RITA ® Award-Winning Author of Fantasy Romance
//The business of self-publishing, especially ISBNs, and retail platforms for print. Also, raving about Star Trek: Strange New Worlds and what creators can learn from it on prequels and riffing within the canon.
//On writing cross-genre and pushing the boundaries of fantasy. Does fantasy necessarily mean non-tech/medieval culture? And other thoughts on tropes, reader expectations, and making art.
//On burnout – how to identify it, prevent it, and recover from it, should you have to. Also other thoughts on sustainable creativity, monetization (and not) and making a living from your art or passion.
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This week at the SFF Seven, we’re talking about our favorite heroines that we didn’t write.
I think you all know me by now, and thus know I don’t much like picking favorite anythings. There’s a lot of room in my universe for all the stuff I love and I don’t really think in terms of ranking. All that said, I just completed a reread of Patricia McKillip’s The Forgotten Beasts of Eld, one of my most cherished books of all time. It’s a brilliant fantasy novel and one I wished I’d written. The heroine and protagonist is a wizard woman named Sybel.
Don’t pay attention to the stupid listings that call this book young adult (YA). First of all, in 1974 when this book was first published, there wasn’t a YA category. Secondly, the only reason this is listed as YA, I assume, is because it’s written by a woman with a female protagonist. If this deeply layered, fucking brilliant fantasy novel is YA, then so is The Lord of the Rings.
ANYWAY.
Sybel is simply a brilliantly drawn heroine. She is a product of her upbringing, isolated physically and in her immense power. Living among the magical, nigh-mythical creatures she cares for, Sybel has to learn to deal with human beings. She is unflinchingly strong throughout the story, cleaving to her own sense of self, even when others try to rip that away from her. In her learning to first love, then to hate, then to move past both, she achieves her own mythic status. Even as the reader follows her self-destructive path, dreading the inevitable outcome, we also believe totally in her reasons, never failing to cheer her on. Sybel is the awkward, bookish, shy girl in all of us, who wrestles with the tumult of the wider world.
In rereading, I found so many ways this story has infused my own work, though I despair of ever reaching this level. And Sybel is in all of my heroines. Maybe even a bit in myself.
//Superpowers, immortality, and whether we’d keep everyone alive forever if we could. Also the movie She Said, reflections on the naughty Tumblr I used to have and how the #metoo movement changed so many things for me.
//Sad news – my 17yo cat Isabel passed away over the weekend. She went peacefully at home though. Otherwise I’m talking about productivity, training to increase wordcount and asking a Tarot question.
//Some industry gossip on the author who pretended to commit suicide to sell books. Also, an online romance book club! Then thoughts on the Mary Sue character and whether we’re really still talking about this.
//On happiness, success, becoming addicted to the admiration of others, being true to your art, and the effects of monetization on creativity, e.g. what happens when you can make a living with your passion.
//A bit more on how I’ve increased my author income stream over the last 7 seven years so that I can make my living as a writer, my strategies, why a robust backlist is key, and how I’m refining my approach for 2023.
//I’m reviewing my author earnings for 2022 as compared to prior years, talking trad vs. indie income and how a robust backlist is key to earning a living as a write. Also some distressing news about Robin Perini.
