More on Diversity & Hacky Sacking

Thanks for the great discussion last Thursday about ethnic diversity in Young Adult novels. A couple more thoughts:

• It's interesting that several of us felt insecure writing other ethnicities into our books because we were afraid of "getting it wrong." That's a valid fear when we consider that other ethnicities have different cultures than our family culture. But what if we're writing about, say, Americans or Canadians, or any resident of a country with a diverse population? Does that change anything? I'm Polish American. Would an Irish American feel nervous writing about a character like me? I guess it depends on how I was raised. If I were from a Polish neighborhood in Chicago and if my Polish-speaking grandmother lived with us, then yes, that Irish American writer better know something about Polish culture. But if I grew up in Suburbia, Anywhere, USA, the fact that I'm part Polish wouldn't play as big a part.
• With this said, it seems like our fear of "getting it wrong" stems from a fear of being labeled racist. If our ethnicity is different from our protagonist, we might worry that we'll be judged for any flaws we give that character. 
• And then there's the fear of stereotyping. Say we have a Chinese-American protagonist who plays tennis and gets straight A's in school and her biggest fault is that she studies too much and cares too much about her grades. Uh. No. That's a HUGE Asian-American stereotype. We fall into stereotypes when we're afraid of really getting to know our characters. Maybe we're afraid to make our Chinese-American protagonist a drug dealer because we might offend Chinese-Americans in general. Or we worry people will think we're trying to say all Chinese-American girls are drug dealers.
• These are valid concerns and it's important to be aware of these issues as we write, but I don't think they should stop us from writing with diversity.
• My challenge to myself, and maybe to all writers, is to allow myself to be color blind in that first draft. Craft your interesting, fascinating, flawed protagonist and then, later, decide on the color of her skin. Would that change your book at all? Isn't it fair to assume that a fourth generation Korean-American is just as American as a fourth generation Italian-American? If there are details to tweak, there's time to tweak, but if we're worried about stereotypes, perhaps this could be a way to combat them.

Thoughts? Am I way off with any of this? Anything you'd like to add?

Speaking of ethnically diverse novels, I'll be hosting Samuel Park on my blog next week. He'll be sharing some writing wisdom with us to celebrate the paperback release of his debut THIS BURNS MY HEART. There will also be a little giveaway involved that you writers will love, so please stop by.

And last, but certainly not least, the Hacky Sack Club is going strong with two more members! I am working on my Wall of Shame Fame, but co-founder Janet already has hers up (because she's awesome that way). I'd publicly like to welcome our new victims members:

• Leigh T. Moore who charmed us all with her fabulous juggling video (though she did not juggle the cat)
• Melissa Sarno who wowed us with her hacky-sacking-while-speaking-Hindi video

The goal of the Hacky Sack Club is to bring a little silly community to the normally solitary lives of writers. If you'd like to join, you can read all about it >>here<<. Any weird talent accepted!

Where are the Asians in Contemporary YA?

I hope you all had a chance to read Ellen Oh's post about Why the Pretty White Girl YA Book Cover Trend Needs to End.

And I hope you all entered Adam's and Victoria's book giveaways to support ethnically diverse book covers.

This issue is important to me, too. A lot of you know I grew up in Hong Kong, which was an amazing place to live and grow. Hong Kong is an incredibly diverse city. My best friends in middle school were from all over the world: Holland, Australia, Burma, India, Sri Lanka, Portugal and England. Of course I experienced a good dose of Chinese culture, too, even though my family culture was American.

I grew up as a minority. Maybe that's why I can relate to this struggle and why it makes me sick to my stomach that we would still be trapped in this "covers with white people on them sell books" mentality.

Add to that, my oldest daughter is ethnically Chinese and, at ten years old, she's about to plunge into the world of Young Adult fiction. She's an avid reader. What is she going to find when she gets there?

