Hope you’re all having a good summer!

I finished my residency at the Pima County Public Library at the end of May. Before leaving entirely, I blogged about my time there: Libraries remain a place of refuge.

Some writers came to me nervous about sharing their work and writing hopes. Others brimmed over with enthusiasm and the desire to discuss their projects. But every writer who came to me felt they had something precious inside them that they wanted to share …

If you missed me at the library, this Saturday (June 11) I’ll be at the B-Fest Teen Book Festival at Tucson’s eastside Barnes and Noble. Catch me there for a signing at 4:30 and a panel discussion on getting your book published at 6 p.m.

Meanwhile, the final two chapters of The Huntsman: Winter’s Curse are out, and the game has been getting good reviews. Here’s an article about the game in the Arizona Daily Star: ‘Huntsman’ tie-in a hit for Tucson game studio.

“I enjoyed how we were all working at the same time. I’d be there writing the story as the art is being created and the game design is being worked on and the programing is happening, and all those pieces would influence each other,” she [Simner] said.

Until next time, stay cool, keep writing, keep reading, and keep dreaming!

Mirrored from Janni Lee Simner / Desert Dispatches.

You don’t have to write fast
You don’t have to write slow
You don’t have to go in with a plan
You don’t have to outline
You don’t have to wait
     for the story to say where it wants to go

You don’t have to write what they tell you to write
You don’t have to learn all the rules
You don’t have to be commercial
You don’t have to be literary
You don’t have to get five star reviews

You don’t need a platform
You don’t need a brand
You don’t need a social media presence
You don’t need to be silent
     or keep your opinions to yourself

You don’t have to be like everyone else
You don’t have to be like that bestselling, award-winning author you admire
You don’t have to write short
You don’t have to write long
You don’t have to write blog posts
     that claim to claim to have all the answers

You don’t have to be perfect
You don’t have to do all the things
You don’t have to do any one thing

You just have to tell your stories
     your stories
     your stories
The ones no else can
The way no one else can
That’s all
That’s all
That’s all

Mirrored from Janni Lee Simner / Desert Dispatches.

The Huntsman: Winter’s Curse

The Huntsman: Winter’s Curse is now available on PC and Mac–and the first chapter is free! I worked as scriptwriter on this game with Desert Owl Games. Download your copy of Book 1 here and give it a try.

The Huntsman: Winter’s Curse is set in the universe of NBCUniversal’s The Huntsman: Winter’s War, which hit theaters this week.

Finding Your Sense of Place–Bringing Your Characters to Life

When: Saturday, May 14, 1-3 p.m.
Where: Children’s Meeting Room, Joel D. Valdez Main Library, Tucson
(Although this workshop meets in the children’s room, it is aimed at adults and teens.)

Use setting and description to bring your characters to life and increase the emotional impact of your stories! Setting is about much more than providing a few scene-setting details and moving on. Discover why the descriptions that seem to get in the way of your stories are actually the most powerful tools you have to bring characters to life and make readers care about their stories.

This workshop is available free for the first time thanks to the Arizona State Library, Archives and Public Records’ Writer-in-Residence program and the Pima County Public Library.

Mirrored from Janni Lee Simner / Desert Dispatches.

What I’ve been doing these past months: working on the script for Desert Owl Games’ new release–The Huntsman: Winter’s Curse, a game set in the expanded universe of the forthcoming The Huntsman: Winter’s War!

Winter is fast approaching as Queen Freya’s army marches relentlessly on the White Lands. Beneath the shadow of that deadly war Elisabeth’s quiet life on her family’s farm in Vardhelm comes to an abrupt end as she embarks on a journey of her own. Join her on a quest to find her missing brothers as you explore an expanded Huntsman universe, one where you’ll encounter both familiar faces and new dangers, all while discovering the secret Elisabeth herself unknowingly carries.

The Huntsman: Winter’s Curse debuts April 20 on Windows and Mac, with a PlayStation 4 release to follow later in the year. The first chapter is free to play–find out more at the official website.

Mirrored from Janni Lee Simner / Desert Dispatches.

