Copyedits, BLARGH

If I ever start writing a book that includes vocabulary from a language with a non-latin alphabet, SHAKE ME BY MY SHIRTFRONT.


Motherofgod, I'm a Russian minor, and I can't tell you how much of the transliteration I've botched. Lemme tell you, in 400+ pages, there's a lot of room for botching.

Just when I think it's all sorted out, one more sneaky word pops up to throw me for a loop. For example, the Russian letter "Я" can be rendered correctly in English as "ya" or "ia." I picked "ia." Oh wait, except for when I spell dorogaya -- which I refuse to change, because dorogaia looks ridiculous and unpronouncable. If I want to keep my preferred spelling, then all my "ia" words and names (Obednia, prigoditsia, Rodzianko...) have to be converted to "ya."

Hence, I have been Find-and-Replacing for three hours.

And it's dawned on me that technically, if I follow this -ia/-ya rule, the two youngest grand duchesses' names should be spelled Mariya and Anastasiya.

NO NO NO I WON'T AND YOU CAN'T MAKE ME.

(I'm afraid to look at my character list now.)

Sunday grumble

Been doing a bit of reading on Laura Ingalls Wilder's portrayal of Native Americans in Little House on the Prairie, and if one more historian sees fit to remind me that "Wilder's genre was fiction -- and children's fiction at that," I'm going to blow a gasket.

Reds

You might recall that not long ago I was raving about Orson Scott Card's Seventh Son. Couldn't wait to read the sequel.

Well. Red Prophet has been on my nightstand for the better part of two weeks now, and I'm all the way up to...page 11. The thing is, I've been reading up on Native images and stereotypes in American culture -- mostly here and here -- and I must be starting to get it, because in less than a dozen pages the descriptions of the Indians in Red Prophet are turning me right off. Given the setting, I can't say the white characters' racism is inappropriate. It's probably accurate, and it may even turn out to be an integral element of the story. But for me, right at this moment, it's not much fun to wade through.

Those of you who've read the series -- should I stick with this installment? Are there going to be other perspectives to counterbalance Hooch's attitude toward the Reds?

KEEPER, by Kathi Appelt

KEEPER

by Kathi Appelt

illus. by August Hall

(Atheneum)

If I told you exactly what I liked best about this book, I'd spoil it for you in at least three different ways. Instead, I will be cagey, brief, and metaphorical -- probably maddeningly so:

If The Underneath was a ballad, Keeper is a pot of gumbo. So many flavors and combinations, some of them even a little audacious -- a girl who believes her mama is a mermaid? -- but so, so tasty when they're all simmered together.

Read it by the sea, or a lake -- like so:

(Or a puddle, if all else fails.)

Need I say more?

I haven't read a novel in three months. Really. Three months.

But yesterday I sat by Lake Huron and reveled in Orson Scott Card's Seventh Son. All the way to the end.

I don't read sequels.

But today I informed my library that I must have Red Prophet -- book #2 in the aforementioned Tales of Alvin Maker series.

That is all for now.

Discovering disablism

Confession #1:
I'd never heard the term disablism until I read my friend diceytillerman's Blogging Against Disablism post over the weekend.

Confession #2:
Although I haven't run into anything cringe-worthy yet, it's pretty darn unnerving to be reading up on this topic now, nearly three years after publishing a novel about two of the most famous disabled people on the planet. But it's also making me think - a lot - about how disability is portrayed in children's literature.

Case in point:
Through a weeklong session of link-clicking, I found my way this morning to one of the best book reviews I've ever read:

Dear Author, please don't heal me

The trouble with hybrids

Lookit this pretty font I found while I was pretending to be OTMA's* designer instead of its author:

OMG, I LOVES THAT.

But oh wait, it's a latin-cyrillic hybrid font, so look at the dumb things that happen when I add the subtitle:


I guess it's supposed to look exotic and Russiany, but if you are a person who actually reads Russian, this is what your mind says when your eyes try to read those words: D Iovel of Yaomanov Yaussia

OMG, I HATES THAT.

__

*I have neglected to mention that Madame Editor and I seem to have settled on an official title for OTMA. As you may have guessed by now, it's Daughters of the Tsar: A Novel of Romanov Russia.

Don't Let the Pigeon Procrastinate

(I'm supposed to be working.)

ETA: The line at the end that turned out too tiny to read: "Thanks to my editor (I think) and Mo Willems for making this movie possible."

OTMA, round 2

OTMA has returned. Again.

