My ten favorite books of 2014

Ten books I read in 2014 (not necessarily published this year) and would give a high rating to. I read each of these in a single day--a terrific test for me of if a book is working well.

The Thicket (Lansdale). If you don't read Lansdale, you should at least try one book, and this is a good one to start with. If you like Stephen King, you should definitely read him--not because he's usually a horror writer, but because he has a working-class-guy perspective like King's, only his prose is much better and his characterizations more layered. Landsdale might be the best mainstream American writer working today.

This historical novel, set in Texas, has elements of comedy that merge beautifully with the serious story of an orphaned kid and a rag-tag group of allies helping him find his kidnapped sister. The hog and the dwarf are terrific characters.

The Reapers are the Angels (Alden)  Literary zombie apocalypse novel, and by far the best zombie novel I've read. I usually don't like present tense narrative, and I forgave it that easily here. Lovely writing. Sympathetic main character. Beautifully sad. Usually when literary writers take a trip into genre territory, they don't succeed, but Alden does.

World of Trouble (Winters) The final in The Last Policeman trilogy, in which a giant asteroid is hurtling toward earth, and society is falling apart in anticipation of total annihilation, but one cop wants to do his job until the very end. Blending genres of apocalyptic and noir detective novels, presenting a compelling main character, relying on accurate scientific research, and offering a satisfying conclusion to the trilogy, this novel was my most anticipated novel of the year and easily  makes this list.

The Signature of All Things (Gilbert) A literary narrative of the life of an imaginary 19th Century woman botanist. Not that it influenced my rating much, but I also loved the endpaper sketches of plants and other details of book design.

The Outskirter's Secret (Kirstein) This is one of those science-fiction novels that reads like fantasy, until you start to realize that some of those magic objects are recognizable tech from our own world but sufficiently mysterious to the world's inhabitants to be confused with magic. If that can be considered a subgenre, it's one of my favorites. The hero of these stories is a Steerswoman, a peripatetic researcher/librarian. If she asks you a question, you have to tell her the truth. If you ask her a question, she must answer, sharing all human knowledge as she walks along gathering even more. Except...there are a small group of guys, called wizards, who are hoarding some knowledge and technology for themselves, and the hero is determined to solve the mystery of their knowledge. Set on an alien planet, with fascinating native flora and fauna, much of which is dangerous to humans. The standout book of a solid series.

Shine, Shine, Shine (Netzer) A novel about living life to please others but waking up to become more authentic. Mostly literary or mainstream, it has elements of science fiction. One of those books that I felt was just a step shy of great, and I was rooting for it to be great. Still, a satisfying read for a literary novel, having a strong plot (as too many litfic books do not).

The Unthinkable: Who Survies When Disaster Strikes - and Why (Ripley). Nonfiction. Were I not writing disaster novels myself, I probably never would have stumbled over this riveting book.  Ms. Ripley explains through narrative example and interviews with specialists that people variously--because of hardwiring--react to disasters differently. Some naturally lead and leap into action, and some naturally follow those leaders, and some freeze. No matter what your natural reaction, Ms. Ripley points out, being educated and trained vastly increases your chance of survival. She's an advocate for allowing people more practice than we often can have access to. It's a book you should read if you might ever be in a disaster--which means of course everyone everywhere should read it.

Aimed toward children, but impressed this adult:

Bomb: The Race to Build—and Steal—the World's Most Dangerous Weapon (Sheinkin) This non-fiction book, about exactly what the subtitle says it's about, is intended for middle school and younger high school kids, but it's terrific for adults, too. It won seven awards, and it deserved them. Action-packed narratives are thrilling to read. Nazis are working on their own bomb. Norwegian underground members are trying to destroy a German heavy water plant. There are Soviet spies in the Trinity Project, sneaking out messages. A secret training program for a few special bomber crews is underway. I've read several books on the Trinity project, two biographies of Openheimer, seen the TV documentaries on Enola Gay, and yet I was still glued to this. I think I literally bit my nails while reading it--despite knowing how, in real life, it all came out!

Me and Earl and the Dying Girl (Andrews) YA novel with a smart, socially inept male narrator and his few friends, including a girl dying of cancer. This novel seemed much more realistic than The Fault in Our Stars in how it talks about cancer's effects on teens. Despite that serious part of the story, it made me laugh aloud several times and seemed an accurate depiction of high school as I remember that torture-fest. A rare YA book for boys I can recommend without hesitation.

The Forgotten Door (Alexander) A middle-grade book from 1965 about a humanoid alien who crash-lands on Earth, gets bonked on the head in the process, and forgets important things, like how to get home. A friendly family adopts him, but everyone else is afraid of this stranger. Depicting fairly dark events for the intended age range, this one pulls no punches about prejudice, fear, and violence toward the different. As both science fiction and an allegory, it still works well today.