Middle grade novels have been great. I love the diversity in middle grade. One of my daughter's favorite authors, Grace Lin, just came out with DUMPLING DAYS, and my daughter ate it up (pardon the pun). She was delighted with this book.

But where are the YA books like DUMPLING DAYS? Not that we can ONLY relate to books about people of our same ethnicity, but I find the "white-out" disturbing. And that my daughter might think the only heroines  allowed to be Asian have to carry a sword and possess Ninja skills. (I'm definitely NOT against Ninja skills or Asian protagonists having them. It's awesome. Ninja skills are always wonderful.)

I guess I'm speaking to my own genre here: Contemporary Young Adult. That is, realistic stories with teenaged protagonists. Where are the Asians in contemporary YA?

I was racking my brain for YA novels I've read with Asian protagonists. I haven't read either of the books Adam's giving away: Cindy Pon's SILVER PHOENIX or Malinda Lo's HUNTRESS, though PHOENIX has been on my radar for awhile. But neither of these are contemporary YA. Don't get me wrong, I'm still so glad they exist. If anything, I'm just frustrated with my own little section of the book store.

(Note: I love that BESTEST. RAMADAN. EVER. has a Syrian-Iranian American protagonist. That's movement in the right direction!)

Now I'd like to hear from you (really, I do!):

• Can you think of any other YA books, especially in the contemporary group, that feature Asian protagonists? (Let's stick with YA. There are a lot of adult books and middle grade book examples.)
• What can we DO about this lack? 
• My knee-jerk answer to this question is, since we're writers, WRITE with more diversity. The covers can't reflect diversity if, in our mind's eye, all we see are blonds and red-heads. Here's my humble attempt: My WiP's main character is half-Asian-- her mom is Vietnamese-American-- and my currently-resting WiP has a Chinese protagonist. Obviously, there's no guarantee either of these books will ever see the light of a bookstore shelf. Still, there's the effort to make a change, right?
• But here's another weird spin-off question related to my last point: I'm not Asian. I may feel Chinese in some ways because of my upbringing, but is there a problem with non-Asian writers writing Asian characters? I've considered using "Lin" to replace my middle name "Lynn" in my pen name, just to give myself some instant credibility ... but I decided that might be slightly deceitful. *blush*

Tell me your thoughts, please. Don't hold back. We need to talk about these uncomfortable issues if there will be change, and honesty is the first step. I realize I've been all over the place with this post. I hope you can find my pulse in it, though.

Twenty Things

1. Life has been taking me for a spin lately.
2. I've been sick for a week. I was very sick last week. On Tuesday I spent the afternoon passed out on the bed with a fever, letting my poor children fend for themselves. The only thing that worked in that scenario was that Baby was sick, too, so she came to bed with me. Otherwise, the whole "fending" thing could have involved plunging down stairs, choking on Polly Pocket shoes, or running with scissors. Thankfully, everyone survived.
3. Even though I'm getting better, I'm still not feeling great, and I'm also behind on EVERYTHING (so, sorry I've been so bad about replying to your wonderful comments on the last post!). 
4. On Friday, our toilet clogged, which was not unusual. 
5. But then someone must have flushed it again and it overflowed. When I got back from someplace during the day, I saw it was overflowing, but it didn't look too bad.
6. The reason it didn't look too bad was because it was draining into the bathroom heating duct.
7. I could not get the toilet unclogged.
8. Even when I turned off the water, the toilet kept leaking. 
9. The toilet water in the heating duct leaked into our storage room in the basement.
10. The dashingly handsome sidekick spent basically all weekend on his hands and knees doing things to our toilet, and the plumbing under the toilet. 
11. We've turned off our central heating until the whole thing has a chance to dry out....
12. Which means we're wearing five layers of clothes in the house. 
13. Still, thank goodness it's spring.
14. And thank goodness for scented candles.
15. The old toilet is in the bathtub.
16. The new toilet is in the living room. 
17. The little girls are still blowing snot bubbles. 
18. Spring Forward was not good timing. I REALLY needed that extra hour this weekend and I'm kind of pissed at the government for taking it away from me. (That's about as political as I'll ever get, people.)
19. For Thursday I promise you a much happier (or at least more interesting) blog post, in which I discuss this post by Ellen Oh about the shocking lack of diversity on YA book covers, with nods to Adam Heine and Victoria Dixon who are helping make waves about this issue by giving away books with ethnically-diverse covers. The book giveaways are still going, so click through to enter!
20. How did you spend your weekend? 

