by how she put together mundane, specific details in ways that brought tears to my eyes. More than that, she has gotten me thinking — or rather, feeling/sensing — more deeply about the role of writing in my own life. Yes, it’s a pleasure and an obsession; yes, it’s my occupation, how I earn my living.

  • Mountain Pose: Could it also be the lens through which I view the world? Sure, no problem; every new experience is grist for the mill. That’s the easy answer, just as the plot skeleton is the easy description of a story. As a writer, I know that storyness is much deeper than plot. Can I use that same insight to listen more deeply, look beyond appearances, appreciate the interwoven complexity of my community and environment?
  • Dancing Shiva Pose: How about writing as a spiritual practice? Um, isn’t that a bit pretentious…or is it? Is there something moving through me, speaking through me, when I write from my heart? Can I shove my ego as well as my intellect out of the way? Speaking of intellect, and ego, and mind…
  • Pigeon Pose: Could writing help me become better acquainted with my own mind? The way my thoughts sometimes behave like grasshoppers on steroids? The phrases and connections and story elements I use repeatedly, without intention? The cycles of feeling I’ve written something fine, only to plummet to the certainty it’s all drek, that I can never get anything right?
  • Corpse Pose: Is writing a way of stilling my thoughts and becoming fully present–through words, are you kidding? Ah, those moments when it feels like I’m not making up these words, they’re coming from somewhere else, I’m just a lens, a focal point through which light passes.

I have no easy answers, but I will be watching myself–my self–more closely as I write. And who knows, I might even achieve a new literary Downward-Facing Dog.

Goodness, Sweetness and just a touch of ratbaggery

personby Gillian Polack
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Firstly, let me wish you all a happy and healthy and good and sweet New Year.

Rosh Hashanah starts very, very soon in Australia (I’ve put a delay on publication, so that it’s on Monday for most of you, but it’s already Monday afternoon here) and I’m furiously trying to get everything done in time. Lockdown, oddly, makes everything harder. If you’d asked me a few years ago, I’d have said “But of course it makes things easier.” I have apple and I have honey and I have mooncake in lieu of honeycake. I’m meeting my mother and her BFF and one of my BFFs online in a bare few minutes. My friend is a cantor and we’re going to have some music.

What makes this Rosh Hashanah special is my friends. One friend found me an apple. Another found me some honey. A third went to considerable length to get me mooncake. Even though I’ll be alone… I won’t be alone.

The downside is the number of people who want things from me today and tomorrow (sorry, but I can’t do these things) or, worse, the half-dozen different people who, just this week, have sent me invitations or reminders for events on my Day of Atonement.

To be honest, I’m not that observant. The more difficult people become around me because I’m Jewish, however, the more I stick to my special days. Holding gorgeous science fiction events (three of them! three different organisations!) on my holiest of holy days will make me stick to what I was taught as a child and even to fast and to pray. This has been the case ever since primary school. So many people have wanted me to be less Jewish or even not Jewish at all, and every time they express this or encourage me to be Christian or to eat pork or simply to work after sunset on days like today… I discover my Judaism all over again.

I do wonder what my religious views would be if I didn’t encounter antisemitism so often, or the limited toleration that I’m facing now. That limited toleration means that I make my mother happy, by doing the right things. This is not a bad outcome.

Whatever you believe or don’t believe, celebrate or don’t celebrate, please have a wonderfully good and sweet year. For anyone who, like me, will be fasting (at least as much as the doctor permits) then well over the fast. And for all of us, may we get through this pandemic well and safely and emotionally intact.

What Condition Our Condition Is In

personby Nancy Jane Moore
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“I just dropped in to see what condition my condition was in.”

— Mickey Newberry

What with fires, hurricanes, other storms, heat waves, the ongoing pandemic, and outrageous laws targeting reproductive and voting rights, our condition is headed for the ICU. And that’s just in the United States.

I could rant about any and all of these things, but there are plenty of other people doing that. Instead, I want to make a point that might be getting overlooked as people deal with our many crises:

The normal that we thought we had doesn’t exist anymore. We can’t go back to the way things were, because that isn’t going to solve any of our problems.

Or as I put it in a senryu this week:

We keep making plans
for the way we wish things were,
not the way they are.

Take the hurricanes. The new levees held in New Orleans, so some flooding was prevented. But there were communities that didn’t have levees yet that were inundated. Plus the investor-owned utility “solutions” for making sure the city would still have electricity didn’t work — power is still out all over the area.

And none of that work stopped the damage in New York City, where people died in basement apartments due to flooding.

We can’t just respond to hurricanes by building a few levees and pretending we’ve addressed a complex problem that is getting much worse due to climate change. We have to look at preserving what’s left of barrier islands, to set up power systems based on micro grids and batteries, to stop building in areas that will flood repeatedly, and generally to approach the whole problem in a multifaceted way.