For the teenage child of a reader

My final writing post for National Novel Writing Month.

From a reader's email. "My 15-year-old wants to be a novelist. Have any suggestions?"

Mostly, write, every day. But a long-term plan might be of benefit. I'll invent one, and you can adapt it for your own life.

Summer holiday from school this year, write 500 words per day, every day. If it's a great writing day, maybe you'll write 2000 words. Terrific! But if it's a bad day/you're not in the mood/something fun is happening outside the window, draw the blinds and write the 500 words anyway. Do this every day, even on the days it feels as easy as tap-dancing on a water bed. Professional writers write on the good days and difficult days, and it's a good habit to get into. Three months, 500 words a day, a few days better than 500: that's a novel draft. Don't fall into the trap of saying "I'll write one hour" as your goal. Set a word goal and write until you meet it.

The first half of the following school year, rewrite the novel on weekends, and then put it aside at winter break, however far you've gone with the rewrite. Do not upload it to Amazon KDP at this point--you'll regret it if you do. You don't have nearly enough writing experience yet to be able to produce a readable--much less a good--novel that quickly. And experienced writers know it will take more than one revision, and perhaps years of revising, to get to the finish line.

The second half of that school year, on your weekends, plan and research your next novel, read how-to writing articles online, and read how-to books from the library, 808 and nearby in the Dewey Decimal system. Read the award-winning novels from this year in your genre, too.

Hey, it's already summer again--happy times! Time, too, to draft your second novel, 500 words per day. Repeat this schedule every year right through your university years. Do not get a writing or literature degree at university. Get a degree that will allow you a decent-paying job. (No, this isn't your dad writing this post, even if I sound like him right now.) Writing is unlikely to ever be a decent-paying job, and having a degree in it won't impress agents and editors.

Six years from today, if you follow this plan, you will have six novel drafts and a university degree. Impressive! While you're job hunting (yes, you will still need a normal job), get out your completed novels and read them in order. Do any of the ideas still sing to you? Is one novel showing a spark of real promise? Or was this all simply good practice, not fit for public display? Any of these answers is fine, and even if none of those first books is very good, you may still become a successful writer in a few years more of study and practice. Every writer has had the experience of pulling out something they wrote a few years ago and recoiling in horror at it, so know you aren't alone in that feeling.

In addition to the practice you've put in at your craft in these years, you've been having important life experiences. Romances, financial woes, friends dying or betraying you, and much more l will fuel your knowledge of the human experience, and some incidents will become good fodder for future novels.

A few cautions:

Try to not need approval for every paragraph you write. It's a solitary act, writing--and that's part of its joy.

If you don't think you can take rejection and harsh critique yet, don't show your work to anyone, and particularly not to strangers online. 

Keep your expectations for becoming a professional realistic (The average age of writers on the best seller lists is over 50 years old, and most of those best sellers were the the tenth--or twentieth--published book for that author.)

The best advice is what I started with: Every day, write.

Why natural disaster thrillers?

Continuing with my six weeks of writing posts for NaNoWriMo....From a reader's email:

Q: Why natural disaster novels? Isn't that sort of mean of you?

A: Yes, I suppose it is. Next?

Seriously, I don't intend to be mean, or to belittle anyone's losses during a real natural disaster. I've been in one serious disaster, and it was mildly frightening (also, I confess, exhilarating) and I got close to another two that were terrifying just to see from a distance. My losses were minor in the earthquake I experienced, but I know others' were not. I really don't mean to be hurtful in choosing this topic.

All images, Wikipedia Commons

As a writer, I like to give characters a dramatic event to deal with to show who they truly are. We reveal our personalities in crisis. We are changed by the frightening events of our lives, not by the predictable daily routine. In a big disaster, we come to understand what's really important in our lives. Our mettle is tested. To me, that makes for interesting stories.

Also, I love weather and geology. Plate tectonics is soooo cool! When I can afford a vacation, I often visit erupting volcanoes. I watch wall-to-wall local TV coverage, online, of hurricanes. Maybe it is a ghoulish side of me, but I'm fascinated with big destructive forces. I enjoy being reminded how small I am in the face of this power.

What is most frightening about real natural disasters is sometimes not the wind or the shaking but the social decay that can surround them. Everything from price-gouging through looting through people shooting at their rescuers: its horrifying and not at all entertaining to live through. Those are also the hardest parts of my novels to write. I don't like thinking about people at their ugliest. I like thinking about us at our most heroic. Natural disasters do bring out the hero in many people...but they bring out the demon in others.

In my own small way, I also hope I can subtly encourage disaster preparedness in readers. I'm a big fan of the CERT program--Citizen's Emergency Response Teams--here in the US, with classes often given by your local fire department. (I don't know, for my UK and Canadian readers, if there is an equivalent in your countries, but a place to begin to ask would be your local fire department--and drop me a line through comments if you find that out and I'll pass it along!) I've learned through these programs and hope some of my readers do, too.

