Cleaning Extravaganza

I'm in the midst of a full-on cleaning today, which means I'm around here somewhere, but not really paying all that much attention.

Enjoy this picture from Antelope Island and feel free to talk amongst yourselves.

There was a picture here but I had to delete it.

Fiction and Lies

This morning reading Moonrat's blog, I was thrust up against a sentiment I've encountered time and again since I started this writing thing. Basically, she sums up a conversation between a publisher and his sales manager during which writing fiction is likened to lying.

To paraphrase Spencer Tracy in Guess Who's Coming to Dinner: that is a statement with which I'm prepared to take issue. (In fact, I cut my morning blogroll short because of it.)

First off, let's get something straight. Lying is deliberately misleading someone else to gain something positive or to avoid something negative. Writing fiction is creating a a story for others which they know up front never really happened.

I've heard it said that fiction writers lie for a living. That sentiment pisses me off royally.

I write fiction folks. I do not lie. I don't pretend my stories are anything but snippets of my imagination written out on paper. Sure, truth can be written into fiction, but truth is never cheapened when one weaves it into a story (or no one would ever listen to Aesop).

James Frey, on the other hand, told people his fiction was real. He published it as non-fiction. He was trying to put something over on his readers. He was trying to gain something positive by misleading his readers - namely money and fame (which he got both of, even after his dishonesty was dragged into the light). If that ain't lying for a living, I don't know what is.

We fiction writers need to stand firm on this issue. If something throws the old fiction=lying thing at you, slap it down. It's not cute. It's sure as hell isn't funny. Saying our chosen occupation is to lie to people cheapens the work we put into our writing, and it throws a negative light around who we are as human beings. You wouldn't allow anyone to call you a liar in your day-to-day life, why then is it okay to refer to our life's work as a pack of lies?

And don't even get me started on some of the comments to Moonrat's post - comments which I just now read. It seems that this idea of fiction as lying has been around long enough that people just accept it as fact without thinking about what the statement really says about their work. Someone even quoted Stephen King as agreeing with it. (Not that I'm surprised. The poor man has some major flaws in his philosophy, but I won't go into that now. He's a hell of a writer, and it's depressing that he allows anyone to belittle his work - even himself.)

If you write fiction, be proud of what you do, dammit. Don't let anyone tell you you're less than what you are, and don't let anyone ANYONE make you believe that you're dishonest.

Feh. The nerve. Makes me wanna slap whoever started this upside the head.

Now back to your regularly scheduled morning...

Life

Sorry I've been quiet lately, but life comes at ya sometimes, ya know? Part of the problem is I let things pile up and now I'm working to get everything I should've had done weeks ago finished. Procrastination, doncha know.

After some work last week, and a little more this week, I'll be caught up. I think. I hope. Maybe.

The major thing left is to power clean the house - top to bottom, leaving no dust mote unaccosted. You see, my MIL is coming for a visit, and she's staying here. That's never happened before, and I'm spazzing about the state of the house. Don't get me wrong. My MIL is a cool lady. I'm still going to make sure our home is the sparkliest it can be before she gets here. She'll only be here for a few days, but it'll be the cleaniest days this house has ever seen.

Then after she leaves, school will start up again. Junior year for my junior person. Six hours a day of preparation for college and life beyond. It'll be as intense for me as it is for her.

And she starts driver's ed this week. :shudder:

Ah, life.

What's going on in your life lately?

Sunday Book Review

This week's review is a great new YA paranormal: My Soul to Take by Rachel Vincent. You might know Rachel through her incredible Shifters series - a different twist on lycanthropy where the main characters are all werecats. This is Rachel's first venture into YA, and while her writing remains in the paranormal realm, she's shifted (pardon the pun) to a different race of supernatural beings - the Bean Sidhe (or as most people might know them, the Banshee).

Kaylee Cavanaugh's got a problem - she thinks she's going nuts, and her family is ready to put her back in the fruitfarm. But who can blame them when she breaks into bouts of hideous screaming for no apparent reason. The only one who doesn't treat her like she's out of her mind is the cutest boy in school - Nash - and he's got his own secrets. Finding out you're a bean sidhe is certainly better than being insane, but being a human tornado siren for death isn't the best way to win friends and influence people - especially the one who's causing teenage girls all over town to drop dead. Now Kaylee has to get a grip on the magic she just found out she has and stop the killings before they strike too close to home.

I really did love this book. Rachel's got a way of writing that keeps me turning pages and loving the characters she provides. She also has a way of making me disappointed when the book ends, because I want more. Thank goodness this is only the beginning of her Soul Screamers series. My Soul to Save will be out January 2010, and My Soul to Lose is scheduled to be released July of next year (although her site says 2009 - must be a typo).

So, if you're looking for a good read for yourself or for the teen you love, pick up a copy of My Soul to Take. Neither of you will be disappointed. My own teen and I will have to arm wrestle to see who reads the next books first. ;o)

Sleep Deprivation

About twice a year I stay up late for some stupid reason (usually to finish a good book). Last night was one of those nights, and the stupid (in retrospect) reason was the finale of Top Chef Masters. I hate the way our cable translates Mtn time. Some shows we get two hours earlier because eight Eastern is six here. Bravo, however, we get to see at its Pacific time equivalent. Last night Top Chef Masters started at 11:15 - fifteen minutes late because the new season of regular Top Chef ran long. I crawled into bed at 12:20.

Draggin' butt today.

Sure, I could've waited and watched the rerun of it sometime today or this weekend, but I got a burr under my saddle. I wanted to see who won, and I didn't want to have to wait - and thereby take a chance someone would let the winner slip around me. (I hate that, so I'm not going to let it slip here, in case any of you missed it.)

And of course, they had to run a marathon of the show beforehand, along with the Top Chef Las Vegas right before. I watched Top Chef stuff for four hours last night.

Silly me.

Anyway, what's something you stay up late for? Any finales or season openers you're dying to watch?

Pardon My Mess

I've been meaning to do this for a while, and I finally got off my lazy buns. I'm migrating posts from the old Writing Spectacle to either this blog or the one I call Tabula Rasa - depending on the content. As soon as I can get everything meaningful off the old site - and get everyone who's linked to me to change over - I'll be shutting it down.

Meanwhile I'm writing and conducting life, so I don't expect this will be finished too awfully soon.

If you do have a link to the old site, please switch it over to here. I may use the old site for another purpose, and I don't want anyone stumbling in there by accident. This is home now anyway. Anything important will be over here eventually. Some key research posts have already been moved here - like my Agent Sites, Blogs, Etc. - and my story excerpts are being moved to TR. Some stuff I'll just delete. If there's anything over there you really liked, let me know, so I don't wipe out anything important.

Thanks for your patience during all this.

Now, back to your regularly scheduled program. ;o)

Reason for Not Writing #938

There's Cat Butt between you and your keyboard...

(Objects in the picture may appear larger than they are... but in this case, she really is that big.)