Otherwise, we’re going to end up with a lot of climate refugees within our own country. Continue reading “What Condition Our Condition Is In”…

Politics in Families

personby Madeleine Robins
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Blaine A. White, Creative Commons

Okay, we’re living in a moment when politics are… a fraught subject. I listened the other night as my 25-year-old daughter and my husband–who are not actually on opposite sides of the fence–had a 45-minute conversation fight discussion exchange about something. My daughter has admirable patience when talking with people of opinions that do not march with hers. With  her parents (whose politics are not far from hers at all), well  the word “scolding” comes to mind. But we are her parents, so there’s that.

The fraughtness of politics within families sometimes has less to do with opinions than with family dynamics. This is one reason why I almost never talk politics (or religion) with my brother. He and I are so far apart on the political spectrum that it’s hard to believe we share any DNA at all. Continue reading “Politics in Families”…

Special Office Organising Tools and Their Joy #29.237

personby Gillian Polack
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It’s odd that the amount of excitement in life can bear almost no relationship at all to how much space one has. What’s even odder is that when life is so full of things to do that it’s bursting at the seams, when I need at least three more hours in any given day that the day starts to reduce to… at the moment… pink sticky notes. My desk is covered in these things. Each one I scrunch up and add to the recycling box is an achievement.

These pink sticky notes are not about achievement. I can edit a novel, or write a conference paper, or prepare a bibliography and not one of these pieces of work made it into pink sticky notes. In fact, I’ve done all three of things, in multiples, over the last few days and not a single pink sticky note was produced.

The pink sticky notes are for the little things that have to be done but can’t take priority over something as large as an approach to a 5,000 word essay. I’ve just scrunched up one that reminded me I had to confirm I’d be at a conference in a couple of weeks. I’ve already written most of the paper for it, but I have two sentences to add, and have a note for those two sentences. I’m about to scrunch up another note, that reminded me to use a consistent plural for an invented word. Yet another tells me that a shop delivers to my suburb once a week. I have no idea what I needed from that shop, or even if it was something I had to check for an entirely different reason. Let me find out and get back to you.

I hope you enjoyed your break. It’s the Canberra branch of a Singapore food outlet and I am missing my Singapore friends, so I was dreaming of getting something delivered on the once-a-week they are doing lockdown deliveries to my part of Canberra. It’s a dream, but a nice one. They have three of my favourite dishes (beef rendang, Hainanese chicken, fried chicken) and I want to know how good they are and I want to have a set and think of friends I had expected to see last year or this. I now know they exist and one day I’ll taste their food.

Now that I know why I wrote a note, I can throw it out. I’ve thrown out a handful of pink sticky notes and the only ones left are actions I have to take. I need to write an article, and some fiction. I have a rather special note that explains the pronunciation of a name in a world friends and I have been working on, and another for my coming New Year’s eve (5 pm, it says, which is a reminder that I’ll be meeting an old friend online at that time and on that day).

I like sticky notes. They look like litter, but are gems. I snuck them into a short story once, to pay tribute to the important role they play on days when I don’t want to use lists.

Basically, they’re a trick I play on myself when I’m not as sorted as I should be. They help me keep up with the small things in life. Not just books I want to read or restaurants I’m curious about. In fact, mostly not these at all. The first ones to be sorted when I am in that mode are the ones that have deadlines. Today I had one that said “Write to R.” That was about a novel, and I had to finish all the work to make the novel ready to write about before I could write that email then scrunch up the note.

Someone asked me the other day how I worked through stress. Sticky notes is one of my favourite methods. When I’m unstressed I can remember everything, or write lists. When the world becomes too much (as it has been for over two years) I deal with some of the stress by littering my desk then symbolically clearing it by recycling everything that’s done. It’s not at all efficient, but it’s very satisfying, especially on a bad day.

When I was young, I thought I’d grow up into handling big things with aplomb. That aplomb was going to make my whole life triumphant and full of vigour. I thought stress was a thing that teenagers suffered and that I would grow out of it. Neither of these things happened. Instead, I developed a raft of tricks for handling my life when it becomes tough. Today was a day when I had to do All the Things, but it was also a day when my body announced its discomfort with me being in it. I had to deal with pain and deadlines. I’ve not done all the things I wanted to finish, but I’ve done a very solid day’s work and I don’t have any outstanding sticky notes. There’s no triumph and hardly any vigour, but I am ending the day with the sense that I haven’t wasted it.

If I can do the same amount tomorrow, then I may even catch up with all the things I need to do before back to back meetings tomorrow night. I shall dream of such an outcome. For the day ended hours ago, and I’m off to sleep.

I suspect I might dream of pink sticky notes tonight. Just suspect, mind.