Why Fiction?

"We demand windows. Literature as Logos is a series of windows, even of doors. One of the things we feel after reading a great work is 'I have got out.' Or from another point of view, 'I have got in'; pierced the shell of some other monad and discovered what it is like inside ...  In reading great literature I become a thousand men and yet remain myself. Like the night sky in a Greek poem, I see with a thousand eyes, but it is still I who see. Here, as in worship, in love, in moral action, and in knowing, I transcend myself; and am never more myself than when I do." 

~C.S. Lewis

Do you ever wonder why fiction exists-- why you write or read it? I love Lewis's take. Any additional thoughts?

WiP Monday: Because I Don't Post on Wednesday Anymore

Oops, was it Monday today? *checks calendar* Yep. *Scurries to write blog post*

Today I'm talking Works in Progress (WiPs) because I haven't blogged about them in awhile.  Probably because I'm now on a Blog Schedule that does not include "WiP Wednesdays." So, WiP Monday it is!

I have three WiPs in three different stages of development. I've given them all nicknames which may or may not be part of their titles.

1. SEAGULL: This one's almost ready for a secondary round of submissions after a bunch of revisions. She's going to get a title overhaul, too, but I'm not sure what that will be yet. I'm still waiting to declare her perfect-as-possible and then we'll see about finalizing that pesky new title.
2. BUTTERFLY: This is my sweet little book, which unfortunately also happens to be enigmatic. In other words, she doesn't fit where she's supposed to fit. She may not be YA, but she's not MG ... and are coming-of-age stories salable, anyway? All this remains to be seen. For now, she is shelved and waiting to be reborn, like the butterfly that she is.
3. CRAZY: The nickname says it all. This book is crazy, and the main character is a bad girl. I'm having a lot of fun writing her because I'm not a bad girl, but she is also difficult to write for the same reason. I wrote the first draft of this baby during Nano last year, and am writing a second draft now. Let me tell you, it's a complete overhaul. Characters needed to change. A bunch of it needs tossing (and flogging). The whole story needs to be re-imagined. Yeah. But it's fun -- one of my favorite parts of this thing called writing novels. And just to tell you how complete this overhaul is, I'm not even referring to draft one. That was so last November.

 So, how about you? How are your projects going? Anything fun to share?

Romancing the Snow

When bloggy buddy Jen Daiker asked me to read and review the short stories (hers included) in the SNOWBOUND HEARTS anthology, I agreed. Jen is so fun and awesome, of course I wanted to celebrate her first publication.

Full disclosure ... I am not a romance-genre expert. Certain friends told me I should read more romance (for educational purposes, mind you), so I thought this was a perfect opportunity to be educated in another genre AND support a bloggy friend. The problem is, writing a review about a genre you're not well-versed in ... it's a little scary.

But I'm going to do my best. Keep in mind, I'm probably one of the most naive people on the planet (despite the fact that I have five children running around). And yes, I do get sort of middle-schooly when it comes to talking about sex. Giggling. Blushing. The whole bit. 

Thankfully, all that worry was for nothing with SNOWBOUND HEARTS. The stories were mostly playful and lighthearted. One story did seem more serious than the others, but I was delighted with the character development and the setting in that story, so it was just as entertaining.

