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Little Monarchs, More Book Recommendations, and Not Being a Killjoy
🕑 Added 2022-05-25 21:12:06 +0000 UTCStill flatting Chapter Two of PRACTICAL DEFENCE AGAINST PIRACY (DD4). Since it still doesn't offer a lot to look at, please allow me to point your eyeballs elsewhere.
Jonathan Case's LITTLE MONARCHS
I've excerpted six pages from LITTLE MONARCHS above. After those six pages, I was on board. I knew immediately: this is a book I will not want to put down, and which I will absolutely read to the end. That's a good feeling to get.
Necessarily, I felt as though I should ask, "okay, why do those pages work so well for me?" I can identify two good reasons, for sure.
First, this section serves up a good "sense of place." We see where the action is taking place, we get a feel for our character in her environment, which is civilization-gone-wild. We get a mood, too: it's quiet and lonely. I like that.
Second, we learn a lot about this character (Elvie) and she is (at least to me) immediately likeable. She is independent (running around over this varied wild terrain), inquisitive (investigating the frog), has a playful relationship with someone else (the jab about cooking), is imaginative, and uses that imagination to cope with both some sort of burden (later we learn the sun is more of a threat than we would otherwise assume) and with loneliness. In five pages you've got not just a very well-rounded character, but a character that's fun to follow.
I think about "likeability" a lot, wondering what I can make a character do or say that can encourage readers to feel drawn to that character, or to start caring about them. I bet I'll turn to these pages for a reminder in the future. We see a character be caring, inquisitive, independent, and imaginative; and we see how they cope with challenges. Now, it's possible that those are just the things that make me like a character, but that's as good a place to start as any.
I took this book out from the library as part of my Do Not Buy A Book You Haven't Read™ policy, and this is going on my to-buy list. Find out more about LITTLE MONARCHS here, including Case's cool real-life book-tour adventure accompanying the book's release.
MIDDLE GRADE DOES NOT MEAN "AVERAGE QUALITY"
I told a friend I was on a "Middle-Grade Graphic Novels" panel at VanCAF this past weekend, and he said "what's Middle-Grade? Your books are better than that, you don't have to put up with that kind of treatment," which, ha ha, first: okay thank you, but second: he did not know that Middle-Grade books are books for, say, 8-to-12-year-olds.
On that panel, I joined Nathan Fairbarn, Michele Assarasakorn, and Johnnie Christmas. Kathleen Gros was our generous and thoughtful moderator. One nice highlight was that on the topic of "advice for aspiring middle-grade authors," everyone serendipitously shared the same notions: start small and finish it, and be sure to write the book you want to read regardless of industry pressure. I.e., don't write a middle-grade book just because they are "hot" right now (apparently), and if you want to write high fantasy, do it whether or not you feel like slice-of-life is drawing all the attention.
Nathan and Michele recently released the first volume in their PAWS series — take a look here, it's super sweet. Johnnie just released SWIM TEAM, which has fewer puppies in it but is no less charming. Of particular interest to readers of DD (or, really, anyone who enjoyed the recent very good LITTLE WOMEN movie, like I did) might be Kathleen's "sort-of" adaptation JO — there's a good preview here, take a look. Kathleen has an adaptation of ANNE OF GREEN GABLES coming up this Autumn, too.
ON THE TOPIC OF BEING AN ABSOLUTE BUZZKILL
To make the understatement of the century, there's a lot to be mad about on Twitter. By far, the thing that has made me angriest recently was hearing Neil Degrasse Tyson, the astrophysicist and supposed "science communicator," rail on about the solar eclipse being "boring" and "un-spectacular." Now, it is well-established that Tyson can be a miserable wet blanket, but this seems extreme, even for him. It happened a week or so ago and I'm still prickly about it.
I am a fan of space things. I sometimes just look at the regular old moon—not even an eclipsed moon—and feel an overwhelming sense of universal placefulness. A brief sensation that I understand how all the pieces fit together. I love looking at the moon.
I could pick apart the reasons that Tyson's messages are especially infuriating, above and beyond the usual background misery of Twitter, but instead I'll focus my energy elsewhere:
This might be a good reminder that if you're neck-deep in a particular field, know that the general public sees your work differently from you. And more importantly, if you know people think your field of interest is cool, don't be a complete sad-sack about it. At least not in front of them.
This is as much a "note to self" as anything. After being in comics and animation for twenty-someodd years, it's tempting to focus on nitty-gritty insular details. I did think a recent feature film was over-animated to a distracting degree. I try to keep that to myself, though, because my friend's 4yo loves the songs from it.
Maybe Tyson has seen so many accursed eclipses that they just don't register on the back of his eyeballs anymore. Maybe they do bore him. He knows them inside and out. He could tell you exactly how and why they happen, in minuscule detail. To him, perhaps they are boring.
How sad.
So I take this episode and tuck it into a little capsule to remind myself that what a reader probably wants from me is enthusiasm and interest in comics work, not necessarily perfection-at-all-costs. Tyson has seen things you people wouldn't believe; a mere eclipse is below him. I've seen comics that I treasure dearly, which I hold up as high-water-marks of the medium. I ought not disparage anything that, in my tilted estimation, "fall short"—I ought to celebrate the delights to be found wherever they might reveal themselves.
