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I just bought the first new book I’ve owned in probably a year: Changeless by Gail Carriger. I’ve seen it around on the internets, and so I decided to pick it up. Victorian propriety meets werewolves? From the back cover:

But Alexia is armed with her trusty parasol, the latest fashions, and an arsenal of biting civility. Even when her investigations take her to Scotland, the backwater of ugly waistcoats, she is prepared: upending werewolf pack dynamics as only the soulless can.

I laughed out loud in the book store (Hastings–it’s decently big! With a good selection! And a little coffee shop! All is not lost in Northern Idaho.). I’m looking forward to sharing it with you all. Especially you, mom.

My heart has been lifted today in this Northern Idaho Wilderness. Not only did I find Hastings, I also got a chance to wander through Pilgrims Natural Foods, which is like a reasonably-priced PCC (Whole Foods for those of you who don’t live in Seattle. Mom, I know you got the reference.). My cloth grocery bags are now stuffed with organic limes, tofu, bulghar wheat, and a dozen other food items that have never before been inside the Upstairs Apartment’s kitchen.

I’m currently sipping a delicious coffee at Calypso Coffee and Roasting Company, which is a quirky big coffee shop with all the things we quirky coffee people love: mixed media art on the walls, muted earthen color schemes, furniture than looks like it was stolen from victorian mansions and mod lofts, and draped cloth with vaguely Indian prints. I am in love.

Plus, I’m high from two back-to-back fantastic job interviews. With any sort of good fortune I should be spilling cocktails and/or home-style gravy on diners by next week.

Just to put a damper on all the good news, it’s snowing. In April. Really, Northern Idaho? Work with me now.

Truth be told, I actually did like writing essays in university, and I really enjoy analyzing my own work to find the metaphors, allusions, and leitmotifs, then really consciously working them in to the rest of the story.

Today I’ve been thinking a lot about heroes. My main character is not much of a hero, in the sense that she doesn’t always make the greatest decisions, she acts selfishly even when she’s trying to be altruistic, and overall her actions make things worse even when she’s trying to do good. Is she a good role model? I wouldn’t call her that, but I think she’s someone that is we can all identify with–not because she makes the best choices, but because she does what we all try to do: take the easy way out.

Ever since I was little I’ve liked my heroes to be flesh and bone. I remember the first time I read a novel in which the main female character had her period and thinking, “hey, finally it’s a character that has to deal with human stuff, too!” The heroine was a normal woman doing extraordinary things, but that didn’t mean that she got to miss this month’s period. Because wouldn’t that just be awesomely convenient. Hey, so, I’m saving the world this month. I think I’ll just skip this one if no one minds, even though they haven’t invented the Pill yet.

My main character has gone her whole life trying to live up to her father’s standards, and now she’s trying to live up to her own. But no matter who she lets define her level of achievement, she’s just a woman trying to live up to some super-human expectations. Her super-high goals are nigh on unreachable, but yet her inability to get there leaves her confidence wrecked. How many women can relate with that one? “I’m not able to finish that presentation/spend time with my family/take time for my own personal project/volunteer for that charity/and I also don’t weigh 115 pounds. I’m a failure!”

She’s built up some high expectations for herself, and when she fails she turns to various coping mechanisms to help get herself back under control. Heroic? Far from it. Human? Yes.

Enough break. Back to editing.

Writing and the more material arts have a lot in common to me. When I’m designing a dress, I first imagine the drape of it over my body, the cut of the neck, how it will flare just so at the hips. I sketch it out. Then (often after an enormous time searching) I find the perfect fabric. The fabric often changes and reforms the design based on its own unique qualities (which I never could have imagined when I was just thinking up a dress pattern).

Really, the whole process is more physical than intellectual–I hold the fabric up to my body, cut it, pin it, and hold it again. (Incidentally, I really need a dress form. All this holding dress pieces up to myself and trying to pin them on while I’m standing in front of a mirror is frankly ridiculous. Any sponsors?)

What does this have to do with writing? Well, at this point, my novel exists only in my mind, and in the innards of this old Macbook (and of course in several backed-up electronic forms). I’ve created the material, and tomorrow morning I’m going to use a small forest of paper to print it out so that I can begin to shape and form it into the novel it will eventually be.

In my excitement to begin the editing process I’ve already gotten all my colored pens, sticky notes, highlighters, scissors and tape ready. Tomorrow morning, in Rob’s grandma’s old orange recliner, I will create.

Sure, part of that has to do with there not being anyone of my gender to relate to, but mostly it’s that Lake hasn’t created likable characters. That’s the point, and he does an admirable job of creating more sympathy than I would have expected for these deeply flawed men who are each trapped by their own personal nightmares.

