(no subject)

It's snowing in Canberra. This is unusual, for our climate is so dry and full of sunshine.

Unfortunately for me, my part of Canberra is all about icy rain (how can it be a wet three degrees outside and not snowing?) and, of course, my usual weather change reactions. I was going to warn everyone about weather last night, but couldn't work out what was happening, and so didn't. Now I know: it was snow. I still have the sense of weather, including a possible storm, but it's miserable-cold. I strongly suspect that my messages this afternoon will include a special treat and that I'll come home and have a hot bath.

Anyhow, friends who live in the vicinity of me (up to 400 miles away) - the weather is not going to be beautiful for a bit. Enjoy the snow if it deigns to fall, and it's hot chocolate all the way for the rest of it.

(no subject)

One of the reasons it's hard to change the way we write, why it's easier to have a male hero with great physical abilities than a female disabled hero, for instance, or why it's harder to write Jewish characters, or cultural minorities, or trans characters is because of reader expectations. Somehow a writer has to not only write the character well (not just give a darker skin to someone who is otherwise a Poor White, for instance, which reflects a novel I read this week), but has to somehow convince the reader that the prior expectations they might have of any groups or individuals ought not be brought into play. My Jewish characters are Australian Jewish, for instance. "But that person isn't Jewish," I've been told a couple of times. "They don't act Jewish." Our knowledge of Judaism in fiction is generally filtered through the US understanding of Judaism, and it's quite different to Judaism in Commonwealth countries. Not only Commonwealth countries: being Jewish in India or Jamaica is very different to my own experience.

We have assumptions for a whole host of aspects of our lives. I fight assumptions concerning the Middle Ages all the time. People didn't wash. People starved. People were stupid. Wars were endemic. There was no rule of law.

Lots of writers talk about how to get a wider range of backgrounds for characters into their novels and how to get said novels accepted by publishers. But how do we get aspects of real people accepted by readers when the readers are carrying their stereotypes of categorises to which they assign those people?

In other words, we tussle a lot with step one which is understanding that the worlds we write don't have to have characters who look like us or have the backgrounds we're most familiar with. How do we accomplish step 2, which is convincing others without resorting to polemic?

I'm having so much trouble explaining what I'm after here.

What I would really like (which this post is actually about) is help. What techniques can I use in my fiction to write a fascinating character from a background that doesn't appear nearly often enough in fiction without triggering a "This can't be that kind of person because it doesn't meet what I think all these people are like"? What are some good examples of these techniques?

I've hit a spot in my learning where I just can't seem to work out the answers I need for my writing and for my teaching. Suggestions of writing techniques or examples of this being done well would be most appreciated. The ones I've been able to find are mainly of outsider recommendations. I suspect that what I really want is to know what works for people inside a group or a culture. What feels true and sound and why it feels right.

There may be no simple techniques. Or complex ones. It may be a terribly difficult matter. But if I don't ask, I may assume this instead of learning the writing skills I need to learn, so that I can write the characters I want to write and do them justice.

(no subject)

"The sad truth about the book world is that it doesn’t need more yes-saying novelists and certainly no more yes-saying critics. We are drowning in them. What we need more of, now that newspaper book sections are shrinking and vanishing like glaciers, are excellent and authoritative and punishing critics — perceptive enough to single out the voices that matter for legitimate praise, abusive enough to remind us that not everyone gets, or deserves, a gold star." (Dwight Garner)

The first half of the article rehashes the usual stories, but the second half points out the price of lack of robust criticism and considers the options.

We don't have to take personal potshots at anyone - but we really ought to be pushing ourselves to think and have opinions and to express them and be willing to argue them. We don't have to hate anyone to do this, and we don't have to dislike every book we read. We might have to, however, be guilty of clear thinking and independent thought.

(no subject)

I gave careful consideration to types of snow this afternoon. I was colder today than when I walked in wet snow in London, twenty-um years ago. I was colder today than when snow fell on me in Canada twenty-even-more-um years ago* because really, it was a little snow I was walking in today and a lot of rain, and with the rain came a wind from the Snowies, and the Snowies were possibly 8 degrees colder than Canberra. My clothes were fine, but my umbrella didn't like me, and kept blowing inside out - and I still can't put on gloves**.

It wasn't bad to actually walk at first, which is just as well, for walk I had to, but it was exhausting. I can't have walked more than two miles outside, and most of that was rain, and a slice was sunshine and a little dribble was snow. It's the third time this week I've walked that path (for library/post office/supermarket seems to reoccur a lot right now*** ) and I wasn't carrying much of anything for the first third, but it was a much harder walk.

I analysed the coldness of snow vs slush vs rain for the last half mile in particular, for the groceries**** and the books***** made everything difficult when I didn't distract myself.

So snow that has just transformed into rain and is cut through by a wind straight from the snowfields is the wet stuff I like least. And if I go out tomorrow AT ALL, it will be with a friend who has a car. For I didn't achieve any work AT ALL once I got home****** and haven't since. My coat is drying over the heater******* and I'm contemplating a very early night. Today's work is now officially to be done tomorrow and Sunday. It may be that I wear pyjamas and my down dressing gown to accomplish more work in greater style, too.




*But when snow ceased falling, that was when it was really cold - since the temperature doesn't get below about -8 here, so we're only taking moderate coldness (maybe 4 degrees)

**because of the damage I did to my finger, which is healing but still restricts me from some activities, like washing dishes, putting rubbish out, wearing gloves, and doing almost anything while chatting on the phone

***although I forgot the chemist and completely forgot to buy batteries...again

****about 5 kg worth

*****about the same, though three were Pratchett and if I had full use of both hands and the air had been dry, I could have lightened my load by reading my way home

******though I did manage to roast a chicken and read some Pratchett

*******and has been for six hours...