Category Archives: Alethea Kontis

Team Katniss

So here’s the deal. I had this great post all ready to write about “insta-love” in YA novels (my new favorite term), followed by an actual, intelligent discussion of Team Edward and Team Jacob.

And then The Today Show ticked me off while I was at the gym (again…why can’t they change the channel?) and I decided to write up this fanatical little rant about The Hunger Games. As the film comes out this weekend, it seemed fitting. (And hell yes, I’m going to see it on Sunday.)

I loved every book in this trilogy. Loved them. It still bugs me that they’re written in first person present tense (if you ever have the urge to do that, PLEASE DON’T), but they are gorgeously written and incredibly fun…which is how it became this huge, colossal entity. (Unlike Twilight, the popularity of which still baffles me.)

What the Hunger Games is NOT, is a trilogy of romance novels. Sure, there are romantic elements in it, but there are more romantic elements in Castle, and that still qualifies as a Crime Drama. The Hunger Games is dystopian science fiction fantasy. Horror, even. It’s a story of surviving your teenage years–which the majority of us seemed to manage without 23 other people desperately trying to kill us (despite how it felt sometimes).

So it really tees me off when faces like the dolts on The Today Show start spouting crap about “Team Gale” and “Team Peeta” like the books are some kind of Twilight clones. A few of my guy friends actually  stopped reading after the first book, because they were exposed to all this “Team” stuff and were afraid that’s what the books devolved into.

*sigh*

There is only one Team in The Hunger Games, and that is Team Katniss.

Period.

As I ranted on Facebook, The Hunger Games is not about finding a boy. It’s about taking responsibility and finding the strength in yourself to do what needs to be done. This is a really important talking point for teenagers that is now regrettably swept under this stupid “Team” rug.

YA author Malinda Lo agreed with me, in this article she wrote for “Enchanted Ink” before Mockingjay was even released. The “Teams” thing had already started up then. And while Malinda points out how fun it is to take a side, it’s a little silly when it’s NOT THE POINT OF THE BOOK.

No doubt this whole Peeta vs. Gale thing is perpetuated by Twilight-savvy publicists who’ve never read a page. All they see is, “What stupid thing can we say that will get young people talking?” Well, I’m talking. And what I’m saying is this:

The Hunger Games was, is, and will always be ABOUT KATNISS.

Cute boys will come and go, but strong girls will always be number one. Always.

I am Team Katniss.

That is all.

 

On The Quality of Skin

I’m going to begin this blog post the way I hate people starting emails: with an apology.

I am sorry. I was wrong.

I have, in the past, on numerous occasions, stated vehemently that I do not read reviews for my books. Yes, I will skim through them if my editor sends them to me, because she has taken the time to collect them and copy them and mail hard copies to me, and ignoring her hard work would be a disservice. But I do not want to be one of those people who checks Amazon or Goodreads every day hour minute for affirmation. I do not want to yell and scream and tilt at windmills because some reader called me out for something they obviously misconstrued, or gave me one star in revenge because I cheated during the sixth grade spelling bee. I do not want to be weeping in a ball on the tiles in my bathroom because some major publication found me lacking, or misspelled my name, or worse: didn’t mention me at all.

My Greek great grandmother, the great Mama Mitchell, once said: “Never let strangers upset you.” I wholeheartedly agree with this statement. But I know myself. I knew, even when I was a little girl, that I could never be a doctor because I would get too emotionally involved. I would never be able to survive the loss of a patient. I knew I could never be a teacher for risk of losing my patience. I still remember crying on the steps one New Year’s Eve when some contest sponsored by fruity cultists threw the best story I’d ever written out with the bathwater. That rejection broke my heart like a cruel boyfriend.

To succumb to any amount of fear and terror and sadness is giving those strangers power over me. The only one who deserves power over me, is ME.

So every time I opened that envelope in the mail, or clicked the link on a Google Alert, I had a kind of out-of-body experience. I pretended I was reading something written about someone else. If it was bad, shrug. If it was good, shrug and smile. I blogged about them or not, and then I moved on. I did not let them define who I was, or shape the person I would become.

