I got edits back from my agent this week. Most of the edits were line edits, which are edits for spelling or punctuation or word usage. Line edits are things where you go, "Oh shoot! You're right," and then you click to accept the change and then move on with your life. They aren't big, global things like "I don't understand this character's motivation," or "This scene makes no sense," or "You should add a bunch of background or world building or cut a character."
Most of the edits were line edits. A big chunk of them were homophone mistakes.
Homophones are words that sound the same, but are spelled differently. Two, Too, and To. Your and You're. Don't worry, I've got those under control.
What I don't have under control are things like "compliment" and "complement." Did you know those are two different words? I just learned that a few years ago, and it's still blowing my mind. One means that things match or improve upon one another, like "That dress complements her complexion." The other is something nice you say to someone. "Thank you for the compliment about my dress!" For a real long time, I thought they were the same word, because both words are about lifting one another up. We're complimenting each other! We're complementing each other!
Alas! This is not the case.
The other one that blew my mind was "wander" and "wonder." One is when you stroll around without direction. One is when you think about something real hard or are in awe of something. I thought these were the same, because when you wonder, you are wandering around in your thoughts. Just...figuratively.
Alas! Also not the case.
I'm real bad at homophones, y'all. This is why the podcast was successful. No one can hear if those mistakes are there. Or not there. Maybe I did everything right. You'll never know.
This week, I made myself a Big List of Homophones. It's a list of way too many homophones that I'm likely to mess up, and before I send anything else out to my agent, I have to check everything that's on there and make sure I'm using it all correctly.
October 14, 2018
October 11, 2018
I read Leviathan Wakes
This week's novel is Leviathan Wakes
by James S.A. Corey.
I'd heard good things about The Expanse TV show, but at first, I didn't have access to it. Recently someone told me that the first couple seasons were on Amazon Prime, and I settled in to watch it. It might be a combination of my TV, my air conditioner, and the dialects that the characters have, but I can not hear a single word anyone is saying on that show. I turned the first couple episode up really loud and then I turned on the subtitles for the third episode, and then I realized that I didn't know anyone's name or what they were talking about, and if I was going to read the whole thing, I might as well track down the book. So thanks, Chicago Public Library!
In the future, a large portion of the solar system has been colonized, with Earth and Mars in an uneasy peace and people from the asteroid belt treated like second class citizens and reliant on Earth and Mars for resources. Detective Miller of Ceres is given a case of tracking down a girl named Julie, who has been hanging around with asteroid belt rebels, and whose rich dad wants her kidnapped and shipped back to Earth. Turns out Julie's ship was attacked in transit and the wreckage was found by a water tanker, which was promptly nuked by a stealth ship using technology from Mars. This sets off events that lead to armed conflict between the belt, Mars, and Earth, and through it all, Miller is trying to find Julie.
I get why this was made into a TV show. There are about a dozen set-piece action sequences, where a ship explodes or a riot happens or there's a space battle or they have to escape through a platoon of marines or zombies attack. It's a little exhausting to read in large chunks, but if you take a break after every episode, it's fun, even when you know there's still 15% of the book left and at least two more horrible things are going to happen.
I like how long the space travel takes. A couple of weeks pass between destinations, which feels genuine to the massive distances while at the same time putting us in the future where those distances are possible. It doesn't make traveling too easy, often emphasizing that if they're accelerating at 3 g, it means they spend the trip strapped in. The book does a good job of not dwelling on the boring transits while still conveying that time has passed.
I also just really like stories where colonizers on Mars end up fighting with Earth. I think it's the residual love for Babylon 5 that will never wash off.
I realized a little way into this book that it was written by a white dude, and I haven't read a book written by a white dude in a while. Parts of it felt a jarring after not experiencing them in a while, and I find it refreshing to think about how I could go so long without reading a book by a white guy that that could happen. There really isn't anything wrong with it, it's just that the two point of view characters are both men, and there are scant few female characters, and there is an awful lot of talk about balls. Having balls in high gs sounds awful. Thanks, book, for drawing this to my attention. That kind of detail probably wouldn't make it into a book written by a woman, and that's why representation is important.
***
Next week: a book not written by a dude. The Power, sci-fi where women take over the world, by Naomi Alderman.
I'd heard good things about The Expanse TV show, but at first, I didn't have access to it. Recently someone told me that the first couple seasons were on Amazon Prime, and I settled in to watch it. It might be a combination of my TV, my air conditioner, and the dialects that the characters have, but I can not hear a single word anyone is saying on that show. I turned the first couple episode up really loud and then I turned on the subtitles for the third episode, and then I realized that I didn't know anyone's name or what they were talking about, and if I was going to read the whole thing, I might as well track down the book. So thanks, Chicago Public Library!