Jaye Wells and Tiffany Trent both have posts up this week about writers and burnout. (I totally agree with Jaye Wells on the importance of writers having hobbies, once writing ceases to be one. Writing professionally is one of the things that led me to become a serial hobbyist.)

This got me to thinking about one of the cycles I’ve noticed in writing careers, one that we don’t talk much about–the cycle of intensity and burnout.

I’ve come to believe, watching countless writers go through this–and having gone through it myself–that writers often spend the first three or four years of their careers talking about how important it is to be intense and productive, sharing strategies for getting more done and being more efficient, talking about how a professional writer has no choice but to write two, three, four books a year.

Somewhere in the middle of the first decade, though, many writers go quiet–until somewhere around years six to nine writers often admit they’ve been coping with burnout, possibly alongside other career challenges, and they share those struggles. I think it’s hugely useful to do so. It’s all that sharing through the years that’s made me realize how common this is.

The first few years of the first decade of a writing career are often about intensity. The last few years of that decade are often about dealing with burnout in various ways. In between, writers often struggle with either despair or denial, as they realize this writing career thing is a less simple (even less simple) than it first seemed.

Sometime after the first decade, a sort of settling in and settling down happens. An acceptance of both the ongoing cycles and the shifting ground of a writing career. A developing of personal coping strategies for doing this for the long haul.

Well, either that, or the writer stops writing. I don’t mean that lightly–moving on to do something else is a reasonable response to burnout, too.

But one way or another, by roughly the end of the first decade, something often has to give, and something often has to change. That early intensity often can’t be maintained forever, not without, at the very least, allowing for downtime, as well as allowing for the unpredictability of a writing career.

I’ve used the word often a lot, above. Careers vary so much that none of this is going to be true for everyone.

But if this isn’t the only possible cycle for a writing career to follow, it is a common one. And I think that’s worth talking about, so that those who do go through this cycle know they’re not alone with it.

Intensity, burnout, regrouping. Sometimes the cycle repeats after that. Sometimes the strategies developed keep it from repeating. That varies too.

Intensity, burnout, regrouping. If you’re somewhere in the middle of this cycle, you’re not alone. You’re just navigating a perfectly normal writing career.

Mirrored from Janni Lee Simner / Desert Dispatches.

Katherine Lawrence, December 11 1954 – March 25 2004

This Isn’t a Story

I’m sorry, Katherine,
but dying isn’t a story.
I saw your careful outline,
your well-researched notes:
first the heroine died,
then her adventures began.
You knew every detail:
the ghost town by the river,
when the trains ran,
the reasons why bullets were
better than pills.
You wrote and rewrote
the opening scenes. Nothing more.
Because dying isn’t a story.

We argued about story. We argued
when you stopped writing.
No, edit that. I argued. You said
you’d keep your notes and walked away.
You understood pacing and tension.
You mailed your goodbyes as you drove out of town;
walked down to the river, leaned back, looked up at the sky—

But no. Dying isn’t a story.
The hikers who found you,
that was a story. The police officer
with the half-finished novel;
the county parks manager in cutoff jeans
who told us he was sorry,
who told us he’d done this before.
A story is a long drive home through the dark,
both my hands steady on the wheel.

Your empty apartment was a story,
at least once we opened the door:
The answering machine blinking its silence,
the solstice cards lining the hall.
The borrowed books set on the counter,
labeled with sticky notes, bearing our names.
Nothing left to the reader:
no loose ends, no unresolved threads.
But a story is messier than a body by a river,
a bullet to the head. A story is
your mother packing your dishes
and your silver and a fifth of Scotch,
filling out the paperwork
to transport your gun across state lines.

You had a promising start:
the opening lines, the rising tension,
the chilling sense of things
that couldn’t happen any other way.
But those things aren’t a story,
and dying doesn’t make them one.

You knew how to outline
and you knew how to plot.
So how could you not know
what all writers know,
I still don’t know.
I’m sorry, Katherine.
This poem isn’t a story,
but I’m not driving away.

I could rewrite this now, polish it a little–but I won’t. Sometimes, more polish doesn’t actually make a piece stronger, after all.