This winter, I started booking a blog tour. I started talking to bloggers. I followed the tweets of people who had gotten hold of ARCs at ALA, or from the publisher. I gave away (and am still giving away) books on Goodreads. I watched YouTube videos where exceptionally cute and excited young women slaughtered the pronunciation of my name. I made some amazing new friends, and I asked these wonderful people if they please wouldn’t mind helping me get the word out about my debut novel. They said yes. Yes, they would help this crazy woman who played dress-up achieve her dream of living in a fairy tale.

And then they sent me their reviews.

In so many ways, a review isn’t just whether your book is awesome or sucks. Okay, yes, those reviews do exist as well, but it takes as much effort to read those reviews as it does to forget them. A review that a blogger posts on their personal blog isn’t just a job they do for a magazine. It’s a bunch of hours they’ve taken out of their life to dedicate solely to you and your work. You have put your book out into the world, and people are allowed to have insights on it. They are entitled to their opinions. They have feelings. These reviews are written by people, and these people matter, no less than you or me.

As you know, I have my own saying about strangers: Strangers are just best friends I haven’t met yet. Ignoring their hard work and points of view would be a disservice.

YA author David Macinnis Gill posted a beautiful essay on his website about how it’s okay for authors to be thin-skinned. It’s this quality that makes us the emotional people we are, which translates into the emotional people we write, and we wouldn’t have us any other way. David doesn’t like to read reviews, terrific or otherwise. Once upon a time, I wouldn’t blame him.

But I’ve seen a vast demesne from the window of my Tower at the Top of the World, a sprawling network of bibliophiles who think and feel and speak and read and love and hate and pass it on. I want to celebrate them and their achievements. I want to listen to them. I want to hear what they have to say. I want to enable them in any way I can. So I started reading reviews.

I can’t tell you how humbled I am at what I’ve found: good and bad and everything in between. One woman scolded the AlphaOops Halloween book as not being appropriate for young children. “Kids these days dress up as fairies, firefighters, astronauts, etc. so they aren’t used to seeing all of these scary creatures.” It is to laugh, right? And yet, another woman wrote about how her son was having a tough time learning his letters, but after a week of reading AlphaOops, he knew them all. A two year old in California loved it so much, he destroyed the copy his mom had checked out from the library…and she admitted this to everyone on Amazon. My Nana’s review is still there too, in all caps, complete with misspellings and details on her trip to the dentist.

Enchanted, even thought it won’t be in stores for another couple of months, is already getting significant blog attention (in no small part to the very lovely cover, thank you Harcourt). Kirkus, ironically, hated the cover but granted me a star for the “wizardly grace of my storytelling.” On the flip side, a woman on Goodreads (who is completely entitled to her opinion, so please let’s leave her to have it, thank you), stopped reading Enchanted because of its horrible pervasive sexual innuendo. (I’m still scratching my head at that one. And yes, she was reading the correct book.)

Most recently, a review from Embrace You, a multicultural webzine, almost brought me to tears. Not because it was such a wonderful, heartfelt review–which it was–but because the reviewer (Kai) saw something in the book that I had never realized. “There’s emphasis on the meaning of loss,” she wrote, “in death, to marriage, and in magic.” I have never been taken so aback as I was when I read that someone I did not know had seen something in my writing–in me–that I had never seen.

Maybe all those years of avoiding reviews has grown me a thick skin, but I doubt it. I still cry when I open my annual Valentine’s gift from my daddy, or when I see the fairy goddaughters giggling together on the couch and miss my little sister like a lost limb. I’m pretty sure I’m still the same old me, only nowadays I wear a tiara and read book reviews. And that’s okay.

See there, I’ve said it again: I read book reviews. Mea culpa. The Princess Was Wrong Day. Mark your calendars.

And now I’d like to thank you all for taking the time to read me. Happy Monday to you. xox

 

Write What You Know

“Write what you know.”

Ugh.

I hate this cliche bit of writing advice. I first heard it as said to Jo March in Little Women, and then again and again as I dove into the deep, Olympic swimming pool of the writing world.

The trouble with this advice, as with all cliches, is there’s quite a bit of truth in it.

Which is so annoying.