Every story was unique and I enjoyed the variety of voices. For instance, "Sophie's Snow Day" is a paranormal romance about cat shape shifters (I'd never read a paranormal romance before). Jen's story, "Snowbanked," is a sweet romance about a girl who comes home to find herself. "The White Lion" is set in England and had all the romance and intrigue of old English houses that really appealed to this Downton Abbey nut, while "Winter Twilight" has wonderfully gritty characters and a vivid downtown Seattle setting.

My biggest problem with SNOWBOUND HEARTS was that it's only available digitally. And, of course, I don't have an e-reader. So every time I sat down to read it felt an awful lot like I was working. I would have loved to curl up with these stories on my couch in front of a roaring (gas-lit) fire. Instead, I was forced to sit bolt upright at the computer. Which made it less enjoyable, for sure, because I kept accidentally putting on my editor's cap. But this is not the fault of the anthology, just my lack of gadgets.

If you have an e-reader, though, it's super easy to download SNOWBOUND HEARTS from the Still Moments Ebook store. It's only $3.99, which, when you consider how much content you're getting, is really a steal.

Congratulations, Jen, on your publication accomplishment! I know there's a lot more in store from this talented author.

**

In unrelated, silly news, Janet Johnson and I inducted our first victim member into the Hacky Sack Hall of Shame Fame. Catherine Denton put down her paintbrush and bravely went where no red-dress wearing woman has gone before and not only hula-hooped, but hacky-sacked with her hands at the same time. It's absolutely breathtaking. You have to check it out >>here.<< If you'd like to join the silliness, just email me (address in the sidebar) and I'll tell you how. No hacky sack required. Our motto is: "To embarrassment and beyond!"

Hello, Spring?

I think spring is almost here.

Even though it snowed yesterday.

Even though I still crank the heater in my van up to 90.

Even though I'm still wearing my big coat and furry boots.

Even though the trees are still bare and the dirt is still brown.

I know spring is almost here because MY ALLERGIES ARE BACK.

I've got the sniffles and my arms have broken out in a rash. My eyes are itching and I wish there was a way to scratch the back of my throat. My body is telling me something my eyes can't see. And for once, I don't mind the allergies because winter is almost over! And I bet I'm more reliable than that darn groundhog.

How about you? Are you close to spring where you are, or does it still feel decades away? Or do you live in perpetual spring weather? (If you do, boy, am I jealous of you!)

By the way, on Thursday I'm planning to review the SNOWBOUND HEARTS anthology. Bloggy buddy Jen Daiker's romantic short story is in it!

Real Time Writer-Mom

Kim Smith has a wealth of ideas for me for my blog (and I am grateful because sometimes my brain feels a little depleted over here). Her exact words to me this morning were:  Give us details, stay-at-home-writing-mama!  So, here are all the gritty details, because I'm anxious to stomp out this rumor that I'm Superwoman (Kristin, I'm looking at you, Birthday Girl). 

I'll be updating this post throughout today as life (and writing) unravels.

6:30a.m. - Wake up late because Baby was up half the night yodeling. I couldn't leave her in the crib because she shares a room with two siblings and would wake them up. So we had deep conversations at 3a.m. She also worked on her kick boxing skills. I finally stripped off her pajamas and let her lie there in her onesie. She finally fell asleep around 5. Was she hot in her pajamas? I DON'T KNOW.

7a.m. - Sluggishly make breakfast and help children get ready for school.

8a.m. - Leave to drop off kids; pick up niece; drop off 2 children; pick up Daycare Boy; drop off 1 more child and niece; head home with 3yo + Crabby Baby who spent the night yodeling + Daycare Boy.

8:30a.m. - 3yo & Daycare Boy want to paint. I make phone calls to rearrange appointments that won't work with schedule. Crabby Baby wanders around the house crying.

9a.m. - Sit down to start blog post. Crabby baby demands to be fed. Stop blog post. Feed baby. Back to blog post.

9:30a.m. - Take 10yo Locks of Love donation to post office to mail.

9:50a.m. - Attempt to right wooden playground equipment in backyard that was blown over in yesterday's wind storm. Too heavy. Must wait for Dashingly Handsome Sidekick (DHS).

