February 2009 Archives

(No, John still hasn't done my page. JOHN! :)

(This is synched from my blog, penbitten.com, for those on Facebook. Facebook users should also note that I'm tagging people ACTUALLY mentioned. I kinda hate it when it says "So-and-so mentioned you in a note," instead of, "so-and-so just wants you to read their note so will pretend they actually mentioned you." Facebook needs a "wants you to read their note" tagging option.)

A brief respite from the q-and-a for booktalk!

The first time I asked, on our PotterCast vlogs, what people were reading, I was rewarded with an unbelievable glut of recommendations. I knew PotterCast listeners were heavy readers but I had no idea how excited they'd be about talking about books. Therefore I try and talk about a book I've just read on each vlog, and this has turned into doing Monday night live chats where we talk about books and what we think they mean. It is literally some of the most fun I can have online, because I work alone at my desk, whether it's Leaky or research or something else, and getting to interact with Leaky fans / Harry, A History readers / PotterCast listeners / book lovers is always exciting and rewarding. Fighting with taxes all day, or spending hours ripping my hair out over what project to settle on next, can really be frustrating, so I find myself really looking forward to the immediate interaction and the thoughtfulness our group of listeners / watchers always brings to intelligent discussions. I've always felt sort of strange / discomfited by the idea that someone would enjoy watching us on the Internet, but bringing our joint enthusiasm about books to it has deflated all the weirdness and made it feel like an awesome, enormous book club that meets on Monday nights.

Anyway, I've been asked frequently by these guys to make a list of what I've read / am reading. Here it is, though I am sure I'm missing things. And I'm going to try and do Amazon links because authors need their stuff bought. (And you should buy that stuff in person, at an independent bookstore, ideally. If you must buy online, then use the links.)

This year's (incomplete) reading list so far (a "*" indicates a re-read):

(There's also, now, a cool MyLeaky group to keep track of all this reading! Awesome!)

The Percy Jackson and the Olympians series (you can get the boxed set here; the fifth book comes out in May):
The Lightning Thief
The Sea of Monsters
The Titan's Curse
The Battle of the Labyrinth
The Hunger Games, Suzanne Collins
The Great Gatsby*, F. Scott Fitzgerald (needs to be read now and then)
Looking for Alaska, John Green
An Abundance of Katherines, John Green
Let It Snow, John Green, Lauren Myracle, Maureen Johnson
(Note to Nerdfighters, don't shout Paper Towns at me: I read that in 2008, please drop your rocks and let me pass unharmed)
Outliers, Malcolm Gladwell
The Time Traveler's Wife, Audrey Niffenegger (I love this author's name)
The Audacity of Hope, Barack Obama (which I started in 2008 but didn't quite finish until 2009)

Currently Reading (I am always reading a lot of books. I need to have one open to suit every mood, so that I can dip right in when I need to):

The Season*, William Goldman (I read this once-a-yearish but it's been two now; one of the best writers ever, and I think I even prefer his nonfiction to his fiction)
Movies in 15 Minutes, Cleolinda Jones (this is not yet out in the states but I scored a copy: she is so funny she will make you cry. Google "Twilight in 15 Minutes" to see what I mean.)
Absolutely Maybe, Lisa Yee
Marcelo in the Real World, Francisco Stork
Team of Rivals, Doris Kearns Goodwin (this is long and takes forever and I'm reading it uber-slowly)
Most of Edna St. Vincent Millay's collected poems* (This is a constant-read; it is always on my currently reading list because it hangs around my apartment for opening at spontaneous intervals; I want more poetry in my life, recommendations please?)
Eat, Pray, Love, Elizabeth Gilbert
Such a Pretty Fat, Jennifer Lancaster
Everything and More, A Compact History of Infinity, David Foster Wallace (recommended by Rosianna)
Several nonfictions that are research and therefore I feel protective about the topics and don't want to talk about them just yet.