In the future, a large portion of the solar system has been colonized, with Earth and Mars in an uneasy peace and people from the asteroid belt treated like second class citizens and reliant on Earth and Mars for resources. Detective Miller of Ceres is given a case of tracking down a girl named Julie, who has been hanging around with asteroid belt rebels, and whose rich dad wants her kidnapped and shipped back to Earth. Turns out Julie's ship was attacked in transit and the wreckage was found by a water tanker, which was promptly nuked by a stealth ship using technology from Mars. This sets off events that lead to armed conflict between the belt, Mars, and Earth, and through it all, Miller is trying to find Julie.
I get why this was made into a TV show. There are about a dozen set-piece action sequences, where a ship explodes or a riot happens or there's a space battle or they have to escape through a platoon of marines or zombies attack. It's a little exhausting to read in large chunks, but if you take a break after every episode, it's fun, even when you know there's still 15% of the book left and at least two more horrible things are going to happen.
I like how long the space travel takes. A couple of weeks pass between destinations, which feels genuine to the massive distances while at the same time putting us in the future where those distances are possible. It doesn't make traveling too easy, often emphasizing that if they're accelerating at 3 g, it means they spend the trip strapped in. The book does a good job of not dwelling on the boring transits while still conveying that time has passed.
I also just really like stories where colonizers on Mars end up fighting with Earth. I think it's the residual love for Babylon 5 that will never wash off.
I realized a little way into this book that it was written by a white dude, and I haven't read a book written by a white dude in a while. Parts of it felt a jarring after not experiencing them in a while, and I find it refreshing to think about how I could go so long without reading a book by a white guy that that could happen. There really isn't anything wrong with it, it's just that the two point of view characters are both men, and there are scant few female characters, and there is an awful lot of talk about balls. Having balls in high gs sounds awful. Thanks, book, for drawing this to my attention. That kind of detail probably wouldn't make it into a book written by a woman, and that's why representation is important.
***
Next week: a book not written by a dude. The Power, sci-fi where women take over the world, by Naomi Alderman.
October 4, 2018
I read The Belles
This week's novel is The Belles, by Dhonielle Clayton.
In a world where everyone is born with gray skin and red eyes, a set of magical girls, called belles, can change people's appearance to make them beautiful for a price. Camellia has worked her whole life towards being skilled enough to be The Favorite, the belle assigned to the royal family, who sets beauty standards across the country. When she finally reaches that goal, she finds that the position is way more dangerous than she'd ever thought.
I have a couple warnings to start with if you're thinking of reading this book. 1. There are egregious examples of bury your gays. You read that right, "examples" is plural. 2. There's a series of headlines, just several in a list, and one of them mentions a trans person. Somehow in that single headline and single mention in the entire book, it still manages to misgender them.
I'm not in the mood to find stuff I liked about this one.
This book did not dive into the themes set up in the premise as much as I was hoping for. This story seems like fertile ground to talk about how arbitrary it is that some features are considered beautiful and some aren't. Especially given that the main character is a person of color, whose skin tone and hair texture are, in modern American culture, considered undesirable. Since there isn't race in this fantastical society, Camellia's skin tone is treated as just a variant on a theme, and--heck--let's get into that! But no. The premise also seems like fertile ground for discussing how only the wealthy can afford the treatments to make them beautiful, while the poor are gray, red-eyed troll people. Do the gray, red-eyed troll people think they're ugly, because they're told they are every day? Do the wealthy look down on them? Has anyone tried to make a fashion statement by having openly gray skin? Being beautiful is something mandated by the Goddess they worship, so what does it mean that they're charging people to obey the goddess' mandate? We don't know. It's not important.
Instead, the book focuses on how the princess, who will probably inherit the throne, is a cartoon villain, and Camilla needs to stop her/do everything she says.
I was even expecting for the beauty standards of this world to be bizarre and engaging. If you're starting from gray, why wouldn't people have blue skin and three eyes and hair that sticks straight up in the air? I was expecting full on Capital from the Hunger Games, and although there are blips of weirdness, the book never lets loose with it. And that makes the moments of weirdness confusing. Are they supposed to be weird?