And another anniversary: Irvin Simner, August 11, 1936 – March 22, 2014.

Two years after losing my dad, I find I can see much more clearly both the gifts and the weaknesses he’s left to me.

Twelve years after losing Katherine, loss no longer seems a rare outrage. It seems a hard and terrible part of how the world works.

There’ve been other losses between these two, after these two. I’m coming up on the age Katherine had just turned the last time I saw her. That puts me a year out from the birthday she couldn’t bring herself to face.

It took less time to forgive my father than Katherine. I wouldn’t have expected that.

I don’t know how long it took to forgive Katherine, only that it was less than twelve years.

Mirrored from Janni Lee Simner / Desert Dispatches.

Two roads diverge in a yellow wood:

– Take the one less traveled by
– Take the one more traveled by
– Take both

Mirrored from Janni Lee Simner / Desert Dispatches.

I’ll be at the Tucson Festival of Books from 1-5 Saturday (tomorrow!) at the Pima County Public Library’s Bookmobile near the Flandrau Science Center and Planetarium on the UA Mall.

I’ll be talking about the Writer-in-Residence program and its upcoming workshops, and I’ll also be holding my office hours right there on the Mall–so come on by, and bring your writing questions with you!

Mirrored from Janni Lee Simner / Desert Dispatches.

As part of the new Writer-in-Residence program in Arizona’s libraries, I’ll have office hours at Tucson’s Main (Joel Valdez) library! In March those hours will be:

Tuesdays: 10 am – noon
Saturdays: 2 pm – 5 pm (no hours March 12/Book Festival weekend)

For now, signups will be on a drop-in basis.

I’m happy to talk about most writing subjects, whether craft or business related, whether at a beginner or advanced level or somewhere in between. I’m also happy to look at a few pages of a work-in-progress, though there won’t be time enough for in-depth critiques.

So come by! Let’s show that there’s a demand in Tucson for this program and help encourage Arizona to continue bringing writers into libraries throughout our state.

And if you’re up in Phoenix, check locally for writers holding office hours at libraries in Glendale, Mesa, and Avondale.

Mirrored from Janni Lee Simner / Desert Dispatches.

I’m honored to announce that I’ll be the Pima County Library‘s first Writer-in-Residence this March through May! This means, among other things, that I’ll have regular office hours a couple days a week when you can come to me with your writing questions, that I’ll be offering several free workshops this spring, and that the downtown Joel D. Valdez Library will become one of my writing homes away from home for the next few months.

The Writer-in-Residence program is a project of the Arizona State Library and includes writers-in-residence in several locations in Phoenix as well, all of whom will also have office hours and be running workshops:

– Avondale Library: Susan Pohlman
– Glendale Library: Amy Nichols
– Mesa Library: Bill Konigsberg

More details and my specific schedule to come soon!

Mirrored from Janni Lee Simner / Desert Dispatches.

How you know you live in the desert: when your child sees frost on the car in the morning and proclaims, “Snow!”

In other news, what decidious leaves we have are falling from the trees.

A good December to you all, whatever your own seasonal signs may be.

Mirrored from Janni Lee Simner / Desert Dispatches.

… and then another, and another, and another after that.

On this final day (and after the final night) of Hanukkah:

Light one candle for the strength we all need
To never become our own foe
And light one candle for those who are suffering
The pain we learned so long ago

Here’s to lighting candles in the dark, and believing in miracles, and all the ways we all have in us to continue spreading light in this world now that the candles have burned down.

Mirrored from Janni Lee Simner / Desert Dispatches.

And so it happened that a darkness came over the land. Some were consumed by the dark, and some were destroyed by the dark, and some fled the dark at great cost, escaping to tell the tale.

Some too watched the darkness approach. “We must fight the dark,” these people said, but they did not know how. Darkness is not easily captured and destroyed. A sword will not slay it. An arrow will not pierce it. Iron bars cannot hold it, no more than they can hold light. And so they were greatly afraid.