10a.m. - Snack time for 3yo & Daycare Boy. Attempt to clean kitchen. Put away paints.

10:15a.m. - Throw in load of laundry. Snack time for Crabby Baby.

10:45a.m. - Put Daycare Boy on bus to preschool. Sing to Crabby Baby. Crabby Baby falls asleep.

11:00a.m. - Read to 3yo:

• The Little Engine that Could by Watty Piper
• Amazing Grace by Mary Hoffman
• Please Louise by Frieda Wishinsky & Marie-Louise Gay
• Mouse Tales by Arnold Lobel

11:30a.m. - Tell "I'm not tired" 3yo we must both shut our eyes for a few minutes.

12 noon - Wake up. Rush out to start writing. Oh wait, did not do Bible study this morning because I slept in, so must do that first. Lunch? Maybe later.

12:15 - Sit down to study the book of James: MERCY TRIUMPHS by Beth Moore.

12:35 - Write, write, write like a mad woman. THE BABIES ARE ASLEEP! Today I have two goals: Finish the edit on my Seagull book & work on the synopsis for my Butterfly book.

1:20 - 3yo wakes up. Make lunch for her and set her up on the computer to play games.

1:30 - Warm up lunch for myself -- leftover Chinese pot roast, rice and veggies. Delish. Read, read, read, edit, edit, edit while I'm eating.

2:00 - Baby wakes up. Feed Happy Baby lunch.

2:20 - Leave to pick up kids. Stop by the public library to pick up Gary D. Schmidt's OKAY FOR NOW, which I have on hold.

3:30 - Get home, read the first page and jacket copy of OKAY FOR NOW and decide I'll never be as good a writer as Gary D. Schmidt. Pace the kitchen with a worried feeling in my gut.

3:33 - Tell that worried feeling to SHUT UP.

3:35 - Squeeze out more reading/editing time while the kids do their homework.

5:00 - Drop off 5yo at ballet. Pick up the DHS from school. Ask DHS on the way home in most pitiful voice if we can have something else for dinner besides the chilli I have planned because chilli does not sound even mildly appetizing.** The DHS is kind and agrees we can use our gift certificate to the local Mexican restaurant tonight. Yahoo!

6:00 - 5yo returns from ballet and announces that she got the solo part for her age group in the upcoming production of Sleeping Beauty. She'll be Baby Aurora. So proud of her! 

6:30 - Off to Mexican restaurant where we eat too many chips and barely have room for anything once the meal arrives.

7:45 - Return from Mexican restaurant. Get children in pajamas. Read to them. Make sure they all brush their teeth. House smells because 8yo ate too many beans.

9:15 - All is quiet. Back at the laptop with plans to finish the last skim-through of my edits. (Isn't it amazing how many little mistakes there still can be after an edit? All these little loose threads to snip off. Here or there where I mentioned something and after the edit it doesn't make sense any more. That's what this skim-through is for. Today I've corrected at least twenty tiny mistakes.)

1a.m. - I don't usually stay up this late, but I accomplished all my writing goals. Edit finished. Synopsis typed. Goodnight all! Sweet dreams!


**The DHS is leaving for a conference tomorrow and will be gone all weekend. This is why the pitiful voice worked so well. I know he already feels bad about leaving me with the five kids by myself for three days, especially the potential yodeler, who, Mimi is right, might be teething. Yay for Mexican food and no cooking or dishes!

Making Time to Write

Our beautiful amaryllis bloomed just in time for Valentine's Day. Isn't it stunning? Thanks to our dear friend, Dr. Burr Field, who grows these in this home and gives them away as gifts.

A dear friend and encourager, Kim Smith, asked me the other day how I juggle writing with the rest of my life.

I'm sure a lot of my readers are in the same boat. We're busy with day jobs and families and housekeeping responsibilities. Sometimes it feels like we're pulled in ten different directions at once.

