"I Couldn't Put It Down"

Often, when we want to express how good a book is, we will say, "I just couldn't put it down!" Which, of course, is not actually the truth but makes me want to say, "No, really, I literally couldn't put the book down! It became fused to my hand and, once I finished reading it, I had to have it surgically removed." Come to think of it, maybe I've actually said that before. It's hard to tell with me. Anyway...

When I was younger, it was difficult to tell the difference between me not putting a book down because I always had a book with me and those books that I "just couldn't put down." I think it might have been difficult for me to tell the difference, too, because, when you always have a book with you and are reading all the time, if you don't have any point when you need to put the book down, it might be go unnoticed whether you'd have been okay with doing that.

Am I being confusing enough yet?

I bring all of this up, because I was talking to my creative writing students the other day about books you "can't put down," and, especially the sixth graders, claimed to have that happen all the time. When I asked, "Have you ever had a book you couldn't put down," they all had a list of half a dozen or so books that fit that category and, maybe, when I was their age, I would have felt the same way. I think in that way it must be sort of like love. Before you fall in love you think you fall in love all the time but, then, you do fall in love, like Romeo, and you realize that, really, you could have put all of those other books down; you just didn't have to.

As you might have guessed, back when I was in school, I read during class. A lot. All the time. Amazingly, I never got in trouble for it. Actually, it really wasn't amazing. Here's why:
During biology one day, I was reading. Completely absorbed in whatever it was, too, although I'm not sure what that was. Probably something by Piers Anthony, if I was guessing. Evidently, someone else was also reading, but she got in trouble for it and told to put her book away. I was only peripherally aware of what was going on until the girl said, "Why doesn't Andy have to put his book away?" Without pausing a beat, the teacher said, "Because he's going to make an "A" on the test."
That just to say that I was given a lot of latitude in regards to reading while class was happening. Any class. I suppose my teachers trusted me to pay attention when I needed to.

This was especially true in my geometry class my freshman year. On the occasions when my teacher didn't put bonus problems on the tests, it would bring my grade down. It would bring my grade down, because the 100% I would score was less than my grade. Nevertheless, I hated geometry. I was good at it, but I hated it. With that in mind, you might understand the shock of my teacher sometime in the 4th quarter when I scored a "C" on a test, my only non-A grade the entire year. And you might understand my shock at being held after class to discuss my grade, which I didn't yet know about. She was concerned, you see, that there was something wrong at home. Or something. In retrospect, I suppose she should be commended for calling me in. At the time, however, it was a bit embarrassing. When I told her there was nothing wrong, she handed me the test and asked me, then, to explain the grade. I had to explain how I didn't actually know what we'd been studying the week of that test. At all.
"And why not?" was her logical question.
"Because I was reading that week," I said.
"But you're always reading," she said.
"No, I was really reading," I said, "the whole time. All week."
"Oh... What were you reading?"
"The Three Musketeers!"

And that was the first book I read that I really just couldn't put down. I just needed to know what was going to happen next. And next. And next.

I don't really do that question at the end of the post thing but, this time, I want to know:
What was the first book you just couldn't put down? The one that let you know the others, all those books that had come before, had been the equivalent of grade school crushes.

The Asimov Genre

The discussion this week is genre: What do you read? and What do you write?

I'd like to say that I read a lot of genres. I have, at least, tried a lot of genres. Some of them under duress. For instance, in one of my high school classes, we were required to choose books from several different genres to read for some assignment or other. We had to choose something like five different genres. Of course, science fiction and fantasy were lumped together, just the way they are at the book store, so I wasn't able to squeeze two of books out of that. I don't remember what all I read for that assignment other than that I read my one and only Harlequin romance book. What can I say? They were short, and they were easy to get at since my grandmother circulated them with a bunch of my other female relatives (mostly great-aunts). Let's just say I was unimpressed.

I also picked up my first Western for that assignment, a Louis L'Amour book. My grandfather had a whole shelf of L'Amour paperbacks. I liked it enough that I read several more of them, which, really, was the intent of the assignment, to introduce us to books we wouldn't normally read. I still try to do that, pick up books that I wouldn't normally read (which is like the whole Oscar thing my wife and I do with movies). I think it's good for you.

All of that said, I spent most of my high school career reading fantasy with some sci-fi mixed in. In fact, I spent a lot of that time reading Piers Anthony who often blended sci-fi and fantasy. Does he have enough books, yet, to be his own genre? How many does that take? I'm pretty sure Asimov has been awarded genre status. He has, right? So I read a lot of Anthony and Asimov genres.

