Why Fiction Is Dangerous

In celebration of tomorrow's release of Neil Gaiman's latest novel The Ocean At The End Of The Lane, I thought I would finally take a moment to share his thoughts from BEA on why fiction is dangerous.

On the last day of BookExpo America 2013, Neil Gaiman held a panel and Q&A session called "Why Fiction Is Dangerous" It was one of the major highlights of my trip this year. After speaking to us, at length, about what inspired his two new books, Mr. Gaiman said, "So those are the two main books I have coming out and that has nothing to do, at all, with why fiction is dangerous." The audience laughed because, I suppose, they were as engrossed as I was with everything he had told us and had completely forgotten about the promise of this panel's title.

While the rest of the talk was filled with laughter and frivolity, the crowds offered up a respectful silence interrupted only by murmurs of consent as Neil Gaiman told us why fiction was dangerous. He said,

• "Fiction is dangerous because it lets you into other people's heads,"
• "Fiction isdangerous because it gives you empathy,"
• "Fiction is dangerous because it shows you that the world doesn't have to be like the one you live in, which is incredibly dangerous for the world."

In 2007 Neil Gaiman was invited to the first officially recognized science fiction convention in China. He was curious about the country's sudden embrace of the genre, so he pulled aside one of the party officials to ask, "Science fiction has been very much frowned upon and regarded as dangerous and subversive for a very long time in China... Why have you said yes to this?" According to Gaiman, this was the man's response, "In China we are really good at making things that people bring to us... but we don't come up with them, we don't invent, we don't innovate. We went to America recently and we talked to the people at Apple, at Google, the people at Microsoft and one of the things we asked all of these people who invent and innovate was What did you read as children? And they all said, 'We read science fiction. We read fantasy. We read this stuff and thought, The world doesn't have to be like the one we are in right now. We can change it.'"

I sat there listening to Neil Gaiman and realized how beautiful danger can be. I understood how make-believe is the gateway to possibility and I remembered how closely linked imagination is to intelligence. Fiction is dangerous, in the same way our lives are: they are both unpredictable and take us down roads we may never have dreamed of traveling. 

I was so inspired by this talk, I created a Facebook cover to share this sentiment with all my facebook friends. Here it is, in case you wish to do the same (you can click on it so you can see it clearly without the sidebar interruption):

What are your thoughts on the danger of fiction?

How has fiction inspired you to think differently about your own world?

Audiobook Giveaway!

While you are enjoying a summer of reading, don't forget my favorite way to absorb stories: through audiobooks! Four years ago this week, I was diagnosed with a condition that had the audacity to try and steal my vision. For nearly two years, the only type of "reading" I did was with my headphones. I will forever be grateful to the audiobook industry for the beautiful escape it afforded me while I lived in recovery. Until this day, I plug into an audiobook whenever I need to truly unwind, or when my symptoms dare to steal all other pleasures away (like last night, for instance).

In celebration of my diagnosis and my first steps on my road to recovery, I would like to share the joy of audiobooks with you, thanks to Hachette Audio. At BookExpo America at the beginning of the month, the good people of Hachette Audio shared some free audiobook downloads with me to bring to YOU! And, yes, you read that correctly: I have downloads - that's plural - for this giveaway there will be THREE winners, so your chances are even better than usual that you will win this prize.

Here's what each lucky winner will receive:

TWO INTERNET DOWNLOAD CODES FOR

1. The full audiobook editions of FIVE James Patterson Books for the whole family

-Alex Cross, Run

-Private Berlin

-Second Honeymoon

-I, Funny

-Middle School: The Worst Years Of My Life 

2. A Sampler Download including
 

-a full story, "Dentists Without Borders," from David Sedaris's new collection LET'S EXPLORE DIABETES WITH OWLS

-the entirety of Lemony Snicket's wonderful THE DARK (read by Neil Gaiman)

-and many more great excerpts from new audiobooks 

Does this sound like something you might be interested in? Use the widget below to enter now:

a Rafflecopter giveaway

BEA Announces Livestreaming for 2013

Great news for all you book lovers out there that won't be able to make it into New York City at the end of this month for BookExpo America. They have announced that they will be livestreaming a number of the author events for you to tune in to.

The BEA Live streaming program, which was launched last year to enormous success, utilizes the technology of Livestream, a leading company in the streaming technology field and a premier platform for producing live events online.  This year, an estimated 250,000 people will be able to view a huge range of authors as a result of the Sony partnership which is providing considerable underwriting for the initiative.

Last year I was able to embed the livestream screen right here on Rivera Runs Through It, and hope to do the same again this year for your convenience, so be sure to check back during the event on May 29 – June 1, 2013. Here's some of what BEA is planning to share:

A few of the authors whose participation will be available for viewing to the public through BEA Live include Doris Kearns Goodwin, Chelsea Handler, Octavia Spencer, Ishamel Beah, Rick Riordan, Chris Matthews, Helen Fielding, Neil Gaiman, Robbie Robertson, and Amy Tan to name just a few.  Other programming which will be captured for viewing include all the BEA Editor Buzz panels as well as author interviews from the ABA’s Celebration of Bookselling and Awards Luncheon.     Both the live programming and the recorded programming will be archived and will be available for viewing on demand during the show as well as after.  

 In the meantime, if you are looking for more information about BEA, please visit www.bookexpoamerica.com and connect with BEA on Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn and YouTube.

Writing A Novel - YouTube

I love YouTube. After a long day of writing and reading, sometimes I just need to let people talk at me. It doesn't always have to involve goats sounding like humans, cats doing cat-things, or auto-tuned remakes of a clip of the news from somewhere in the world. Many times I let YouTube inspire me, remind me why I'm doing what I'm doing and show me that I am not alone.