How does one write about magical worlds and special girls with secret powers and evil queens and glittery unicorns when one lives in THIS world? I mean, look around. This world is full of dirty clothes and dirty dishes and traffic jams and bathroom scales and taxes. Taxes, for goodness sake.

Ugh. No way.

The work around this (for me) was to make my life magic. This sounds impossible, but it’s really not. What do you want your forte to be? Become the expert in that field. Vampires? Steampunk? Space Flight? Mermaids? Look it up. Research it. The more you do…the more you find things that parallel your own life.

Trust me. It’s creepy, but true.

There’s another cliche: “Art imitates life.” That one’s true too.

For me, it was the fairy tales — true allegory if there ever was some. Once I sunk my teeth in deep enough, it wasn’t hard to see the parallels in my own life. I am a third child of a third child and a first child of a first child. I was a lost girl in a dark wood who came out the other side a princess. My youngest sister traveled the world to find her fortune, and now jewels fall from her mouth whenever she speaks. My father, the storyteller, once used fairy tale logic to hide top secret information in plain sight. And my mother…well…this is my mother.

‘Nuff said.

Happy Solstice!

I love this day of the year. THIS, more than January 1st, is my New Year’s Day.

The Winter Solstice is the shortest day of the year, followed by the longest night. (Thus the Yule Log, to light the darkness and keep evil spirits away.)

But what this means ultimately is that after tonight, THE DAYS START GETTING LONGER.

Winter is so difficult. Many of us love the darkness (especially those of us who suffer from migraines), but it’s tough to fight those Circadian Rhythms that tell us to be tired when it starts getting dark outside. It feels like 10pm, but it’s only 6:30. You know what I’m talking about.

Then there’s SAD (Seasonal Affective Disorder) and the general depression that the holidays bring to a lot of people…its a tough time of year, folks.

Today I would like you all to take a minute to yourself and light a candle. If you don’t have a candle handy (silly person), then sip a cup of tea/cocoa/coffee and close your eyes. Take a deep breath. And think about your inner light. What is it that makes you happy in this world? What makes you smile every time you see/hear/smell it? What memories keep you going? What inspires you? How do you inspire others?

We all have lights inside us that shine brighter than any Yule Log. What we have to remember — as I learned from growing up in the South — is to not “hide that light under a bushel.”

Take this day to remember how amazing you are. And, f you are so inclined, take a moment to remind someone in your life how amazing they are, as well.

Happy holidays, everyone!

xox
Princess Alethea Mermaid

Do You NaNo?

Welcome to November 1st, my watery denizens. You know what that means!

Yes, in writerly circles, November 1st marks the advent of NaNoWriMo— National Novel Writing Month. In short, those who sign up (I believe you can still sign up today) pledge to attempt to write 50,000 words in the month of November.

I’m not sure why November was chosen as opposed to say, August, when there are no Holidays and people are expected to go to parties and shop for the holiday season of their choice…but that wasn’t up to me.

My handle on NaNo (as it is affectionately called) is Princess Alethea. I will also be tweeting some of my progress and writing sprints under the #NaNoWriMo hashtag.

I have participated in NaNoWriMo every year since 2005, and I have yet to get to 50,000 words. But I still participate every year, and I am still proud when I look at my word count come December 1st.

Now, there are all sorts of theories about how NaNoWriMo should work. Like writing, THERE IS NO ONE WAY TO DO IT. Should you try to write 50,000 words this month? Absolutely. Should you commit seppuku if you do not achieve this goal? Of course not.The purpose of NaNoWriMo is to teach you to find that elusive BUTT in CHAIR state, and get used to it. In the month of November, you will feel what is like to be a full-time writer. If writing is your goal, these are good habits to have. If you are already a writer, these are good habits to remember. This is why I sign up and play the game, every single year.

A couple of things to address:

PLANNING: A lot of folks plan what they’re doing for NaNo prior to the month. They have an outline and a writing space and time in their schedule.

I hate these people.

I usually have a general idea of what project I want to work on going into November, but that’s about it. This year, I got  a second dayjob as a sub at an afterschool program. It sounds crazy (and is), but it also forced a routine into my schedule. I told the bookstore that I could work 9-2 on the weekdays, and assorted weekends. The days I had off at the afterschool program, or the bookstore, would just be writing time. Hooray! My days were going to go from up in the air all the time to a set schedule. I had PLANNED TIME for writing. I told the afterschool program that I could start on November 1st. This was PERFECT.