"The wardrobe opens and the interior explodes with color. Dresses with full skirts, A-line cuts, empire waists, sheaths, long sleeves, cap sleeves, no sleeves, V-necks and scoop necks and plunging necklines. Dresses made of brocades, laces, velvets, glass beads, cashmeres, silks, and pastel satins in every color and pattern. Special carts follow the wardrobe, carrying vivant dresses inside large glass bell jars. These are dresses made of living things. Butterflies open and close their wings, exposing their dress's inner rib cage. Honeybees buzz in and out of a honeycomb-shaped gown. Roses of every color wave their petals." I can picture everything but the honeybee dress, which seems wildly out of place. Then on the next page, there's this: "I'm wearing one of the Fashion Minister's latest creations--a honey-and-marigold bustle dress with a waffle texture and a waist-sash of striped fur." Is...that pretty? Does Camilla think it's pretty? To me, it doesn't sound stunning or wild, just...unpleasant.
That's a problem I've been encountering a lot. If a setting or a dress is described and none of the characters give their opinion on it, sometimes I can't tell if the reader is supposed to be awed or think, "Wow, that's tacky." Maybe it's because I read this book right after Crazy Rich Asians, which does a similar thing, but the point is supposed to be that--yep--that's pretty tacky.
***
Next week, I'll be in a better mood with Leviathan Wakes, space opera by James S.A. Corey.
In a world where everyone is born with gray skin and red eyes, a set of magical girls, called belles, can change people's appearance to make them beautiful for a price. Camellia has worked her whole life towards being skilled enough to be The Favorite, the belle assigned to the royal family, who sets beauty standards across the country. When she finally reaches that goal, she finds that the position is way more dangerous than she'd ever thought.
I have a couple warnings to start with if you're thinking of reading this book. 1. There are egregious examples of bury your gays. You read that right, "examples" is plural. 2. There's a series of headlines, just several in a list, and one of them mentions a trans person. Somehow in that single headline and single mention in the entire book, it still manages to misgender them.
I'm not in the mood to find stuff I liked about this one.
This book did not dive into the themes set up in the premise as much as I was hoping for. This story seems like fertile ground to talk about how arbitrary it is that some features are considered beautiful and some aren't. Especially given that the main character is a person of color, whose skin tone and hair texture are, in modern American culture, considered undesirable. Since there isn't race in this fantastical society, Camellia's skin tone is treated as just a variant on a theme, and--heck--let's get into that! But no. The premise also seems like fertile ground for discussing how only the wealthy can afford the treatments to make them beautiful, while the poor are gray, red-eyed troll people. Do the gray, red-eyed troll people think they're ugly, because they're told they are every day? Do the wealthy look down on them? Has anyone tried to make a fashion statement by having openly gray skin? Being beautiful is something mandated by the Goddess they worship, so what does it mean that they're charging people to obey the goddess' mandate? We don't know. It's not important.
Instead, the book focuses on how the princess, who will probably inherit the throne, is a cartoon villain, and Camilla needs to stop her/do everything she says.
I was even expecting for the beauty standards of this world to be bizarre and engaging. If you're starting from gray, why wouldn't people have blue skin and three eyes and hair that sticks straight up in the air? I was expecting full on Capital from the Hunger Games, and although there are blips of weirdness, the book never lets loose with it. And that makes the moments of weirdness confusing. Are they supposed to be weird?
"The wardrobe opens and the interior explodes with color. Dresses with full skirts, A-line cuts, empire waists, sheaths, long sleeves, cap sleeves, no sleeves, V-necks and scoop necks and plunging necklines. Dresses made of brocades, laces, velvets, glass beads, cashmeres, silks, and pastel satins in every color and pattern. Special carts follow the wardrobe, carrying vivant dresses inside large glass bell jars. These are dresses made of living things. Butterflies open and close their wings, exposing their dress's inner rib cage. Honeybees buzz in and out of a honeycomb-shaped gown. Roses of every color wave their petals." I can picture everything but the honeybee dress, which seems wildly out of place. Then on the next page, there's this: "I'm wearing one of the Fashion Minister's latest creations--a honey-and-marigold bustle dress with a waffle texture and a waist-sash of striped fur." Is...that pretty? Does Camilla think it's pretty? To me, it doesn't sound stunning or wild, just...unpleasant.
That's a problem I've been encountering a lot. If a setting or a dress is described and none of the characters give their opinion on it, sometimes I can't tell if the reader is supposed to be awed or think, "Wow, that's tacky." Maybe it's because I read this book right after Crazy Rich Asians, which does a similar thing, but the point is supposed to be that--yep--that's pretty tacky.
***
Next week, I'll be in a better mood with Leviathan Wakes, space opera by James S.A. Corey.
October 2, 2018
Chicago Center for Supernatural Support, Episode 12: Finale
The Twenty Percent True Podcast
Season 3: Chicago Center for Supernatural Support
Episode 12:Finale
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