Lilith Saintcrow

I’m on the last push of revisions today, so this will be short. No, I’m not disappointed in the revisions. It’s something else.

I’ve found out that a fan I know (by name, even) has been uploading my work to a file-stealing site. (It’s not file-”sharing”. It’s file-STEALING, dammit.) It’s disappointing and hurtful to see a fan who claims to love my work uploading it to sites where people can steal it. It’s going to be awful hard to pay the rent if people continue stealing this way. Already this weekend I spent a lot of time (that I could have been using to write those books) on demanding that these sites take my copyrighted work down. It was sobering, disappointing, and hurtful to see this fan’s very unique “handle” used again on a file-stealing site, as the person who uploaded my work to be stolen.

I work very hard to make these stories. The publishers work very hard to bring them to people. When they’re stolen and torrented it makes it harder for both me and the publisher, but mostly me. The publisher, after all, is a huge company with profits. I’m a mom with kids to feed and a non-infinite bank account. Congress isn’t going to be financing a million-dollar bonus for me personally anytime soon, you know.

Comments are disabled on this post^[1] because I don’t want to hear a bunch of people defending file-stealing, and because I don’t want to hear a rant against DRM and how it makes it harder for “honest” people. Look, some people are assholes, and that’s why we have police, DRM, anti-theft devices, etc., etc. If human nature were different, we wouldn’t need these things. DRM isn’t perfect, true. But it’s what we’ve got right now to try and deter people from being assholes. Sure it gets cracked almost as soon as it’s created. But there’s no other choice right at this moment to try and protect artists, because some people–even people who claim to be “fans”–are going to be assholes and steal things.

It’s sad and disappointing. But it’s the way it is.

I’ve got to get some revisions done. See you guys in a bit.

[1] ETA: Comments are also locked because I will not abide speculation as to identity. Compounding the situation by holding up this person’s identity is not what I’m interested in. So do not ask, I will not answer, and comments remain closed. Thank you. And to those of you who have expressed support, thank you as well. I appreciate it more than I can say.

Cross-posted from Deadline Dames, where there is a fiction contest and tips from a contest judge up this week. Go take a look!

Two quick things today, because there is a certain birthday party I must be prepared for. It’s not anyone’s birthday, but we’ve scheduled the party today, which works out well for all concerned.

Right now I’m reading John Ajvide Lindqvist’s Let the Right One In, the book the Tribeca-award-winning movie is based on. The premise is good, the story is tightly-interwoven and slow-paced but well done. There are things I don’t like about the book itself. Some of them are translation things, things that you can’t avoid with a book that’s been brought out of another language. Some of the others are stylistic, like the author’s apparent love affair with ellipses. I use too many ellipses myself–my beta has to ruthlessly step on their heads lest they breed–and I understand Lindqvist was trying to capture the way people really talk. That’s the trouble with dialogue. You have to walk that line between how you know people actually talk, with all the ums, ahs, and the things left unsaid, and balance that against what dialogue needs to be, a revealing and unfolding within the story.

It’s a hard act.

Which brings me to the intentional mistake. After you’ve been writing for a while (I want to say ten thousand hours, because I’ve read Outliers recently too, but maybe it’s between five and eight thousand) you start seeing the mistakes a little differently. Once you have the basics down and begin to have a good solid grasp of craft, then you can start breaking the rules.

Just like in life, breaking the rules to break them is a stupid kid’s game with unintended consequences. Knowing the rules and breaking them to effect is something else entirely. Stephen King talks about this in On Writing, one of the only two writing books I will ever recommend.

I am willing to put up with what I see as Lindqvist’s mistakes in this book because he has vouched in other ways that he knows the rules and he’s breaking them for a reason. The rest of the book is good enough that I can overlook the ellipses. There is a lesson in this. Readers are very forgiving if you give them a reason to be. Don’t abuse their trust, and they will follow you down the dark road of a book.

The other thing I want to talk about today is truth. Lindqvist’s book is not for the faint of heart or weak of stomach. Some of the main characters are children, but it would never be published as a Young Adult novel.

As a writer getting into YA now, I’m running up against some of the conventions of the genre. Well, not exactly conventions. I am running up against the laudable adult urge to protect the young, and the not-so-laudable urge to censor what is said to them.

In my house, we have a “reach it and read it” policy. If you can reach it, you can read it. If you can’t reach it–get a stepstool! I do not believe in censoring my childrens’ experience with the written word. Are there things I wish they wouldn’t read? You betcha. Do I put those books out of reach?

I do not.

Instead, I keep track of what the kids are reading, and I talk to them about it. The conversations are alternately funny (like when Astronomy Girl ran across a fade-to-black sex scene in a book and asked me what “orgasm” meant) and terrifying, like when the UnSullen was reading Food of the Gods and started asking me about hallucinogens.

Ah, the joy of parenting.

In each case I firmly believe in telling the truth in the straightest, most age-appropriate, and simplest way possible. This is, I think, the best policy. (Obviously, or I wouldn’t be doing it.) The more armed with simple knowledge my young oes are, the less danger there is of them doing something stupid. I mean, we all have lapses in judgment. That is not the exclusive province of the young.