Other books I want to read in 2009

The Disreputable History of Frankie Landau-Banks, E. Lockhart, recommended to me often by Cheryl.
The Graveyard Book, Newbery-winning Neil Gaiman :)
The Astonishing Life of Octavian Nothing, Traitor to the Nation, M.T. Anderson (volumes I and II, of course). This is one of those books I feel like I SHOULD read, and despite everyone telling me how amazing it is my wish to read it hasn't reached anything above "but I really ought to" yet.
I'd like to reread the His Dark Materials series because it's that good.
A re-read of The Catcher in the Rye would be nice, as I remember nearly none of it.

And more. I'm forgetting books I've read, books I'm reading, books I want to read. I'd like to read ALL THE BOOKS. Ughh, to stop time and read all the books.

As always, suggestions are always welcome! Because clearly I'm not reading enough things at once! And you should list yours, and treat this as yet another meme.

While I'm busy pondering all your wonderful questions I thought I'd tag you all in my self-made meme, which is the 2009 way of saying, "Here are some questions that I'd like you to answer and then pose to your friends too." Unlike other memes, there's no central idea here or organizational structure. I'm making this up in about three minutes.

1. "Dollhouse" is about girls who are frequently "imprinted" with new personalities (I'm not making the Twilight joke, I'm not); make up the personality/lifestyle you'd like to have and tell me about it.

2. Favorite book that you hated in high school?

3. Television show you would wipe off the face of the earth if you could?

4. Mangos or avocados?

5. Edward Cullen (or for the sake of argument, Edwina Cullina) or your first boy/girlfriend?

6. Ocean or lake?

7. Has the economic crisis affected you, and how?

8. Are you done with your taxes?

9. What's your dream job?

10. Finish this sentence: "If I had a billion space bucks, I would...."

(Space bucks are just imaginary dollars. :D)

Questions and answers continued!

Kim has four questions:

1. What would you do if faced with an ant invasion of your home?

Well, I'd scream, cry, run, spray the place with a pestilent hue, and move into a new place with nothing but me, the clothes on my back, and a roomy duffel bag to sleep in at night.

2. Which would you choose if you had to give up either coffee or HP for life?

Oh, coffee. I've tried to give it up cold turkey a few times before to limited effect. But I couldn't give up my HP books, which are early in their becoming-worn-and-harried stages. I couldn't give up my dream of reading it in Italian, either.

3. How difficult / easy was it to write Harry, A History?

That depends which day you chose to ask. There were days when it flowed easy and free. There were days when I felt like my head was going to explode. Right before deadline I got stomach-achingly sick - seriously, it was like six cases of cramps at once, and I am sure, now, that it was psychosomatic. Every time I would get to this point, in the last two months before my first deadline at least, my temporary personal assistant, Jo, in her cute little British accent (coincidence, I swear), would pop her head in and ask, "Bit of Guitar Hero?" Because that's what destressed me. Guitar Hero. I'd play for 10-15 minutes and feel better.

For most of the year, though, it wasn't that hard, because I'd been thinking about it for a long time and experienced a lot of it. However, in the final three or four months before a deadline, the entire world becomes a pressure cooker and while you focus on one foot forward, bird by bird, you are always mindful of that looming date when you have to let it go. I was pretty depressed the day I sent the book in; I thought it would be a moment of joy, and instead it was one of extreme panic cloaked by what must have been some thin version of post-partum. Then my Leaky friends came to visit and we had a party and that made everything better. :)

4. What major writing piece are you working on right now?

I am developing a seminal piece of nonfiction. It's called My 2008 Tax Return. Love, death and taxes, all in one, man. It's going to tear things up.

(More later, and if you have more to add, as always, hit the comments.)

David gets this hat-tip for directing me to this via his GMail message: I Lego NY.

Hat tip to Cheryl:

(Facebook people, this is crossposted from my blog.)

Look at me, all answering questions right away. Old guy on a bike, indeed. It's late at night right now, so I'm only going to do a few.