Until one saw the people fleeing the dark. “Swords can slay them,” he thought. “Arrows can pierce them. Iron bars can hold them, though they cannot hold darkness or light.”

This one turned to those around him and said, “Look! Those people who are fleeing the dark, they have been touched by the dark. The darkness is within them now. We need only keep them away, and we will keep the darkness away, too. We need only keep them away, and we will be safe.”

The people looked to the ones fleeing the dark, and they saw at last something that swords could slay, and arrows pierce, and iron bars hold. “We can fight that,” they said, feeling their courage return. “We will fight that. Those who are touched by the dark, are the dark, and must be kept away.”

And so, at last, they felt safe.

But they were not safe.

And they are not the heroes of this story.

They are never the heroes of this story.

Mirrored from Janni Lee Simner / Desert Dispatches.

“What do you do about writers block?” It’s a question writers get asked often.

It’s also a subject on which writers are tempted to go the hard truths route on when they answer.

When I was asked this question, I used to say something like, “Well, I don’t really get writer’s block. I just keep writing.” Maybe I’d throw in some helpful words about how it’s okay to write a crappy rough draft, as if all that stood between a–any writer–and writing was the fear of producing some bad words that they’d need to figure out how to revise later. The truth was, in my earliest writing days, I didn’t believe in writers block, and I did believe in simple truths. Writers write, right?

As time went on, I began to allow as how I did at least know what burnout was–both as a writer and in other fields–and that maybe that was what writers really meant, when they talked about writers block.

I still think I was right that the phrase, “writer’s block,” might be problematic, if only because it carries a lot of almost-mystical weight among writers, and that naming the specific reasons for not writing–of which burnout is only one of many–can sometimes give being stuck a little less power. But beyond that, when asked what I do about writer’s block now, I no longer have a quick, simple answer. There are so many reasons writers stop writing, as many reasons as there are writers.

But if asked to break it down, and given the time for a long answer rather than a short one, now I’d say there are three main things I do when I get writer’s block–or whatever we want to call it–things that, like all writing advice, are right for me, but may or may not be right for anyone else.

1) Sometimes I need to push through.

Sometimes what feels like writer’s block really is just a case of the I-Don’t-Want-Tos or the I’m-Scared-Tos. And sometimes even something more complicated than a case of the I-Don’t-Want-Tos or I’m-Scared-Tos can be fought and pushed through. Sometimes, the advice my younger self gave still holds, and I just need to keep writing, keep my butt in my chair, and get those words on the page by brute force.

2) Sometimes I need to step back.

Sometimes when writing just isn’t happening, something in the story isn’t working, or I need to figure something out before I can move forward. When that’s true, going for a walk, going to a movie, even just taking a shower or grabbing lunch and giving myself some thinking time may be the break I need to figure out what that something is. Once I figure it out, often the words will start flowing again, no brute force required.

Sometimes taking a break just re-energizes me, too, even if it doesn’t lead to any profound story realizations, and that can help my words to flow more freely, too. Writers like to talk about how we can’t afford to take breaks, but sometimes, I think we can’t afford not to.

3) Sometimes I need to step away.

Sometimes there are real, legitimate stresses, positive and negative, that take away our focus or our writing time or our writing brain and leave us in a place where we can’t push through, for a short time or a long one, and a shower or a walk or all the writing pep talks in the world just aren’t going to change that. That’s when we need to forgive ourselves for not writing for a time, allow ourselves some grace, and stop beating ourselves up and making ourselves feel worse about something that just isn’t going to happen right now.

The truth is that I remain, really, really bad at this. And to be fair, I don’t think I’ve ever been wrong to try responses 1 and 2 first–more often than not, they do work. But not always, and that’s okay.

Or maybe it’s not okay. It’s terribly hard, actually, especially when one is also trying to make a living, especially when writing is part of one’s identity and one’s way of being and expressing and existing in the world. I don’t have easy answers to what to do about any of that. (Or even, as Terri Windling says, any difficult ones.) But it’s going to happen to many of us, maybe most of us, at one point or another, if we keep at this writing thing long enough.