But one is far less likely to have a stupid lapse in judgment if one has been calmly given straight answers. And kids who get straight answers, who know they can go to an adult and ask difficult, ticklish questions, are far more likely to check in when something happens they’re unsure of. Check in, that is, before the situation becomes an unholy tangle.

The best way to protect the young, then, happens to be not censoring the information given to them so much. Kids are smart and they love to learn (until the public school/jungle system beats it out of them, but that’s another blog post). They want to ask adults questions, and they want straight answers. A kid who doesn’t feel alone and adrift is a kid who is going to talk to someone before they go and do something silly, at least most of the time. Age-appropriate doesn’t have to mean “complete blackout of information”.

This is why I’m feeling okay and not so okay about my forays into YA. On the one hand, I feel like I have something of value to impart, a story to share with younger readers. On the other hand, dealing with a lot of forces who want kids kept in the dark about a lot of things–sex, drug use, violence, abuse–for a variety of reasons, whether to “protect” them or because of an adult’s profound discomfort with kids knowing about the darker things in life…well, it gets wearying. The fear in the publishing industry of being “too edgy” and setting off some of the more conservative elements in our society is immense. The writer gets asked to change things, to dial it back and not be so direct. Sometimes it’s necessary, sometimes it’s not.

There’s a fine line to walk there, too. You need to know when you’re too attached to something that doesn’t really move the story along. Conversely, you need to not give in when someone is asking you to bullshit for the sake of selling more books or not pissing someone off. The two are not mutually exclusive, and they’re hard to tell apart.

Telling the truth in this way is difficult. It’s dangerous. But I think it’s worth it. My kids are worth the truth. I think every kid out there is. It doesn’t mean I have to force the knowledge of the darker side of the world on them, but it does mean that I have a trust (I would go so far as to call it sacred) to tell the truth when I’m asked, and when the occasion calls for it.

Why else would I do this job?

So Shiva the corn snake is burrowing and hiding, probably to cope with all the unexpectedness of yesterday. The UnSullen freaked out last night because he couldn’t find the snake, but I put my foo down and told him to go to bed and leave the damn thing alone. This morning he changed the water in the vivarium (daily water changes are necessary) and lo and behold, there was Shiva. Right where I said he’d be. I suspect once we get a climbing branch for him, he’ll hang out on that and stop burrowing. Right now, though, he’s just taking a moment. I don’t blame him. Must be awful frightening for a little guy.

For those of you who asked, right now he eats pre-killed mice. Frozen pinks, to be specific, that should be defrosted in a plastic bag under warm running water. Live prey is not a good idea for him, since he’s so ickle. And frankly, I don’t mind snakes but I think I’ve mentioned how I feel about rodents. I have no qualms about feeding Shiva little rodents. This is part of why I don’t mind snakes–I look at them and see efficient rodent control.

I was feeling pretty down this morning, hopped on the treadmill and that’s helped. I should take exercise equipment as a tax deduction. If I could just find the way to make it fly…but I suspect the guvmint would not appreciate that. I am not rich enough for the IRS to ignore me and I suspect I never will be.

ANYWAY. Today there is shopping for a certain little boy’s birthday presents, since his party is soon. I even got him a pinata. Awesome fun–I never got a pinata when I was little. I suppose I could take a halfhearted whack at one now if the kids insist.

And that’s all the news that’s fit for printing in my neck of the woods. The revision, she is not going so well–I am beating my head against a brick wall, the way I usually do at this part of the process. I’ve got a week, plenty of time. Plenty of time.

I’ll just keep repeating that until hard work fixes the story. Argh.

We are now the proud owners of Shiva the baby corn snake. Shiva is a lovely terracotta reddish, with redder spots and a black and white houndstooth checkerboard on his belly. He was brought home from the pet store and settled in his new vivarium, where he ran laps several times, looking for escape routes, and finally settled in the water dish. Now he’s half-in, half-out of the water dish, just kind of hanging out and observing. We watched him run his laps and get settled, all of us rapt with wonder.

I may have pics later. Right now it’s imperative we give Shiva a few days to settle down and get over the stress of moving. He was just fed earlier today in the pet store, so we were ultra-careful–setting the container down in the vivarium and letting him come out in his own time. (It took about two seconds. He’s a very curious and active little guy.) Corn snakes are supposed to be smart, docile, and very hardy; just about the perfect snake pet for us. The UnSullen One is over the moon with delight, having satisfied his birthday request for a creepy-crawly pet.

Me, I like snakes. I’m glad we’re getting a “beginner” snake; and I’m so, so glad we didn’t get a tarantula. Tarantulas aren’t very social pets, whereas Shiva will be a lot of fun when he gets used to his new home.

At this moment Shiva is still half in, half out of the water dish. He’s settled and is digesting his meal from earlier, and seems quite content. We’re happy to have him with us.

No, it’s not so fine sometimes. But when it’s good…well, then it’s the best.

Back soon.