A Picture Book Waiting To Happen

Okay, so this story is just waiting to be illustrated for children, I'm sure. 

Last night at work we had to give a broadcast for a missing goat. 
(It gets better.) 

A missing goat, with a white stripe down his back, and a red collar. 
(It gets better.) 

A missing CIRCUS GOAT. 

A missing circus goat that was last seen tethered to a second goat, an alpaca...and A MONKEY. 

(How can it possibly get any better? I'll tell you how.) 

Scouring the vicinity for the missing goat were five French jugglers. 

Oh god. Life is sometimes so good to me. 

P.S. If you're reading this, Wal, come home. We all love you. 

Slut Shaming

So there’s this thing in YA – well, it’s this thing everywhere, really, but let’s talk about it in YA – called slut shaming. What’s slut shaming? It’s where a female character is hated, or has bad things happen to her, for the crime of being sexually active (or being presumed to be so.)

Let’s just make it clear. Boys who are sexually active are lauded. Girls? Sluts.

You will never hear it said of a boy, “God, he’s slept with heaps of girls. He’s such a slut!” At least, not in a demeaning manner. Because when a boy gets laid, he gets a pat on the back. A girl gets a reputation.

And when it comes to slut shaming, girls can be the biggest offenders. Ask any teenager.

I have no issues with slut shaming in books when there is a point to it. When we see consequences for the characters involved, or when we’re challenged to recognise the prejudice and think about it. Unfortunately, this isn’t always the case.

How often is the alpha female in YA fiction (you know the one: the cheerleader. The one in the popular clique. The one with the hottest boyfriend in school) hated by the other girl (the unpopular one. The one no clique will have. The one who wants to be with the hottest boy in school, if only he’d notice her)? And how often does that unpopular girl (who’s usually the heroine) think of the cheerleader as a slut?

Because maybe she dresses in short skirts. Maybe she flirts with boys. Maybe she gets drunk sometimes... 

I don’t like this. It’s unnecessary. It’s also insidious.

Because often it’s more subtle than that. Often it’s a case of a writer making sure that bad things happen to bad people. Except, I’m sorry, it takes more than a teenage girl being perceived as sexually active to be deserving of punishment.

In a genre where most of the readers and writers are female, it would be nice to see an end to casual slut shaming.

Oh, and don't think this shit doesn't have real-world consequences. Just ask that girl in Stubenville if she was asking for it. 

Exciting Job Opportunities in Fictionland

Okay, so why do so many people in Fiction have exciting jobs? Or jobs that are exciting in Fictionland, but probably aren't at all that exciting in the real world. 

The Lawyer 

Every lawyer in Fictionland is gorgeous, immaculately dressed in expensive suits, and invariably ends up exposing a conspiracy that goes ALL THE WAY TO THE TOP. Well of course. You'd hardly bother with one that went all the way to the bottom, would you? 

I did work experience at a law firm once. It was all child custody and traffic offences, and boring as hell. Maybe things get a bit more interesting when you're prosecuting war criminals at The Hague, but I'm pretty sure that for the majority of lawyers in the world, work is a dull place. 

The Doctor 

In Fictionland, a doctor is never just a GP. No, a Fictionland doctor works in a busy inner-city ER, and, although frequently gorgeous, has very little time to worry about that since every time they turn around there is some child with a gunshot wound lying on a gurney in front of them. It's drama! It's tears! It's DON'T YOU DIE ON ME, DAMMIT! 

I had to go to an ER once when I had a bad reaction to some antibiotics and turned bright red. I was also unconscious, but, you know, after the sensation of burning ants suddenly swarming over my skull, the unconsciousness came as something of a relief. On one side of me in the ER was a lady who had a migraine -- seriously, she looked terrible -- and on the other side was an old woman having an asthma attack. And you know what? By the time you realise you're not going to die and you've played around trying to make the Machine That Goes Ping go ping more quickly, a hospital ER is a very boring place to spend a few hours. And surprisingly cold. 

Sure, it's life and death in there. But not always, right? 