Most of us will also, at one point or another, find our way back, though we may stop believing that and it may take longer than we expect. I now believe that if we can learn to treat ourselves with compassion during these times, rather than with anger and self-hate, if we can find a way to be gentle with ourselves, this can actually help us through and provide comfort–something that’s especially important at times when writing isn’t there to do these things for us.

Mirrored from Janni Lee Simner / Desert Dispatches.

… the story-universe informs its characters that the world is a dark and shadowed place, and demands that they fix it.

And the characters are all, “Ummmmm …”

Or is that just me?

Mirrored from Janni Lee Simner / Desert Dispatches.

Today, as sometimes happens, I’ve been stumbling, unbidden, on writing posts on a theme.

First, J.H. Moncrieff on the problems of writers telling one another that “Writers write”: “If nothing has ever stopped you from writing, you’re very, very lucky. You’re also a rarity.”

Then, Terri Windling on hard times and some of the reasons writers don’t write: “For those of us working professionally in the arts, the strictures of the marketplace require that work be produced in a regular manner. We spend years mastering the discipline required to create works of art and when that discipline fails us, when the fire’s been dampened and the work just will not come, what on earth does one do? I wish I had an easy answer to that question … or even a difficult one. But every artist is different, every journey is different, and each of us must discover our personal way of re-kindling the fire …”

Even though I’m writing consistently right now, I’ve been in both these places. I think most of us have, though I think most of us also hesitate to say so.

Then, after reading both those posts, I stumbled upon an old never-shared post of mine on the problems of ignoring all of the above when dispensing writing advice. So since the universe seems to be telling me to talk about this today (and was, perhaps, telling me to wait when I set this post aside months and months ago for reasons I no longer clearly remember), I’m adding this post to the conversation now.

=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=

Over on facebook, I recently (not so recently now) posted the following:

I used to think writing was entirely about being determined enough and wanting it badly enough to put one’s butt in the chair and do the work. Now I get that it’s also about sorting out both sleep and time, about keeping the creative well full, about so many complicated and intertwined and individual/personal things. While it may ultimately be true that in order to write we have to do the work, I regret all the times I put a “just” in front of that statement when giving writing advice, or went all “this is the hard truth” about it. It’s not that simple, not always, not for an entire long career. Don’t let anyone tell you it is, and don’t let yourself feel inferior when they do if their current truth isn’t your current truth.

That was the short version. This is the longer one:

I did once think writing was pretty simple. You just had to be determined enough and want it badly enough to put your butt in the chair and do the work. Nothing else mattered. If you didn’t put in the time, you simply weren’t going to be a writer because you weren’t committed enough to being one. End of story. Thinking this, I gave my share of tough love, “I’m sorry, but this is the hard and unassailable truth, no way around it” talks to my fellow writers.

As a beginning writer, I was so harsh–on others and on myself. I was incredibly intense about writing back then. I wanted this writing thing so badly I could taste it, I wasn’t going to let anything get in the way, and I had little empathy or understanding to spare for those who felt differently.

Over the next couple decades I mellowed, and I think that’s a good thing. I’ve come to understand that that intensity is something you can maintain for a few years at a stretch, but not for a lifetime, not without burning out. There comes a point where we need to chill out, to relax a little, to remember to breathe if we’re going to keep doing this at all.

And we need to accept that not only do careers have ups and downs, lives have ups and downs. We’re in good and bad mental places and these things affect our work. We have higher and lower levels of non-writing obligations and these things affect our work.

None of this means we don’t want it badly enough. It means we’re human beings. It means not every day, year, or decade is going to be a perfect one, and that’s all right.

But here’s a thing: For every one of us who finally comes to this understanding and stops beating their fellow writers over the head with so-called tough truths, there’s another writer who’s still riding that first (or second, or third) wave of intensity, and so deliverting talks about all the things that they’re sure, so very sure, are hard-and-fast requirements for being a real writer and having a real career–with no time to stop, while being that intense, to wonder what that word, “real,” even means.