By and large, the proposed cuts are not as scary as I was braced for. Madame Editor is a sharp line editor. However, there is the matter of her suggestion to do away with ALL THESE PAGES:


Two great big handfuls, both from chapters narrated by Maria. The first one had me bent over the kitchen counter making horrified exclamations: Oh. Oh, you vile woman! No! And then I caught myself smiling as I fussed, because....because...I think she might be right.

But I am not touching this big pile of paper again until Monday.

BFF recap: good news/bad news

This month I have:

• not blogged once (aside from this post)
• turned off Google Alerts
• cut down Goodreads email updates by at least 50%
• stopped posting star-ratings to the books I've read on Goodreads
• pared down blogs I follow by 30%
• abandoned daily visits to two of my three favorite message boards
• (mostly) stopped reading Facebook updates of people who aren't personal friends or family
• stopped checking my Amazon ranks(!)
• ignored my blog traffic stats
• decreed that widget-peeks and web browsing sessions may commence only between the hour and the quarter (how long those sessions last is another matter, however)

Discoveries:

• Networking and blogging and all the rest aren't so much about keeping in touch as about keeping up. And up, and up, and UP. Blargh.
• Left to my own devices, it's positively creepy how much time I will spend loitering online, waiting for a bit of virtual interaction to pounce on. As opposed to, say, seeking out a live human to speak with in person.
• It's also disconcerting to see how odd it initially felt to be done with my morning web-binge in half the time. I found myself staring at the screen thinking, Really? Already? as if I were an alcoholic dumbfounded by an empty glass.
• I can't honestly say that cutting down on all this malarkey has upped my productivity. My constitutional resistance to drafting is still a great big hurdle. However, I am far less inclined to do my procrastinating online, which in turn makes me feel far less...turdy. The internet is a strange place, capable of making me feel simultaneously harried and slovenly.
• Posting only privacy-filtered, literature-relevant slices of yourself online paints a very two-dimensional impression of a person. It's also oddly tiring.

The good news:

Cutting back was much easier than I expected. And you know what? I LIKE IT BETTER THIS WAY.

The bad news:

I wish there was a way to say this gently, but...I did not miss blogging. Not one little bit.

Confession: I've been suspicious of blog-burnout since well before Christmas, and Blog-Free February provided the definitive diagnosis. The space that has opened up in my brain and my schedule this past month is too big to let go -- especially while I'm doing daily battle with a first draft. (Or trying to.) I always give precedence to the more pressing deadline, and that is nearly always blogging.

From now on, fiction comes first -- count on me only as a Very Occasional Blogger.

State of the TBR pile

Finished:

The Story of the Ingalls, by William Anderson

The Walnut Grove Story of Laura Ingalls Wilder, by William Anderson

Larger-than-life Lara, by Dandi Daley Mackall

Laura Ingalls Wilder: The Iowa Story, by William Anderson

The Ingalls Family Album, by William Anderson

See you all in March!

The new BFF

Laurie Anderson posted a Really Good Idea a couple weeks ago:

We had NaNoWriMo in November. December and January have been filled with revisions for many of us, and by many of us, I mean ME. And many of us want to finish up the current project so we can get hopping on the next one. So...........

Let's make February a blog-free month.

(I heard that gasp. Breathe slowly. Into a paper bag. With your head between your knees.)

Do not panic. February is short! We could call it the new BFF: Blog-Free February.

If you do this, you'll be at the cutting edge of the next digital trend: the Slow Media Movement. Give everyone a heads-up that you're stepping away from blogging for a couple of weeks. If you are truly bold (or desperate) make February an Internet-free month, not just blog-free. On March 1st, write a blog (or a letter) evaluating any differences in your productivity during February.

Count me IN. I'm actually between revisions, having shipped off a shiny new draft of OTMA to Madame Editor the morning I left for Boston. If I behave myself during BFF, I might get a decent start on something new before OTMA returns to haunt me...

******************

Currently reading:

The Catch Trap
by Marion Zimmer Bradley

Bookshop memories

Remember the snurpy Halfway Down the Stairs tribute video I made a couple years ago? To create a teaser for the Rochester Oral History Archive, longtime HDS customer Corrie Pokrzywa layered in an audio track of owner Cam Mannino's bookshop memories:



Intrigued? Listen to Cammie's full 45 minute interview here for lots more insider stories on the life, evolution, and legacy of a beloved book store.

State of the TBR pile

Finished:

The Fantastic Secret of Owen Jester, by Barbara O'Connor (manuscript!)

Fame and Glory in Freedom Georgia, by Barbara O'Connor

Beethoven in Paradise, by Barbara O'Connor

Charlotte's Web, by E.B. White (audio)

Next week I'l maybe lay into the pile of ARCs I acquired at ALA...