The three main characters are all dealing with their own pasts, though sometimes it seemed like those pasts were only there only as place markers for characterization. Jason, for example, must be twisted because he seems to get a kick out of torturing people (I know this because it was mentioned once or twice), and he lost his father in a public, humiliating way (BUT WHAT THE HELL ARE SOUL BOTTLES AND WHAT DID THEY HAVE TO DO WITH ANYTHING?). Imago is a debtor who has a mother he doesn’t like for some vague reason. Bijaz, for all the degradation of soul and body, is understandable in part because he’s forced to deal with the fact that his entire life has been twisted by ideology. He’s a true believer who is crushed out of his belief, which is a character type that I always find compelling. Each find their redemption by the end of the book, breaking out of their own selfishness for the greater good.

The crux of the novel is the intrusion of the “noumenal,” the magical and paranormal, into the everyday world. It is a novel of politics, of fat landed politicians doing nothing while the people are daily terrorized by their Old Gods. Invading armies are rumored to be marching on the city (although the reader isn’t certain for the first 2/3 of the book whether or not they’re coming or just rumors), and a self-important debtor decides to revive the office of Lord Mayor in order to escape debtor’s prison.

Eventually this compiles itself into an allegory of light and darkness and sacrifice. The book is compared to Perdido Street Station (crazy painfully good), City of Saints & Madmen (haven’t read it yet) and The Etched City (among my favorite books). Yes, it has the same flavors of a brutal decadent world that these books do, but to me the comparison seemed more like eating sugar-free peach Jell-O instead of climbing up the tree and eating a fat sun-ripe peach fresh off the branch with the juice so sickly sweet and running down your elbows….

So, where are the women?

No, not every novel needs to be an equally balanced feminist manifesto, but Lake has created a world that is extraordinarily hostile to women. Why are there no women in power? Because in the world of the City Imperishable women are silent, they are not expected to be anything more than mothers, sisters, barmaids, and blow-up dolls. The main characters reactions to the women around them shows this–Jason almost laughs to find that the woman who just treated him considers herself a physician, because women just aren’t doctors. Fortunately she’s extremely self-effacing (I hope ironic?) “I am no one, a woman of shadows” (118).

I actually picked this book up a couple of years ago and read the back, only to think that it looked way too “Manly Men do Manly Things” for my tastes. When I got around to reading it this time I was at least thirty pages in before I realized I hadn’t been introduced to a single female character. Not one word had been spoken in a woman’s voice, and not even one single barmaid had stepped into view.

Like I said, Lake has created a world in which women are systematically silenced, and I like to think that in a way he’s doing it deliberately. He calls attention to this without making it a talking point of the book, which I appreciate,

The first female character shows up on page 43. She’s not pretty, and hardly feminine: “She was hard to look up at–too tall, too thin, clad in dark gray leather, with hair the color of rotten iron and a lined face with eyes as gray as her clothing” (43). She’s Biggest Sister, the leader of the shadow women’s crime league called the Tribade. Lake gives her a quick feminist speech on page 51 (my favorite line is “But you swing meat between your legs, which is the first requirement for bearing a chain of office in this city.”)

This is a woman who falls more into the category of “strange, unbalanced antisocial fighter character with deeply unsettling powers that are impossible to put a finger on” rather than “woman.” She has deliberately worked against her femininity by cutting off her own breasts (though she still wears little fake-breast bags of sand for some reason?), and by her actions. She flits in and out of the novel, coming out for some dominatrix action and generally making the men uneasy with her shark-like, knife-blade, malicious grin.

The next female character to walk onstage isn’t until page 144. I’m not counting the (to my memory) two females with quick speaking lines and two or three women who briefly crossed the street behind the main characters or served them coffee or whatnot, because if these women existed in the novel it was only in the mind of the main characters. They were evaluated, for the most part, solely on the basis on their looks and fuckability. “She would have been pretty in a fragile way as a full woman, (163)” Imago thinks of his female boxed dwarf assistant.

Jason’s sister appears on page 144, having long ago sold herself to a Tokhari trader, and now returned triumphant as their leader (sounds like it was a good deal for her to leave the City’s repression, if the Tokhari are egalitarian enough to be led by a woman). After her appearance, other women begin to come out of the woodwork for bit parts.

All in all….

I wasn’t the biggest fan. I often felt like the plot points were clutching at straws (though I get that impression from a lot of “The Essence of the World is Out Of Place and We Must Make It Right” novels, and I doubt I’ll read anything else in the City Imperishable world. I’m looking forward to reading something else by Jay Lake, though, because I really liked his prose. I’ll be sure to report back.

She talks about being brought up to be modest and helpful, and how that has translated (for her, and I suspect for many other women) into an aversion to putting one’s own work forward. Instead, many women wait to have their work volunteered by someone else.

She says:

…becoming a woman just isn’t as cool or empowering as becoming a man, because of the way we’ve constructed ‘man’ and ‘woman’. And in the first years of womanhood, just as you’re maturing, you’re also at your most desirable (at least in the current culture), and therefore your most vulnerable. When you should be becoming a person, you’re sweet sixteen and all too easily become principally a sex object, or a rejected sex object; either way, your subjectivity takes a hit. There’s so much media emphasis on women’s appearance, and so little on women’s accomplishments, that if that stuff gets in your head, your accomplishments can start to seem unimportant, even worthless.