It may be true that we need to do at least some of the things, some of the time, to get our work out into the world and into the hands of readers–though it may also be true that it’s possible to do these things at a sustainable intensity instead of flinging our whole beings at the universe day after day to get them done. But that word, “true,” is as problematic as “real” is. Careers are long, time is long, people are individuals. None of us knows what will even work for us in a year or five, let alone for anyone else.

I’ve come to believe that when it comes to writing hard, necessary truths are neither as true nor as necessary nor as universal as we think. When we share our experiences–because there is value, immense value, in writers sharing their experiences, in connecting and knowing we’re not alone and finding common ground–we can share them with all of that in mind, and not only for others’ sake. Because when we become less harsh with others, we become less harsh with ourselves. This may be one of the writing truths–or one of my writing truths–that it’s taken me longest to learn–that time is long and careers are long, and in the end, no matter what anyone else needs, sooner or later we need our own self-kindness and self-compassion and self-understanding to see us through.

Mirrored from Janni Lee Simner / Desert Dispatches.

Aka TusCon 42. I’ll be there this weekend and hope some of you will, too.

The con is at the Hotel Tucson City Center at 475 N Granada Ave in Tucson. Here are some of the specific places you can find me!

Friday, 7 p.m.
Meet the Guests
Ballroom (Copper Room)

Saturday, 8 p.m.
Why Teens Are Drawn to Dystopian?
With Willian Herr, Janni Lee Simner, and John Vornholt
St. Augustine

Sunday, 9 a.m.
Finding Your Sense of Place: Emotion, Description, and Setting
A craft-of-writing talk with Janni Lee Simner
Garden Room

Sunday, 2 p.m.
Bring Back Your Dead: The Uses and Misuses of Killing Your Characters
With With James Breen, Seanan McGuire, Janni Lee Simner, Thomas Watson, and Colette Black
Ballroom (Copper Room)

Want to learn how to do origami? Be sure to also catch Larry Hammer in the Art Show room at 10 a.m. Saturday offering a paper-folding tutorial!

Mirrored from Janni Lee Simner / Desert Dispatches.

An article on how Twilight-hate is part of the larger picture of teen girl hate in our society, something I’ve been aware of for a while now: “For many people, the fact that teenage girls like something — whether that something is Taylor Swift or One Direction or ‘Twilight’ — is a reason to write it off completely.”

When I first shared this article on social media, there was some discussion, as there usually is (because I’ve been part of discussions about this before, the past few years), about how our hatred of Twilight isn’t r
really or only about dissing teen girls, because the books really are problematic, because they provide such horrible models for teen girls of who they can aspire to be.

I used to share this concern. But after talking to actual Twilight readers, I’m convinced that teen girls read as critically or more critically than the rest of us, and that they’re no less aware of the problems with the books than any of us are aware of the problems with whatever fluffy, escapist stories we happen to enjoy. In fact, I’ve had some of my favorite thoughtful conversations about YA books and reading with Twilight readers.

The Twilight books still don’t hit my story buttons. I’ll never be part of their core audience. But then I began thinking about how Twilight is nowhere near the only fiction out there that provides poor role models for girls. One could argue that, more often than not, most stories out there–in books and in other media–still do that. Girls and women are so often either absent or victims in everything from children’s stories to adult ones. (Being a girl is also not-infrequently tossed off as a one-line joke in movies, because apparently nothing is funnier or more humiliating than a guy being mistaken for a girl, or finding himself in girl’s clothes.) One could argue that Bella, at least, gets what she wants at the end of her story, which even today isn’t true for the women in so many other stories we read and watch.

So after thinking about that, I began thinking about one of my favorite bits of escapism from when I was a teen, something that remains one of the things that still does hit my story buttons: the original Star Wars trilogy.

Star Wars had a huge influence on my writing. It helped ignite my love of fantasy and adventure stories. (I do consider it more fantasy and adventure than science fiction, though that’s a whole other discussion.) It helped turn me into a writer, because I spent hundreds and hundreds of hours writing hundreds of thousands of words of Star Wars fanfic. The Star Wars movies were huge for me. Huge.

The Star Wars movies provide horrible role models for being a woman.

