Cake for my brains.

I've set another deadline for the revisions of the Tower!Guy since I'm on a roll. I've been knocking out chapters left and right and fixing a bunch of stuff. Generally, my energy is up.

And I've decided that if I meet or beat my deadline, I will reward myself. Usually, at the completion of a first draft of a novel, I treat myself with a little something sweet. Usually I splurge on a single candy bar or a scoop of frozen yogurt or something.

But this time, I think I'll forgo the sweets and give myself the present of buying new books. I've decided, given what kind of money I can afford to spend, that I will buy myself three new books (paperback, obviously). I already know that one will be the the preorder of The Pretender's Crown (because dark, twisty Elizabethan fantasy, hells yes!). Besides, it's release date is two days after my birthday, so I'll call it my birthday present for this year.

Not sure what the other two will be, but the thought of new books has me practically salivating.

Should I press forward in my quest for the Perfect Vampire Novel, or branch out into some of the interesting higher fantasy and sci-fi offerings I've seen? Maybe non-genre things. There have been a couple of well written historical books that seem worth checking out.

These are the questions I love contemplating.

Retroactive ratings, Y/N/Abort/Retry/Fail?

I've been considering going back to the books I've reviewed and adding a 1-10 scale for race, gender, and GLBT issues to them. I certainly know that from this point on, any of my reviews will take those three things into consideration, and I'll be adding the rank there.

I really want to stay conscious not just of these things when I'm writing, but when I'm reading. As a reader, or more importantly, as a reader who buys books, my purchases and preferences do, in some small way, matter. And if I send out the message to publishers, editors, and writers that diversity sells, and that books which do a bad job do not, then we'll be seeing a lot more diversity in the literary world, which is a Good Thing^TM.

For instance, the fantasy book I'm reading now (Lies of Locke Lamora by Scott Lynch) has turned out to be a surprisingly fun read - but I'm well past a hundred pages in and there's only one female character who actually speaks, but has few lines and thus far, no significant part in the plot. Were she deleted from (at the very least) those 100 plus pages, nothing would change. Oh, and there was the one fish fighting gladiator woman who I read to be a woman of color who snuffed it within a couple of pages of being introduced. Which is sad, because the introduction of fish-fighting gladiator women made me really happy.

Actually, I could really go for a 700 page novel just about fish-fighting gladiator women. I feel this novel needs to be written.

I've always wondered if it would be appropriate, when someone trying to write an "other" (ie, a male trying to write a female, etc) complains about being in a "damned if you do, damned if you don't" situation to answer them by saying, "Well, let's see. How many authors of [insert group] have you read and how many authors of [insert person's own group] have you read?"

One suspects that the ratio would be rather disappointed. One also suspects that those writers for whom the number is relatively encouraging have never felt the need to say such a thing.

One also, in a moment of sublime snark, would be tempted to type up a list of authors, essayists, and bloggers of [insert group that is being whined about as impossible to write and not write] and hand it to the person, saying (with a very stern and serious face), "There's a secret answer hidden in these books and essays and blogs. Read them very careful, several times over, and you too can learn the clandestine code for Getting It Right".

Of course, the fun is in timing how long it takes the person to realize that the answer isn't in the books, it is the books.

After all, if you were to do exactly that, then you would have taken the most vital step in this whole process, which is Shutting Your Giant Piehole And Listening. Which, let's face it, we all need to do more of.

A serious question deserves a serious poll

I know, I know. It's that Cultural Appropriation Thing^TM again, but hey. The worst thing we could do is pretend that it doesn't exist, right?

Don't worry, it won't hurt. Just take the poll.


[Poll #1352312]