I also encourage everyone to have a disaster kit--three days of food and water for the whole family, including pets. (I have a detailed post about that here). Another form of preparation is knowledge. If you live in an area that has a recurring sort of natural disaster, the more you know about it, the better off you'll be when it comes. The people who are prepared in my novels, like the people who are prepared in real life, fare better.

Mostly, of course I want to entertain with my books. But if I educate readers a little too, that makes me happiest.

NaNoWriMo

The newest novel (Tornado--still not 100% sure of the title) still needs a week of work to call it a completed first draft, but I've "validated" at the official website and now can claim the right to post this little image.

It was fun to interact with writers again every day, and I'll miss that part of it. I may just join the editing/revision thread that happens on the official website when I begin to revise, for the last time, Gray (my next release) because I like the daily check-in.Writing is a solitary endeavor, and it's somehow reassuring to touch base with others battling the same challenges.

In other news, thank you to everyone who bought my novels in November. My fifth month of self-publishing was my best. At one point I was about the 30,000th top-selling writer at Amazon, which was fun to see. I'm so glad people I've never met are reading and enjoying my books. That's so much nicer than having ten books sitting on the hard drive without any friends. I appreciate every one of my readers, including my new German reader, whoever you are!

Why self-publishing?

From a reader's email: Why did you choose self-publishing?

1) It's the wave of the future. Old-style publishing is moribund. (In fact, instead of "indie" and "legacy" publishing, I often think of them as "new" and "moribund" publishing, mostly because it allows me to say "moribund," which is a very cool word.) Yes, the feel of a real book is nice and cozy, but with Print on Demand, you can still have the physical book if you want.

2) Control. Authors getting published by Dell or whoever usually don't get to choose their own typeface or cover or page layout, and often they have to rewrite their books in ways that they don't wish to. Publishers and agents can--and do--say "it's my way or the highway." I can hire a cover artist, copy editor, designer, and typesetter of my choice, and if I don't like one, I can move on to another.

3) There's a rich history of self-publishing. While I'm not a radically new sort of writer,  some self-publishers have been. Walt Whitman revolutionized poetry (form and content) with his beautiful poems. He was so "out there" for his time, self-publishing was the only choice he had, and I'm grateful he chose it. A world without "I Sing the Body Electric" would be an emptier world. I'm no Whitman, but I like being in such august company.

4) Agents--that is, the pleasant absence of them. The book agent horror stories are blood-chilling, and even if your agent does know how to read a contract (not at all a sure bet), and even if s/he can pick out a best seller from slush (the many success stories of books rejected by dozens of agents suggest they are collectively not any more skilled at this than a random selection of readers might be), and even if an agent reads her own slush (they often don't--they have 22-year-old assistants for that) she's taking 15% of the income to be a middleman. I'm in middleman aversion therapy, so no thanks.

5) Publishers' business divisions. I feel generally positive about editors, and back when they still read their own submissions, they were encouraging to my first directly submitted novel, which I appreciated, and which told me I could probably, with a good deal of effort, win my way to traditional publication. But I'm not so confident about some other parts of those big businesses. It isn't just that I get a better royalty at Amazon (and that allows me to sell my books for affordable rates), but Amazon has a transparent contract that applies to everyone (you can go read it right now) and even I, possibly the world's worst accountant, can understand their accounting reports, which offer data delayed by no more than a couple hours and payments delayed by only a few weeks, not by years. And at any moment, I can unpublish and have all my rights back without hiring a lawyer to once again own my own books.

6) Vagaries of the marketplace. For my natural-disaster novels, mainstream books with thriller and action components, some science, and a healthy dose of character development, I was told by more than one agent, "No one buys this sort of book any more. It's well-written, but I don't know how to sell it." And it's true, there was a heyday of this sort of book in the 1970's and there's a dearth of them now. But I like them. It's what I wanted to write, and I wish there were more for me to read. And hundreds of lovely people are finding and buying mine, so other people must want to read them, too. (I guess readers don't read the same rules that explain what's in and out of fashion.) I'm avoiding arbitrary fashions as decided by a handful of people in New York, and I'm pleasing some readers who also like just this sort of novel. I'm happy and I can make others happy, too, by entertaining them.

7) Ebooks are more sustainable. When you think that half of all paper books are returned and pulped, and that trees had die for that, and our finite gasoline resources used in the shipping of the raw materials and books back and forth, and how polluting are both ink and paper manufacture, you can't help but think, maybe this isn't the best way to manage the industry in the future. I love a nice musty old book, too, and I used to be a serious book collector, but even I've moved over to ebooks.

8) I'm an independent-minded cuss. There are days that I don't play particularly well with others. And I suspect this reason matters more than 1-7 combined