Oh, sure, in the very first movie Leia is full of spunk and fire and no small amount of strategic planning. She’s also, as far as we know as of the original trilogy, one of only two women in the entire Star Wars universe, which is a tremendous problem in itself, especially when the other woman dies horribly in the opening scenes and is never really a character at aLL. But by the end of the trilogy, Leia has been drained of all real agency. In The Empire Strikes Back she’s reduced to primarily a love interest, and by Return of the Jedi her main active actions revolve around trying to rescue the man she loves. By the end of Jedi movie, Luke does all the heavy lifting, while Leia discovers and helps inspire the Ewoks to help out on the ground. And that ground battle doesn’t even really influence the course of events; it’s Luke and Vader’s battle with the Emperor that truly destroys the Empire, though not everyone knows it.

A point is even made, in Jedi, of the fact that Leia has the same powers as Luke–but she never gets to use them, not even a little bit. At the end of Jedi Luke has saved the galaxy, Leia falls into Han’s arms, and viewers cheer.

I cheered. Which is actually the point I’m trying to make. These movies, which also don’t provide strong role models for girls, were movies teen me loved beyond all reason. They’re movies adult me loves beyond all reason, too. Loves them even as I critique their flaws, which I’m fully aware of, and which include front and foremost their treatment of female characters. Teen me was just as aware, though she articulated it differently, by constantly adding female characters to the fic she wrote, and giving them agency.

Teen Twilight fans (and, yes, adult ones too) are capable of the same self-awareness. They’re as capable of enjoying problematic things as I am.

The difference is that, when I say I love Star Wars, very few people sneer and go “oh, lightsabers, seriously?” in that way that they so often sneer and go “oh, sparkly vampires, seriously?” Two problematic stories–two very different societal reactions.

Likewise, while there are certainly thinky gender critiques of both Star Wars out there, when I say I love Star Wars, few people immediately respond by saying, “Oh, but what kind of an example is it setting for our girls?” — even though the example Star Wars sets is not ultimately better than the example Twilight sets. Leia has more spunk than Bella, sure (though even that spunk is tempered by the end), but she doesn’t have more agency.

Of course we should talk to our daughters about the problematic messages and role models in Twilight. I’m not suggesting otherwise. But we should also talk to them about the problematic messages and role models in other stories–and be on the lookout for them ourselves–because Twilight is nowhere near unique in this regard.

But before then, first and foremost, when a teen girl says she loves a thing?

We owe her the same respect we owe anyone else, when they talk about the things they love.

Mirrored from Janni Lee Simner / Desert Dispatches.

From October 15-17 I’ll be at the Humboldt County Author Festival. I’m excited to be visiting schools Thursday and Friday—and I’ll also be part of a public signing with all the other Festival authors on Saturday. If you’re in the area, stop by and say hi!

Saturday, October 17, 10 a.m.-2 p.m.
Humboldt County Children’s Author Festival—Book Signing
Eureka Main Library
1313 3rd Street
Eureka , California

Looking ahead, I’ll also be back at TusCon Science Fiction Convention Halloween weekend.

Friday, October 30-Sunday, November 1
TusCon Science Fiction Convention
Hotel Tucson City Center
475 N Granada Ave
Tucson, Arizona

It be great to see you either of these places!

Mirrored from Janni Lee Simner / Desert Dispatches.

Dear Protagonist and Her Fearless Band of Followers Friends,

Wait, what? You want to defeat the giant killer scorpion WITHOUT killing it?

No, no. it’s totally doable. I … I like the way you think. Giant killer scorpions have feelings too.

No, really. I mean that unironically.

Mostly.

Me

Mirrored from Janni Lee Simner / Desert Dispatches.

That lovely moment in the story when a phone rings, and you let your character answer it so that both of you can find out who’s on the other end.

Really, knowing where the story is going before you get there is overrated.¹

Meanwhile:

Dear Characters,

I’m sorry, but you cannot organize yourselves into one Leader and Four Lancers.²

It just … doesn’t work that way.

Me

ETA:

Dear Group Leader,

I know, I know. You have to deal with this lot and you don’t even get the benefit of being the protagonist for your trouble.