Apparently, Murphy (my guardian angel) heard the word “perfect” and slapped me down for it. One manager at the bookstore got spirited away to help open more bookstores, and the other manager got fed up with this situation and quit. Suddenly, instead of quietly slipping into a position of less responsibility, as of Saturday I will be the only acting Manager on the premises. Yeah. Oops.

SO you haven’t planned. So you have a wrench somewhere in the works. Who cares? I have a secret: your life will never be perfect, and you’re still going to have to find a way to shove the writing in between the cracks. Make this promise to yourself, just for this month, and see what you can do. I dare you.

CHEATING: Some people say that if you 1.) continue a novel already in progress, 2.) don’t finish your novel in 50,000 words or 3.) write “shark shark shark shark turtle shark” for 24 pages, you’re CHEATING. You know what? I don’t care about this either. Princess Alethea Mermaid’s rules say that if you write 50,000 words in November, whatever those words are, you’ve “won.” Of course, Princess Alethea thinks if you only write 24,000 words in that month, you have also “won.” I mean, come on. In what other month have you written 24,000 words? (Except you horrible prolific people. Just humor me here, okay? Don’t rub it in.

Go on, jump in the deep end! The water’s fine. We’ll be swimming/flailing/treading water right alongside you. Are you with me? xox

Semantics by Alethea Kontis

“What are you doing out here?”

It had taken him long enough to find her. Holly felt Jacob’s touch on her shoulder but did not turn around. Time was too fleeting. She wanted to revel a little longer in the chill of the dark Spring night, the giggle of the creek below her, the crunch of the grass under her feet. Charlie’s mind hadn’t gotten the grass quite right yet.

“I was scolded for talking to the children,” she said. “So I came out to catch fireflies by the water.” She scooped up a lightning bug that had rested on the branch beside her, serenely blinking like an empty street on the day after Christmas. Holly remembered Christmas, and the little girl who had dreamed about it once. Holly had taken her name.

“Technically it’s not catching when you don’t chase them,” said Jacob.

“Technically it’s not chasing when they wait to be found.” Even after so long, it was ever the argument with them.

“It’s not really a creek,” he said.

“It’s not really night either, but you don’t hear me complaining.” Holly opened her palm and let the firefly escape, leaving nothing on her fingertips but wishes and dew.

“I’m not complaining,” he said. “Just stating the facts.”

“Facts have no business here,” said Holly.

Continue reading

#amwriting

There’s a hashtag on Twitter for authors who are writing: #amwriting.

Unfortunately, I haven’t been #amwriting lately, and it’s gone to my head. I need to cut it out. Get with the discipline. Have some accountability.

“Good lord, this sounds like Weight Watchers,” I say to myself at this point, which may sound a lot like what you’re saying to yourself right now.

Sometimes I get annoyed when writers post their word metrics. But why? I can read them or ignore them, at my whim. What’s important is that the writer is WRITING, and those metrics hold them accountable to not only themselves but the rest of the world.

And so, for at least the next month, I challenge you to come along with me and post your word metrics. Be honest. Be realistic. Do it every single day. Remember — even six words is better than nothing. Just like climbing those stairs is better than sitting on your butt.

I wrote 1544 words yesterday. As soon as I go post that number on my blog, I’ll start writing again and see how far I can get.

Are you guys with me?

How much have you written today?

Project: Saturday (sequel to Enchanted)
Deadline: Dec 31, 2011
New words written: 1544
Present total word count: 12,844 words

FIX THIS!

There are a lot of books out there.

In the days of Dickens and Hawthorne, writers were worth far more than a dime a dozen (a whole dollar, at least). It was a romantic profession, revered by many and envied by more, so much so that many an impoverished author had a benefactor or two to support them as they honed their craft.

Even taking into account the ones that have gone out of print, time alone has grown the number of books in existence exponentially. Digital publishing has doubled that exponent. Many well-to-do writers aren’t as well off as you’d think. We have to get things like day jobs to support ourselves. As for benefactors…well, there’s always Kickstarter.