But we still make time to write.

I'll tell you how I do it ... but keep in mind, I'm not perfect. There are many days I don't open my laptop to type. I often fail, allowing my time to be eaten away by social networking traps like Facebook or Twitter. And forget weekends and holidays; what I'm about to say doesn't apply to those days! (Unless the dashingly handsome sidekick is feeling especially generous and takes the kids out of the house.)

My secret?

SCHEDULE.

How hilarious is it that I just typed that word? If you know me at all, you know I'm annoyingly free spirited. I'm the type of extreme weirdo who never scheduled my children's feedings; they fed on-demand all through their first and second years of life. It's only recently that I've tried to get on a sort of blog schedule. Until now I blogged when the mood hit me.

And writing was the same. I wrote when I felt the compulsion.

Until I had kids ... and more kids ... and more kids. When compulsion came in the middle of cooking dinner or changing a diaper, I couldn't just drop everything, grab my laptop and disappear.

So, yes, now I'm a scheduled writer. I write at a certain time every day-- after I put my two youngest daughters down for their naps late morning.

I write for as long as I can until they wake up.

And then, some evenings I also write if I have time and energy.

Keeping my writing schedule means a certain amount of sacrifice. I might have a filthy house, but if I'm going to get any writing done I have to turn my back on those household chores and write while the kids are sleeping. I tell myself I can do those chores when the kids are awake. After all, it's more fun when they "help me" fold clothes and vacuum and load the dishwasher.

Their sleeping time is my writing time. And that's that. As much as I love being with my kids, I admit, I look forward to that quiet hour or two every weekday.

How do you make time for writing (or your favorite pastime)?

Go for Big

Photo courtesy of Morguefile

"If your dreams don't scare you, they're not big enough." 

~Unknown

This quote tells me:

It's okay to be terrified of success

There's nothing wrong with going for BIG

In fact, maybe going for BIG is what we're all meant to do

We all have different ways of going for BIG. A lot of you reading this blog are writers and there are certain scary aspects of writing success (at least for me!)--

1) Launch parties

2) School visits

3) Busyness

4) Balancing acts

5) Expectations

6) Reviews

Just to name a few....

But that's how it is with every BIG endeavor. We wonder if once we "make it" we'll be able to rise to the challenge. 

It takes faith. And guts. 

Just like anything worthwhile.

Think of people who run marathons, foster children, start foundations, get married, go on crusades for good causes, go back to school, fight legal battles in the name of justice, pursue ridiculous dreams, make other people's dreams come true, start new jobs, move to foreign countries....

We all have our own ways of living BIG, and we were meant to live BIG, to hatch dreams more brilliant than we could ever imagine.

What's your dream?

And does it terrify you? 

**

Congratulations to DAWN SIMON who is the winner* of Gae Polisner's THE PULL OF GRAVITY.

Yay, Dawn! I'll track you down to get your mailing address. 

Thanks to everyone who entered and thanks again to Gae for being my honored guest. 

*Random.org

**

Just in Case....

We've been under a plague of stomach flu since last Thursday, so this will be short.

Blogger failed me again and never posted Gae Polisner's Letter to My Future Self to Google Reader. Just in case you didn't see it, I'm giving away a copy of her book, THE PULL OF GRAVITY, back on >>that post<<. You won't want to miss it!

Because of the technical difficulties, I'll leave the giveaway open until Wednesday night, so you still have time to enter (over there).

Also, on a side note, have you seen all of Sarah Fine's amazing news lately? So happy for her!

And, Valentine's Day is almost here. The DHS and I are hoping to steal away for a couple hours tonight if everyone's feeling well enough here at home. We're thinking maybe Greek food. Do you have any big plans?

Stay well, everyone! There's some nasty stuff going around (especially in Mexico, I hear). And after watching Downton Abbey last night, it's better to stay away from all these weird, mutating flus. Right, Lavinia?