She links to the post which inspired her thinking, a discussion by a male professor about the differences between the way his male and female students and colleagues present themselves and their work. He begins with a discussion on having the skills of a con artist–exaggerating your own skills and achievements to get ahead, then working hard to make sure you can fulfill the expectations that you make of yourself. A bit of a white lie that can be beneficial by giving you the chance to improve your skills and your situation. His theory is that men are more socialized not to care about public failure, and so they are more apt to take the risks necessary to achieve success.

They’re both really interesting reads, and got me thinking about my own hesitation when it comes to promoting myself. Clay Shirky’s article in particular hit a nerve.

In general, I’m terrified to give a higher rating of my skills than I believe they warrant, because I’m terrified of falling short of expectation. This shows itself in job searches, classrooms, writing conferences, you name it. I pass it off as modesty, but in reality it’s fear.

Example: Off and on I’ve tried to sell magazine stories. I constantly find myself blocked by the thought that I don’t know enough to write a piece, so when I read a magazine that I like and try to brainstorm ideas for pitches, I inevitably end up sighing and saying, I just don’t know enough about wine/Northern Idaho/bikes/the sprocket industry/etc.

Last year, however, I managed to put that aside for just a moment and sold a piece to ParentMap magazine about an ideal daytrip that’s both fun for your kids and relaxing for working mothers, despite the fact that I’m not a parent, nor do I have even the remotest idea what a 9-5 workweek is like.

I’ve been thinking a ton about all this lately, and these two posts are sparking mutinous thoughts in my lady-brain. So what if you don’t know anything about the topic? she whispers. That’s what research is for. That’s what interviews are for. So what if you’ve never sold a novel before? You’ve read the shit that’s out there–the only reason they got published was because they didn’t laugh away their talent whenever anyone asked them what they did for a living, or asked what their book was about.

Step one in the Jessie self-confidence makeover: Starting today I’m going to introduce myself as a writer, because, hey, that’s what I do.

Even less is happening in Hayden Lake on a sleepy Sunday morning–gray skies have dampened spirits after the last few days of sunshine. But I’m glad of that. I’m not in the mood to become motivated.

I’m taking the morning off to read blogs and go in for the kill on my first pot of coffee, with the expectation that I’ll write that piece for Unpaved when I’m done relaxing. I’ve decided that today will be a day to add to the to-do list, not subtract from it. A brainstorming for the week to come, if you will….

I’m spending the day working on my list of possible agents, and turning my attentions to the travel writing that I’ve been ignoring in my push to finish my novel. Give it some time, then go back for revision….

Gold star for me!

My year-after-college-graduation roommate was in love with Dandelion Wine. We had grown up together–she was my little sister’s age, and thus fell into the category of “annoying” while we were younger. After I went away to college and “re-met” her a few years later, I realized that I really dug her style. I still do. She’s one of the cuter things in the world.

I went through a long dry spell of reading materials during our six months in Peru, mainly because it was so hard to find anything in a book exchange that wasn’t written by Nora Roberts or Tom Clancy. So when we got into Portland to visit my awesome ex-roommate and her adorable 2-year-old, I found myself completely overwhelmed by her bookshelf.

I was looking for something to pass the evening, something pleasant, well-written, meaningful…. I was frozen by indecision when faced with such an array of great books that I’ve always wanted to read. My fingers lit on one, then another classic work of beauty and longing. I bit my lip, tormented by indecision.

I finally settled on a slim, well-loved copy of Dandelion Wine–partly because I knew how much my ex-roommate liked it, and partly because it looked short and I was a bit worried that my attention span had taken a blow. I settled down on the couch with a crocheted afghan pulled up around my neck, and began to read.

So I finally talk about the book here

I haven’t read any Bradbury since I forgot how to spell Fahrenheit 451 in high school. Dandelion Wine is not what I was expecting–a gently nostalgic look at childhood through the lens of Summertime.

Douglas Spaulding takes it upon himself to chronicle the rituals and revelations of summer, from the first pair of New Sneakers, to the loss of his best friend. It’s as though through the very attempt to capture his childhood on paper, however, he destroys its illusion. He realizes that friendships end, people die, and that important rituals cease to have any meaning.

The novel is lusciously written, touching, heartbreaking, haunting…. And then there’s the serial killer chapter that snuck up on me while I was innocently reading in bed. I expected another wistful tale of missed connections or angst-filled childhood revelation. Instead, I found myself suddenly immersed in a heart-pounding chase of terror, where you flee the most terrible thing you can think of, only to find it in the place you thought was the safest.

Did I have nightmares that night? Of course I did. It’s near page 121, if you want to time your bedtime reading around missing it (recommended).

In short, read this book. Carefully.