Would it help if I gave you some angsty back story to make up for it?

Me

¹Necessary disclaimer: For my writing process.

²If a Five-Man Band has one Leader and Four Lancers, does the Leader become the actual Lancer?

Mirrored from Janni Lee Simner / Desert Dispatches.

Recently, in my search for diverse picture books and especially for books where my child could see other children who look like her in the illustrations, I came upon Ten Little Fingers and Ten Little Toes. This beautifully written and illustrated book, for those who haven’t read it, introduces babies from around the world and of many races with the refrain:

And both of these babies—as everyone knows—had ten little fingers and ten little toes.

The strength of the writing and illustrations meant that it took two or three or maybe five readings (because no one reads any picture book only once to their child) for it to hit me that that well-crafted refrain … wasn’t actually true. That the very book I’d bought to help my child celebrate her diversity and the diversity of all children was not about all children.

Because somewhere out there–many somewheres out there–there’s a parent who saw this book that was trying to be about all babies and set it aside because it wasn’t about their baby. Maybe this parent’s perfect, beloved, amazing child was born with polydatyly, or with a limb difference–yet here’s this book about how perfect, beloved, amazing children all have one thing in common–that they aren’t anything life this parent’s child.

At first I thought I was overthinking things. And then I thought I wasn’t. Intersectionality is tricky. It’s easy to say that no one book can be about every child and move on, but really it’s so much more complicated than that.

And this post isn’t about this one (otherwise lovely) book, or about any other one book, though I fear it will be taken that way. It’s about how I then thought a little more deeply about what the stories I tell mean for my child, who I want to embrace diversity not only when it’s about who she is, but also when it’s about the wide world she lives in.

I tell my child hundreds of stories every day, and not all of them come out of books.

Shortly after we finished the second or third or fifth reading of Ten Little Fingers and Ten Little Toes, my child handed me her stuffed bat, which had recently lost an eye. She pointed to the spot where the eye had once been, asking without words for an explanation.

I almost went for the obvious story–that yes, the toy was broken, and yes, I could fix it. Then I realized there was another, truer story I could choose instead.

“You’re right,” I told her matter-of-factly. “That bat has one eye. And you have two eyes.

“That’s because everybody’s different.”

Mirrored from Janni Lee Simner / Desert Dispatches.

I speak with Mark Mclemore today on Arizona Spotlight! Listen here, or catch me on Tucson’s KUAZ 89.1 at 8:30 a.m. or 6 p.m. today (Friday) or 5 p.m. tomorrow (Saturday). You can hear me reading from Bones of Faerie there, too.

And this weekend, hear me in person at the Pima County Library’s MegaMania, where I’ll be on a writing panel from 2:30-3:15 p.m. with Jeff Mariotte, Marsheila Rockwell, and Tobias Wade. Here I talk to MegaMania about writing, reading, and libraries.

Mirrored from Janni Lee Simner / Desert Dispatches.

Two reviews of Finding Your Sense of Place!

Katherine Cowley: ” I highly recommend it for an exploration of setting and emotion.” (Check out her post on Emotional Beats in Fiction, as well.)

Janet Lee Carey at Dreamwalks: ” These forty pages could change your writing life. I know they’ll change mine.

I’ll be at the Pima County Public Library’s SummerMania/Megamania! July 11. It’s a free mini-comicon sponsored by the library–if you’re around, come on by!

When: July 11, 2015, 2-6 p.m.
Where: Pima Community College, Downtown Campus, Tucson, Arizona

Mirrored from Janni Lee Simner / Desert Dispatches.

I came upon this embedded into a five-year-old blog post of mine. Some things one doesn’t stop needing to hear:

If you want to cry as well as smile, this longer version ends with a Jim Henson tribute. How many years has it been? (25, says Wikipedia.) I still miss his work and his presence in this world:

And another bit of unrelated-yet-related inspiration, for those of us coming at all this from a when-creativity-meets-professional-life perspective:

Mirrored from Janni Lee Simner / Desert Dispatches.