What's Up Wednesday

I have no idea if the official What's Up Wednesday is still a thing, but I figure it's time for an update and I like the formatting. (The original What's Up Wednesday was created by Jaime Morrow and Erin Funk to help writers stay in touch!)

What I'm Reading

If you didn't already know, The Queen's Thief series by Megan Whalen Turner is one of my favourite series of all time, and the fifth book in the series came out this week after seven years! So I'm currently halfway through rereading the series before reading the new book, Thick as Thieves. That is probably going to consume me for the next few weeks, and then I really need to get started on reading stuff for Women in Translation month in August!

What I'm Writing

I have been working on rewriting the book I finished in December, and I am currently at about 34,000 words. I have been making good progress on this thing. I even made a semi decent outline before rewriting, which is not something I usually do. Because of that, I think if I just sat down and powered through, I could probably finish it in maybe a month. Except I keep giving myself a million other things to occupy my time when I'm not at work... heheh. I was thinking of doing Camp NaNo, although now it looks like there's only sessions in April and July. Another year I did it June and that would've worked better for me... we'll see. Maybe I'll do my own Camp NaNo in June. Anyone want to join me? ;)

What Inspires Me Right Now

Weirdly enough, the beautiful storytelling of the TV shows The Get Down and Skam have really inspired me lately. They are the kinds of art that are so good that they make you want to sit down and create art. And also Megan Whalen Turner's genius, of course.

What Else Is New

Well in April I finished my second to last year of university! Next year I will be graduating with a 4-year Bachelor of Arts in Social Sciences with a concentration in Intercultural Studies. I also started my full time summer job a day after I was done everything for school. This summer I'm working at a volunteer department, helping coordinate volunteers. I really enjoy it - it's always busy and there's always something different to do. In just my first month, I've had to fold clothes, organize a uniform swap, call someone to tell them a visitor dropped their phone in with the snakes, go to and help set up volunteer trainings, send a million email reminders, and have lots of lengthy conversations with talkative volunteers who ask a million questions. And that's not all!

So work has been keeping me pretty busy since it's full time, and then I get home and I'm too tired to do much of anything. But I'm still trying to work on my own projects, like my book, this blog, and my garden! I am going to attempt to grow things this summer, although I'm such a newbie gardener, we'll see how it goes. Anyway, I think this summer is going to be hectic, but fun!



What are your plans for summer, writing or vacation related?

J.K. Rowling, Megan Whalen Turner and Authorial Intent

Recently, a very popular YA author wrote a lengthy post responding to some criticism that had come up regarding her most recent release. It's not the first time a YA author has defended their work, and it won't be the last, but it IRKS ME SO MUCH.

I understand the instinct to want to defend your work and your decisions, I really do. It's almost a basic human instinct to get defensive. But in my opinion, defending your choices against criticism doesn't make you look any better. When authors defend their work, as a reader that tells me that they don't really care about their readers  and what they think; all they care about is making sure that they cover their own behind.

It is the nature of publishing that once a book is out in the world, it isn't solely the author's anymore. Authors need to let go of their books, because by publishing their work they have already given it over to their readers. The author can't and shouldn't try to control response to it. By the time a book is out in the world, it doesn't matter what the author thinks or intended anymore. It matters what the readers think. To me, authors insisting on their interpretation as the only good and true interpretation demonstrates blatant disrespect for the readers, who are the reason they have a career in the first place.

It is amazing the difference in fan-author interaction and fan communities when the author doesn't insist on their own interpretation, either through defense of their choices or otherwise.

Hermione Granger by fridouw on DeviantArt

For example, J.K. Rowling has now become known for touting out very specific interpretations and facts about the extended universe of Harry Potter, often via Twitter. She maintains significant control over her work and the interpretation of it, often disregarding the explosion of fan interpretation through fanction, fanart, headcanons, and so on, that often reject or ignore her intention.

The feminist (Canadian!) Harry Potter podcast Witch, Please often discusses the tendency of J.K. Rowling to assert her control over the text, and comments on how her interpretations are often not even that great. In one episode, they commented that "when Rowling as a reader revisits her own texts and offers interpretations of them... she's a much shittier reader than many of her fans are." (Their discussion is around 1:19). The Witch, Please ladies then go on to say that fan interpretations of Harry Potter are often much more varied and diverse than JKR's, and often make room for difference and representation that are not present in that text.

I think that's a really cool thing about fan involvement and interaction with a text; fans can take a book that might have shoddy representation, make it theirs, and find that representation in the text through their own interpretation. It's super powerful. I think it's sad when authors like J.K. Rowling can't acknowledge that and can't let go of their own work and give it completely over to their readers.

I couldn't find the quote, but in the episode of Witch, Please that I listened to they made a comment on something J.K. Rowling had tweeted about Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them, something along lines of "fun fact: did you know that..." and then some behind-the-scenes "fact" about the world of Fantastic Beasts. The ladies on the podcast just cracked up, making fun of how it's not a fact, it's made up. Of course people didn't know it, because it's just inside J.K. Rowling's head. It just solidified for me how ridiculous it is for authors to insist on their own interpretation of their work. It's like the author sees herself as a queen, dictating the rules and order of her world to her lowly subjects. But that's just not how books work.