It’s Not Cute, Damn it.

personby Laura Anne Gilman
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Yep, it’s another month, another installment of “Better Humaning Through Dogs.”

Generally, I try to write about the positive elements of dog companionship – or at least, the interesting ones. And generally, people who love or work with dogs understand the psychology of these animals, or are willing to learn.

But sometimes, I swear to dog, er, god, media makes education difficult, and I just have to scream.

Recently I saw a People magazine article, one of those clickbait headlines squibs, about a puppy so protective of a new family member, it wouldn’t even let the baby‘s mama touch baby. And it was, as these things always are reported, done up in a sweetly twee, isn’t it cute! tone.  Isn’t that a good dog?

No, it’s not cute. At that level, it’s called resource guarding, and it’s not something you should be encouraging in your dogs, OK? (Or your cats, for that matter.)  Yes, dogs are excellent guardians, and are often very careful and watchful around the younger members of their pack, four or two-legged.

But when the family dog gets upset when anyone else comes near the baby, to the point of growling or showing teeth, Rover or Fluffy isn’t being protective over your offspring. Rover or Fluffy is claiming them as their property, their territory.  That’s a version of resource guarding, and it’s not a healthy situation, much less “cute.”

Resource guarding, within context, isn’t a bad thing.  Between dogs, it’s annoyingly common – I’ve seen this play out more times than I like, working with shelter dogs, with friend’s dogs, with my own dog. Between dogs, its a way of laying down boundaries: this is mine and I will share it, this is mine and I will not. Most dogs will recognize and accept those boundaries, and back down (when they don’t, that’s when you get dog fights).

But humans, for the most part, are clueless about the warning signs, and very bad about backing off.  And no, you can’t count on your dog recognizing you, and knowing that you are to be trusted.  Not in the instant of reaction, anyway.  To the resource guarding dog’s mind, everything is a potential threat to their possession of the beloved object.  Even another pack member, maybe even alpha pack members.  And they’re not going to sit back and rationally think it out; they’re going to respond the way they’re designed to, quickly, efficiently, and potentially bloodily.

And a dog’s idea of defensive behavior?  Involves teeth.

That means anyone attempting to reach for the child, in the case of this article, or a person in need of medical care, or even a partner attempting to show affection, risks getting bitten.  Maybe badly.

So yeah, articles like the one I saw are the worst kind of narrative, assigning emotions and motives inaccurately, and making it seem like a good thing. A trained guard dog does not behave that way. An untrained guarding dog is a danger to everybody. Including that dog. Because you know what too-often happens to dogs that bite. Even if they’re not at fault.

So yeah, please, please.  If you have a dog that is showing signs of resource guarding against humans, particularly if they’re resource guarding another human, get them (and you) professional help to stop it.

The life you save may be theirs.

for more information, I’d suggest starting here.

Random Thoughts on Revising a Novel

personby Deborah J. Ross
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I just received editorial comments and a marked-up manuscript of the current novel from the editor. It’s such a joy to work with a professional who “gets it” and offers intelligent, insightful feedback. Editorial comments are quite different from critiques, by the way. At least, in my experience. While both can be valuable, the critiquer is essentially outside the story, jabbing at its shortcomings, whereas a good editor gets inside the story with the author, rolls up her sleeves, and says, “Let’s work together to make this book its best self.” And I have a great editor.
Next comes the process of working with the notes to formulate a revision plan. Yes, there is such a thing! Every author approaches revision a bit differently, and in my experience every book requires me to approach it from a slightly different angle. Sometimes the only way to grapple with a structural flaw is to take the whole thing apart, rewrite entire sections, and then put them back together in a different order. Think of it like a Christmas tree, where you’re going to keep only half the ornaments but must replace the others as well as the tree itself . That pine tree just won’t do—we need a noble fir! For other books, the basic structure or armature is sound but all the ornaments and branches are out of balance. There may be problems in pacing, for example, or characters that need to be more fully developed.
The first step is to read through the notes not once but several times, deciding firstly what comments are spot-on, which ones miss the mark—revealing how I failed to convince even a careful reader—which ones I have questions about, and so forth. From there, I make a problem list. By this time, it’s usually clear how much rewriting (as opposed to tidying up, minor shifting around, tightening, emphasizing, weaving in themes, etc.) I’ll have to do. Since it isn’t a good use to time to just dive in, willy-nilly, I also create a priority list or diagram, sometimes a flow chart. Novels can be like spiderwebs, where a tug on one thread affects the whole. Rather than have to go through multiple rounds of revision, I develop a sense of the order of changes. That said, I usually do a round of revisions and then a “jeweler’s polish” read-through to spot typos and inconsistencies introduced by the changes.
I love to revise and often fine myself immersed in it for long periods of time. This is a good thing because it involves keeping the entire story in mind—all 100,000-150,000 words (which is my typical novel length) of it.