What kills me is when an author–I won’t name names, but I will qualify that these authors I’m referring to make enough money to be only authors and nothing else–releases a new, eagerly-awaited shiny hardcover full of cliches and coincidences that seem so totally preposterous that you wish you didn’t have an e-reader so that you might have the satisfaction of throwing said book against the wall. I can’t believe the publishing industry is rewarding all this pathetic laziness.

But let me qualify:

Lazy writers are writers who can’t find the time to get their Butts into Chairs and Write. (Not counting this blog, I would currently be classified as a lazy writer. Trust me, it’s driving me as insane as it’s driving my editors.)

Lazy writing is when an author pulls a lot of crap out of their butt and puts it down on paper to keep the story moving along, or to affect a response from a character, or both. One wonders if they meant to go back and change it later, or why the editor didn’t catch it and fix it, or both.

Here are two of my favorite, real life examples of lazy writing:

Exhibit A: Paranormal Romance. Our heroine is a shapeshifter who own a bookstore. She meets a mysterious guy who asks her out on a date on Mother’s Day. He has her meet him at an airstrip where he whisks her away to a private Caribbean Island. While walking on the beach, she says to him, “I wish I’d known; I would have packed a bathing suit.” He says, “Don’t worry. My maid has picked one out for you. It’s in your room.” The woman goes back to her room to find the bathing suit: a perfect size 6. She tries it on and it fits beautifully…and I threw the book across the room.

I can forgive that 1.) she would leave her bookstore on one of the busiest shopping days of the year and 2.) that her very rich boyfriend would take her on a secret date out of the country. It’s called suspension of disbelief for a reason, and I was more than willing to disbelieve. HOWEVER: If you are a woman who has ever tried on a bathing suit, you know that A.) you have to try on 5,000 before you find one you will settle for and B.) No woman on earth has the ability to pick out a bathing suit for another woman and have it be just perfect. None. No where. No way. No how.

The reason I call this lazy is because the heroine is a shapeshifter. It would have made so much more sense for her to shift into the ill-fitting bathing suit to make it fit. A simple solution, had the author cared to think about it for more than five seconds. I ding both the author and editor for this one.

Exhibit B: Mystery/Suspense. Heroine runs into hero on the street while he’s walking his dog. Right at that minute, a cop drives up to tell the hero that his partner is in the hospital. Heroine offers to take his dog home while he goes with the officer. Heroine drops dog off at the hero’s house right when the hero’s ex-wife has decided to drop in for a visit. Wackiness ensues.

Now, while I would believe this story if my friend was telling it to me over coffee, the average person would not believe all this coincidence in fiction. It’s a funny, backwards thing. I’ve actually known writers basing a story on fact to omit things, so as to make the fictional tale seem more realistic. Because no one would believe all those coincidences. Know why? All those coincidences look like lazy writing.

I wrote my first novel when I was twelve. The summer before high school, I went back over the manuscript, made comments, and rewrote the whole thing. In one scene, the heroine is trying to get out of being captured. She asks the guard for some yarn so she can knit to pass the time. The guard agrees, leaves his knife and his rope, and goes to fetch the yarn. In the margin I wrote, “How convenient. FIX THIS.”

Have you ever found yourself muddying the waters to make things move along? Cheating a little bit because you’ve written yourself into a corner? Or are you the type that will stew for a week making sure you get out of that pickle logically and efficiently?

Either way, I urge you all to fight laziness.

If necessary, I will mail you all post-it notes that say, “FIX THIS!”

Love, Comma, Yours Truly

“Know the rules, so you know how to break them properly.”
–Dalai Lama

*

Depending on the time of day and the amount of alcohol involved, writers can go on for hours debating the differences between “voice” and “style.” As a part time copyeditor, it is my job to recognize an author’s style…and then not mess with it (unless it conflicts with house style–just like in poker, the house always wins).

One of the elements unique to each writer’s style is the comma.

Commas are used for lots of reasons. They can be used in lists of one thing, two things, and a third thing. They are used when addressing someone. They are used when interjecting a thought into a middle of a sentence. Most commonly, however, they are used to designate a pause in the rhythm of the text.