I also read a lot of classics. Did and do. Periodically reading a classic is something I try to keep doing. Sometimes, those even fall into the sci-fi/fantasy category, so, like, doubleplusgood. And I spent some time reading thrillers, especially Clancy. And non-fiction. And historical fiction. And fiction that's historical because that's when it was written, but I don't think that counts as historical fiction.

So a lot of genres.

But I do tend to gravitate toward fantasy, and it's always what I want when I'm feeling the need to give my brain a rest.

And that might be why, so far, anyway, I've tended toward fantasy in my own writing. Or, at least, the fantastic.
The House on the Corner is fantasy in a Narnia-esque kind of way. Or in a contemporary sort of way reminiscent of The Dresden Files. There are a lot of similar structural elements there that I find interesting since I didn't read any Dresden stuff until after I wrote House.
Shadow Spinner, though, is fantasy in a completely different way. I'd say it leans toward the paranormal except I don't really see it that way. To me, it's fantasy.
And "The Tea Kettle" is full of all kinds of fantastic elements, but I'm not sure it quite qualifies as fantasy.
(You should click the link and go read that one; it's FREE!)
At some point, there will be The Destiny Murders. I'm not sure what that is, yet. Well, it's a murder mystery, but... well... there's more to it than that.
Most of the stories floating in my head or living in my notes folder on my computer are fantasy of some type or another or, at least, have fantasy of some sort in them.
Or they're sci-fi.
Most but not all. Hopefully, though, even though they might be "merely" fantasy; they will be a whole lot more.

How Diverse Are You?

I first really got into science fiction and fantasy when I was in middle school. A friend of mine gave me a copy of Split Infinity by Piers Anthony for my birthday, and I just went from there. [I had stayed away from fantasy before that because, any time I got any book with magic in it (other than the Narnia books),  my dad would throw it away. Perhaps because it was a birthday present, no one took it from me. Or, maybe, it was because I didn't advertise it. Anyway, this isn't about what I was "allowed" to read when I was a kid.] Thinking back on it, now, basically everything I read was... well, it was "white." In fact, the only sci-fi/fantasy books I can think of that I read back then with a non-white lead was Bio of a Space Tyrant by Piers Anthony (because I spent years reading everything that Anthony wrote).

Not that it's really a sci-fi/fantasy problem; it's just a book problem. Or, at least, an American book problem. Or, maybe, a Western book problem. And there's plenty written about the lack of diversity in literature, so I'm not really going to get into that. It's a huge problem with no easy answer, except, hopefully, now that publishing has more options, we can hope that a more diverse body of writers begins to develop.

That said, the whole question of diversity, this being the day after MLK Day, made me think about diversity in my own work. I mean, I'm a white dude which, when it comes to books, is about the least diverse you can get. Okay, not "about the least;" it is the least. Going back to Piers Anthony: the guy's written something like 150 novels but only a handful have significant non-white characters (at least up to the point that I stopped reading him) and, actually, that's probably pretty good.

Honestly, before this topic came up in one of our IWM discussions, I hadn't given much thought to how diverse I am in my writing, but, after thinking about it, I'm not displeased.

Tib, in Shadow Spinner, is bi-racial.

His father is, well, you should just read "The Evil That Men Do" to find that out. I wouldn't want to throw out any spoilers. Not that I tried to write him "racially;" I wrote him as a kid struggling with the kinds of things that kids struggle with, and his issues are not race issues; their being different issues, which, I suppose, most kids feel that they are at some point or another. Basically, I didn't make the race thing an issue; it's just something that is. It was just... natural.

However, when I wrote "Christmas on the Corner," there was more premeditation about racial ideas. Not that I was trying to be racially diverse; I just thought back to my own childhood and growing up in the South and decided that I wanted Sam's best friend to be black. Having black friends was normal to me when I was a kid... right up until almost middle school when I wanted to bring one of my friends, who happened to be black, to church with me, and my mother wouldn't let me. [It wasn't, I don't think, because of any prejudice of her own that she wouldn't let me, because she had never said or done anything about me having black friends (in fact, the only friends she ever protested where the other "smart kids" I was friends with, because they were "weird"). She was worried how people would react at our all-white church.] Since House is set in the South, I wanted to be able to explore race issues, so Sam's best friend is black.

All of that said, I don't recommend throwing in diversity for the sake of diversity; that smacks of trying to hard. If I had been thinking, "I need to be racially diverse, here," I probably would have messed it all up, but, as it is, I think it all comes off pretty natural. It has to be something that's there without "being there." It has to be there without calling attention to itself. Probably, the best way to accomplish that in writing is to be more diverse as a person. That sounds like a pretty good goal to me.