I figured, since we are nearing the end of a very intense month, that you too might just need someone to talk at you. Here are some great YouTube videos to help you stay inspired.

Ira Glass says, "Fight your way through that."
 

Jack White says, "Inspiration and work ethic ride right next to each other."


John Green says, "Books are made in revision."



(*The long one*) Neil Gaiman says, "The problems of failure are hard. The problems of success can be harder."


I can go on here.There are so many great people sharing great things on YouTube. Happy viewing!

Thanks for reading!

Do you have an inspirational, or writer-friendly YouTube video that you loved?

Beyond books, where else do you find your writing inspiration?

Writing a Novel - Keep Going!

How long have you been writing a novel? I mean, how long have you been writing that same novel? Do you change gears, start up new stories with broken promises of how you will some day return to your first when "the time is right" or when the next part "becomes clear"?

Stop it.

Whatever novel you are working on right now, KEEP GOING! Keep writing and writing and writing until you reach the finish line. Not the "perfect" finish line, but A finish line.

Here's the deal. I made a huge mistake when reading various author's advice about finishing. I thought they meant taking your story through to the public and seeing it where it takes you. I even wrote an entire blog post about my own fight to that finish. However, the other night, while I was on StumbleUpon, I fell upon a number of different sites on writing (as usual). As I read through page after page of different tidbits, I kept reading "finish it" over and over again. Then it hit me.

I had.

I had finished my first novel. I had that sweet feeling that all these writers were all talking about. I had been through all of the torture of not understanding how my characters got into the situations they did, how they were going to get out of those situations and how all these things were going to play into my plot. I had experienced the times of terror, when it felt like everything had jumped the shark, and I had fought my way back to verisimilitude with nothing more than my imagination.

What I did when I wrote my first novel was simple. I kept going. For that I can thank NaNoWriMo and Scrivener. If Scrivener hadn't offered a huge discount to winners of the 2011 NaNoWriMo, when I was beyond broke (cute how I put that in the past tense, as if things have changed), I'm not sure I would have felt desperate enough to fight for the finish.

It took me a little over a month to get to the finish. In On Writing Stephen King says it should take no more than three months to get through a first draft (he doesn't like it to extend past a season). I think he's right. I am beginning to think that if we don't keep going when writing a novel, then we just end up stalling and getting in our own way.

My thoughts: Stop trying to find the perfect ending, just get your story out, as sloppy as it is, from beginning to end and leave the editing and rewriting until later. In other words, for now, in your beginning stages, just keep going!

"Keep Going!" From Some Writers You May Know:

Neil Gaiman

Stephen King

Henry Miller

 Joss Whedon

I don't think there's much more I can add to that. So you know that novel your avoid right now by reading blogs? Get back to it, and no matter what happens next - KEEP GOING!!

Thanks for reading!

What types of things come up in your writing that stop you?

What techniques do you have for writing through the hard parts?

Fighting to Finish

Neil Gaiman

In November 2011 I participated in NaNoWriMo and "finished" a novel. It's an interesting way to put it because all I did was write a first draft. The novel itself was far from finished.

When I sat down to edit in 2012 I signed up for a critique workshop online and joined a writing group that met locally to help me along my path.

Mark each as a fail.

The online workshop was a bust (some confusion with the workshop leader) and the local writing group was inconsistent at best. I was floundering and, without a support system, I filled my days with other distractions. I needed eyes other than my own to read my words, and loved ones just wouldn't do in this situation.

This Fall I went into a deep writing hibernation that extended even into my blogging (as is evident with a quick glance at the sidebar). I wrote in my journal and other notebooks, started a bunch of new stories and came up with ideas for new novels (two that I am really excited about), but I typed nothing. I also read a lot. I read novels and graphic novels, for sure, but I also read about writing. I was searching for... something.

In the interim, Nail Gaiman seemed to be popping up all over. And over and over again his one bit of advice would tear out among the rest: FINISH. Every time I'd hear (or read) him say it I'd feel a fire shoot up my spine: What am I doing? I'd feel guilty about my abandoned love,  Why can't I finish? Then, last week, when I was watching John and Hank Green's "An Evening Of Awesome At Carnegie Hall" event on YouTube while reorganizing my entire living room and dining room, he showed up again.

There, on my giant TV Mr. Gaiman, was doling out writing advice to an audience of Nerdfighters. Of course, I knew he wasn't really talking to them, he was telling me that I should FINISH things. He said that I would learn so much more from a finished project that's a failure than a whole bunch of unfinished fantastic ones.

Repetition works. I know this. As a teacher I employed this daily - repeat, repeat, repeat - no one gets it the first time. So there I was, a student of Mr. Gaiman's, and after being pummeled in the head countless times, the lesson was finally seeping in... I stood there, covered in a flock of dust bunnies and realized I owed it to myself to see Dear 302, my first draft from NaNoWriMo 2011, all the way through to its end. I had to take action.

Strange things happen when you have moments like those; it's like the universe is waiting for them in order to pour opportunities over your head. That Thursday the good people at NaNoWriMo hosted a "What Now?" twitter chat where the topic of beta readers came up. As a first step, I volunteered as a beta reader for who ever would have me, just to get myself reconnected to my online writing community.

It worked.

I am a beta reader for two NaNoPals. While reading, I continued my own rewriting and editing, and, in turn, felt confident enough to throw some of my pages out into the ether. The comments came back this morning. They're awesome! I feel like I'm "in it" again and ready to go all the way this time.

To add to the excitement, I just found out this week that the online critique workshop I was in last year was such a flop I have been offered a refund and free admission to a new workshop hosted by the site. The timing is perfect. I was not ready for this any earlier.

So here I go again, back into the deep end. The newbie novelist learning as she goes. Wish me luck!