Most commas are legal. I feel confident in saying that because there is a comma splice in the Surgeon General’s Warning on the label of every bottle of alcohol produced in the US:

1.) According to the Surgeon General, women should not drink alcoholic beverages during pregnancy because of the risk of birth defects. 2.) Consumption of alcoholic beverages impairs your ability to drive a car or operate machinery, and may cause health problems.

A comma splice is a comma that has no purpose in a sentence. The comma between “machinery” and “and” is really just not necessary. (Though you should have seen the Fairy GodBoyfriend’s face over his Lucky Charms when I asked him to grab me a beer just now.)

It was late when I noticed this particular comma, someone was having a debate–with alcohol, and I was a bored copyeditor. (I double checked it with the English teacher present, just to be sure.) I say that if the Surgeon General is entitled to superfluous commas, then you, too, are welcome to use all the commas you want. If some crazy copyeditor messing with your style wants to take them all out, you have every right to put them all back in.

Before you do, though, I ask you to give it a shot. Leave the comma out for once and see where it goes. Long ago, when I was just a reader, paragraphs with lots of commas sometimes threw me out of the story. But I honestly can’t think of a time I was in the middle of a book and thought, “Wow, that sentence really needed a comma.”

What it comes down to is this: Trust your reader. Trust that your reader is going to know where to put the inflections in sentences and when to pause. You don’t necessarily have to put a comma in front of that “but,” but you can if you really want to. I’m not here to mess with your style. But if you’re open to suggestions, then I’m suggesting it.

I now try to make a subconscious effort to leave out commas when I don’t need them. Despite that, I think my copyeditor still took out about thirty more commas throughout the text of Enchanted. Oh, she put in a few, too, but that’s par for the course…and sometimes that’s house style. I have no problem leaving that up to the house.

Oh, shoot. You must excuse me, everyone. It’s time for me to eat and leave

Asking the Right Questions

Hello, world, and welcome to June!

It doesn’t feel like this year should be half over yet. I know that the older we get the quicker time flies, as each second becomes a smaller and smaller percentage of our overall lifespan…but six months into 2011? Really?

And even more incredibly than that…how on earth did I manage to interview 30 authors on my website in the month of May?

It all started out innocently enough: I had a laundry list of authors on my to-do page that needed to be addressed, and I had my fairy goddaughters for Bring Your Child to Work Day. It was a match made in heaven. We came up with a list of fun and silly questions and decided to send them to everyone.

Yes, everyone.

Within a week I had twenty sets of answers from fiction authors whom I’ve known and respected for a very long time. Add to that five authors from the Magical Words Blog, and I was left with only a week to fill on the fly once I got back from the Nebula Awards. Easy-peasy-Japanesey.

What I didn’t realize when the girls and I came up with those quick and silly questions was how incredibly insightful they would be. (More than few of them were turned into Mermaid Profile Questions.) The interviews weren’t only fun to read, they were intriguing and inspiring. They were everything Barbara Walters hopes she can get out of her victims and more. (You can see the full list of interviews here.)

In The Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy, Douglas Adams told us that the answer to Life, the Universe, and Everything is 42. What we don’t know is the question. There is much wisdom in asking the right question.

I learned some very interesting things last month. I learned that I am not the only author who chooses coffee or tea depending on the situation, or who is afraid of really silly things. I learned that writers dream big…but also realistically. When asked to list three things they wanted to do before they died, most people listed incredibly attainable things. When asked how many words they wished they could write in a single day, most people’s goals were easily reachable. (Only Avery Mermaid and I really went crazy on that one.) And I found so many more things to put on my Princess List.

Writers are clever. Writers are funny. Writers live to experience things. Writers thrive on a sense of community. Writers love answering questions (but often hate choosing between two things). But most of all, writers are real. We build our castles in the sky, but we know our foundations must be planted firmly in the ground.

Last month, I learned things I never knew about friends I’ve had for…well, for some, around a decade. It is amazing how much you can find out about a person by asking a silly question. What’s your favorite word? Your favorite dessert? Your top 5 desert island albums? What schoolyard songs do you remember? How about your favorite board game as a child?

What are some other great silly questions? Go on, ask them.
If we’re lucky, we might just stumble upon Life, the Universe, and Everything.