Saya asks: any chance of you coming to DragonCon in September? The South misses out on a lot of the Potter fun - like any of the PotterCast tours, or WizardRock stuff, and I can't justify the plane ticket for LeakyCon though I'd love to be there... So I think it would be really wonderful if you could be at DragonCon (And even better if you can drag any of the other PotterCast folks down this way with you =)

We would ALWAYS love to come to any gathering of fans, but getting four people to and fro is a lot of money that we can't justify spending right now. I'd love to come myself, to do book stuff, and will definitely look into it. I've heard a lot about Dragon*Con (all good things).

Sharanya asks: When did you know that you wanted to write Harry: A History? Will you be writing another novel soon? PS: I'm sorry, I'm sure you've been asked this before, but I really haven't come across it anywhere, and I'm dying to know!

First of all, it's OK! I'm happy to answer whatever needs answering.

I first had the idea for writing a book about the phenomenon in 2003, sometime right before the first conference, Nimbus. I only know this because there was a panel there about publishing HP-related books, that I went to, for that reason. The idea got a little bit shelved for awhile. For a very short time it was teased around some Leaky staff as a kind of collaboration, a "let's list everything that's happened in fandom" kind of thing. But we never did any actual work on it. We just talked about it at three gatherings or so. In 2005 the idea started to gnaw at me in earnest and I read other books documenting cultural phenomena, and other nonfiction books that read as easily as fiction books, and started really exploring what Harry could become if I focused on it. I still thought it was a "one day" project.

Here's the part of the story I don't get to tell often enough, but love telling because it shows how seemingly random life can be (and why I believe it's not random at all): I was at a birthday party for a friend in October of 2005. Cheryl came with me at the last minute. I and the person whose birthday it was had a mutual friend named Rebecca; she was an acquaintance, I saw her perhaps once a year, I met her through the Rent fandom (such as it was in terms of what we mean now, when we say 'fandom'; I really use the term out of convenience and will expand on that in another post someday). I knew she worked in publishing, somehow, so introduced her to Cheryl, who she knew because the entire publishing industry is about the size of my fist. She asked what I was up to, I told her, and somewhere in the conversation I mentioned that "one day," I'd like to write a book about the phenomenon. She kinda nodded and we went on to other topics.

The next day she had written me an e-mail, reminding me that she was an agent at Writers House and was I serious about that idea? Because if I was serious we needed to meet for lunch. We met. She made it clear that I needed to get right to work if I wanted it out before the seventh book, or anywhere near it. I worked on Leaky, my job, and the proposal for the book throughout all of 2006, driving myself to near insanity and thinking I was going to give up the whole thing many times. I gained 20 pounds. In early December I was finally done. We sent out the proposal. I sent Jo a letter letting her know what I was doing. While we waited for the book to sell, and came to terms with the possibility (really, honestly) that it would not, I decided to leave my reporting job, even if it meant going home to live with my parents. January 17th was my last day. That night the staffers took me out and got me drunk. Right before I left for the party my phone rang. It was Rebecca, who was now my agent. The book was going to sell. I was going to be fine. I got to send out my goodbye e-mail with that information, and left the job with a real appreciation for what I had learned, the work I had done, and the work I was about to do.

And that is a much longer answer than your question demanded, but I wanted to get that story down. :)

As to the other part of your question: will I be writing another novel soon? I'm not making fun of you when I say, I haven't written a novel yet; novels are fiction. Don't feel bad, I'm on record calling my book a novel in We Are Wizards, and I cringe every single time I see it. :) But to answer your question, yes, I want to write more books and have several ideas (and have done some preliminary fuffing around with each of them). Right at this moment Leaky is demanding most of my time. I'm hoping that when tax season is over, and a few other things get cleared away, I can re-set up that wonderful writing schedule I demanded of myself in 2007.

More soon! If you read this and want to add to the growing question list, please do in comments.