Because look, this is how beautiful an eclipse can be.
EDIT: and if you're looking for an inspiring astronomy/science communicator to follow, I recommend Phil Plait, among many others.
REVEAL YOUR PROGRESS
Things are coming along. Our toddler has been having some uncharacteristic difficulty with his napping and sleeping routine. I'm not sure what that means for my work routines just yet, but (without getting into too much detail) it's a tricky thing to navigate.
IMPORTANT PRATCHETT UPDATE
SMALL GODS and THE TRUTH are excellent (exactly as someone promised—hello, Sarah). SMALL GODS is great for anyone who wants some good takes on religion and philosophy, and the story is nice and tight. THE TRUTH feels eerily relevant: themes of the manipulation of the press, "fake news," the interests of the news-reading common man, and there's a puppet head-of-state installed by a corporate conspiracy. It was first published 22 years ago. Plus there's a fun running g ag with a vampire photographer. (Additional fun note: if I write "g a g" as one word, Patreon pops up a note, concerned that this post might be p ornographic, and might come under scrutiny if published as-is. Same with the word "p o r n o g r a p h i c." How on-point.)
Read anything good recently? And when was the last time you waved hello to the moon? See you in the comments,
🌝
TC
Comments
Tony Cliff
GOING POSTAL is still to come! Looking forward to it. To your question about what will and won't get picked up these days: last year, the answer would have been "NO BUMMERS." As in, pubs were only buying lighthearted feelgoods (and the usual guaranteed sellers). I hear your frustration about being off-trend, and I share it. It felt like DD was very much that way until it wasn't (and then, with book three, maybe it was off-trend again? I don't know). It's just the frustration of publishing. I don't know what can be done about it. I DO know that comics take so long and there's so little money that really, it's not worth working on something you don't love. It just isn't. I think I have convinced myself that the two options are: work on a comic you love, or don't work on a comic. The practicalities are not compatible with leading any sort of happy life otherwise. But it's easy for me to take that stance since DD1 is already out there, I already "did it." Plus, trends are so fickle. When I started DD4 I thought pirates were declasse but then OUR FLAG MEANS DEATH came along and now everyone's drunk for pirates. (And I worry that by the time I'm done, pirates will be So Over again.) Who knows what will happen with Polar Exploration. Perhaps the vanishing of the ice caps will make it a wildly popular topic again. (sighs)
Tony Cliff
Glad to hear NATION is good - I just listened to another (THE THIEF OF TIME) and it was so-so. Enjoyable enough, but if it had been my first, I wouldn't have much enthusiasm for reading more. Ooh, a novel companion to a webcomic. Definitely curious about that.
Tealin
Felicitations on reading two of the best Discworlds back-to-back – glad you enjoyed them! I remember in 2016 people bemoaning the fact that the then-one-year-gone Sir Terry would never write a Brexit book, but he had already left us with The Truth, and as you say it only gets more timely. Have you read Going Postal yet? Not only is that another time bomb for 2016, but touching on another of your points, it has what I think is one of the best character introductions ever. I'm curious what you think of it! "Write the book you want to read regardless of industry pressure" is wonderfully inspiring advice, but have any of your fellow panellists tried to cold-sell a book that doesn't hit the zeitgeist? At the very least, it helps to have a clearly defined demographic you're selling to, even if the surface details (genre, art style) aren't the happening thing at the moment. Publishing seems to be going the way of movies with marketing leading the decision-making; if they can't envision how to sell your book they're not going to buy it. (At least this is my impression from the rounds of publisher/agent hunting I was doing last year. "Great stuff, impossible to market; thanks but no thanks" was the general consensus.) It was interesting how divergent the feedback was, between publishing pros and general audience readers, the latter of whom seemed to think nonspecific appeal was a selling point rather than a liability. Have you got much feedback from First Second or your agent in terms of what will and won't get picked up these days? How does it compare with the wisdom of the panel?
jonsullivan
Thanks for the Heads Up on the Little Monarchs book. Looks great! My go-to for astronomy news is Anton Petrov and his YouTube channel. I wonder if I’m the only person supporting Tony Cliff and Anton Petrov on Patreon?
Lisa
A great memory of my childhood was waking in the middle of the night, going outside with my mother and brother, and watching a blood moon lunar eclipse. It was amazing and spectacular. I also drove from Texas to Nebraska in 2017 for the solar eclipse and it was a mind blowing experience. That is to say, get bent, Tyson.
Emma Spronk
I read Nation by Pratchett a few weeks ago. It was my first time reading one of his books and I enjoyed it so I might be joining in on the Pratchett marathon... Another book I enjoyed recently is The Last Human by Zack Jordan. It's a debut sci fi novel and really creative and zany in all the best sci fi ways. I actually found out about it because I read the webcomic first. Highly recommend. (The Last Human in a Croweded Galaxy on Webtoon). The webcomic is technically a sequel to the novel because the book came out first, but it takes place first chronologically. I also read the graphic novel Meg, Jo, Beth and Amy recently and really enjoyed it -- the adaptation was well done and I loved the artwork--so colorful.