The Police Officer 

A Fictionland cop spends more time in car chases alone than on completing his paperwork. And don't get me started on shootouts. Okay, so maybe that sort of thing happens in some places, but not where I'm from. Hell, where I'm from if a cop so much as draws their firearm, that's a report. And actually fire it? I can count on one hand the number of times that's happened when I've been working, and I've been in my job for a lot of years now. 

Most cops spend their time doing paperwork. Seriously. 

The Teacher

Oh, Fictionland teachers! They'll change your life! They're full of inspiration and hope. They'll turn a class full of ghetto ganstas into Rhodes Scholars, simply because they BELIEVE IN THE KIDS. It's heartwarming stuff. 

Except try this out: how many teachers did you have in your school life? And how many were just like the guy from The Dead Poets' Society? None, I'll bet, because standing on your desk and saying "Oh Captain, my Captain" does not actually qualify you to undertake standardised testing. You might be inspired, but you won't get into university. 

And, as a sister to a high school teacher, what with all the crap they have to make sure the kids learn, and all the crap they have to stop the kids doing while they're learning it, there's not a lot of time left over for inspirational speeches. 

What other Fictionland professions don't translate to the real world? 

Best Amazon Reviews Ever

I'm sure most of you have seen this already, but in case you haven't, here it is: 

The book is called How To Avoid Huge Ships, and if you have a couple of hours to kill on the internet, you must read the Amazon reviews. So much fun! 

Here are some highlights: 

From Citizen Fitz: 

I bought How to Avoid Huge Ships as a companion to Captain Trimmer's other excellent titles: How to Avoid a Train, and How to Avoid the Empire State Building. These books are fast paced, well written and the hard won knowledge found in them is as inspirational as it is informational. After reading them I haven't been hit by anything bigger than a diesel bus. Thanks captain!

From Law Student: 

I'm a little annoyed with the sarcastic, hate-filled 'reviewers' of this book. You all seem to think it's funny that some people would honestly like some expert advice on ways to avoid huge ships. What, you've never been traveling at a very, very slow speed straight toward something really, really big that you could see for miles and miles away, and wished you'd known what steps you could take to avoid crashing into it?

From ThisDude: 

After reading this and setting out for a day at the harbor, my entire family was killed by a tiny boat. My attention was only on the huge ships. All in all though, would recommend.

And my absolute favourite, from Dan: 

Read this book before going on vacation and I couldn't find my cruise liner in the port. Vacation ruined.

Kind of restores your faith in humanity, right? 

How do YOU write?

A friend from work asked me the other day, "How do you write?" 

"Um," I said, while a range of words raced through my head: Sporadically. Chaotically. Desperately. 

"I mean, how do you go from an idea to a book. Does it play like a movie in you head?" 

What an awesome idea. There's a movie fully-formed -- edited, beautifully framed shots, a soundtrack and everything -- in my head, and all I have to do is transcribe it. That sounds like Muse-territory to me, and I don't think I have a Muse. And as much as I love the idea that I'm just a conduit in this process, like an angel  has descended from heaven and ordered me to take down its holy words (and why can't angels write their own stuff down? What if I've got herds to tend or fish to catch, or a sandal emporium to run?), it just isn't true. 

Not for me, at least. I build from the ground up. 

"Well, I start with a vague idea," I told her. "Maybe for a plot, maybe for a character, or maybe just a scene, and I build it from there." 

I write like I have a floor full of Lego. 

I have a vague idea what I want to make, and I have all the blocks to do it, but I've lost the instructions. 

So I put a few pieces together and see what I have. 

And then I rip it apart and start again. 

Over and over again. 

Building it and tearing it down, and building it up again. 

Until I've got something I like, something that is bigger than the sum of its parts. Something that might even be so different from that first vague idea that even I don't quite know how I got there. Hopefully something wonderful.  

Only then, when I'm finished, do I get to sit back and see the big picture. Only then does that movie start playing in my head. And only then do I know if I like it or not. 

How about you?