Queen's Thief art by artist rushstarfire.tumblr.com

Now, in contrast with J.K. Rowling who jumps in all the time with random and often offensive tidbits is one of my favourite authors, Megan Whalen Turner, the author of the Queen's Thief series. Megan Whalen Turner is known among all Queen's Thief fans for her "not telling" policy; any time any fan asks her any question about her work or what she intended by something, all she says is "not telling". Yes, this often drives Queen's Thief fans crazy and sometimes they would give their right arm just to hear a snippet of what she might have been thinking when she wrote a certain scene. BUT I appreciate so much the different atmosphere it creates in the fan community.

It's the difference in how it makes me feel as a reader. J.K. Rowling's approach makes me feel that my own interpretation and identity is not worth anything to her, because she obviously feels that what she thinks is the most important. Megan Whalen Turner's approach makes me feel that my opinions on her work are valued and meaningful, which in turn makes me feel like she values me as a reader of her work.  In Megan Whalen Turner's "not telling" she is in essence saying that my interpretation as a reader is a lot more valuable than hers, which is actually pretty amazing when you think about it.

I don't know about you, but I much prefer when an author values me and my opinions as a reader, rather than telling me I'm wrong all the time.

Please comment with your thoughts! I have a lot of thoughts on this topic, so I'd love to get some discussion going in the comments or on my Twitter @asherlockwrites!

How do you feel about authorial intent? Do you care about what the author intended, or does it not matter? What is the effect of authors asserting control over their work? What do you think about authors defending themselves against critique? 

Oh and if it's your thing and you want to keep up with my weekly (!) posts (I'm admitting it out loud so now I am committed), you can now follow my blog on Bloglovin'!

My First Queen's Thief Book Release!!

You know that feeling when you thought you would never ever see the publication date for the next book in a series and then finally, IT'S HERE? Well, I do. 

One of my favourite and one of the most genius fantasy series I've ever read, the Queen's Thief series by Megan Whalen Turner, has finally announced the release date for book five! May 16, 2017, 13 days after my 23rd birthday! It has been six years since the last Queen's Thief book was published.

Since all of the Queen's Thief books have been published a number of years apart (around 6 years, but I forgive MWT because her writing is awesome), a bunch of fans on Sounis have been telling stories of what happened in their lives since the publication of the first book, getting degrees and switching between multiple jobs and such. When The Thief was originally published in 1996, I was two, and when the fourth book was published in 2010 I was in grade ten. I have since graduated high school and am soon going to graduate university (shh don't talk about that). 

Anyway I actually only first discovered the Queen's Thief in 2011. Every so often it happens where I have run out of things to read from the library and from my own bought books, and then I scrounge through old books on the bookshelf with books from my childhood, searching in desperation for something to read. One day while looking through the old bookshelf downstairs, I stumbled across The Thief, which I'm pretty sure had been sitting on our shelf for ages. I might have read it before but I didn't remember, so I thought I'd read it. I even still have the review of it I did:

Excellent, excellent writing. Very clever. It is obvious someone intelligent wrote it. I was surprised to see how well the MC’s traits were present in the writing itself. The characters and the story were both extremely realistic, and the ending was amazingly clever. The only bad thing was it was slightly slow near the beginning –although it did keep the realistic side of it.

Intelligent and "the ending was amazingly clever" basically sum up all the Queen's Thief books.

Anyway, The Thief surprised me even if it was slow to get into, but I wasn't desperate for the next one. It was awhile before I took Queen of Attolia out of the library. I obviously still wasn't in love, as my personal book log review ends with "I'd still like to fall in love with the characters a little more, though." HAHA if only you knew.

Then, I read King of Attolia. I was frustrated at first because I had just started to get attached to the original cast of characters, and KOA is told from the point of view of this annoying new character who was getting in the way of me spending time with Gen. However, by the end I fell in love with Costis and this book, and then the series, wholeheartedly. King of Attolia remains one of my top five favourite books.  

I didn't find A Conspiracy of Kings as engaging as KOA, but I grew to love it after a few rereads of the series, and it includes some of my favourite moments between the characters. And that's the thing - you have to reread this series to really get the most of out it, because there are so many moments where you will go oohhh and realize the amazing plotting and trickery that MWT has managed to pull off. 

So, the release of Thick As Thieves will actually be my first release of a Queen's Thief book as a fan of these books, and I am soo excited! It is such an intense experience, waiting for a book you love and have waited for years for to be released, FINALLY. I honestly haven't had many experiences like this. I didn't get into Harry Potter until they were all released, and same goes for many of Melina Marchetta's books (save for Tell the Truth, Shame the Devil, out soon!!) It is such a cool thing to be part of, the anticipation, the fan discussion, the shrieking over Twitter together... 

So I'm really glad I stumbled across that old copy of The Thief in my basement so many years ago...