So, a few weeks back I did a couple threads on impostor syndrome, which is a very common thing that writers of all experience and comfort levels seem to experience — I certainly do, and you probably do, too. If you don’t, you might be a monster, maybe some kind of Yeti, so get that checked out. I figured I should grab these tweets and pop them somewhere, like, say, at this little blog, to share with those who maybe missed the threads on Twitter when they first appeared.

This is two separate threads, broken out by asterisks.

And asterisks, as you know, are also Cat Butthole Emoji. So, look for the trio of ASCII cat poopers, and you know when the next thread is beginning.

[Note: I’m not using Storify for these anymore because Storify is going away.]

* * *

I will now tell my own impostor syndrome story, as it relates to @neilhimself.

So, two years ago, I had the distinct pleasure of getting to speak in NYC as part of @MargaretAtwood‘s birthday event at the 92Y.

I was one of the speakers alongside a set of luminaries like @leverus, @erinmorgenstern, and @neilhimself — in the presence of @MargaretAtwood herself.

I mean, holy shit, right?!

Already I was going to the event with the utter certainty I didn’t belong there. I felt like a shadow on an X-Ray, a notable stain on an otherwise beautiful skeleton.

When I got there, arriving a bit early for the event, I went into the green room and I was alone.

Except for Neil Gaiman.

Neil Fucking Gaiman. Good Omens! Sandman! The Ocean at the End of the Lane! Stardust and Coraline and American Gods and Neverwhere and…

(C’mon. Dark poet, elegantly mussed hair, you know him, you love him.)

And I stood there for a moment, utterly frozen. He was, if I recall, looking at his phone.

And I said: “I can go.”

Because I thought, I should leave him alone! I don’t belong here. THIS IS RARE AIR AND I DO NOT DESERVE TO BREATHE IT.

And then he Tasered me and called security.

*checks notes*

Wait, no.

He smiled warmly and invited me in and was friendly and delightful and made me feel like I belonged. The other authors welcomed me too and it was awesome, even if I (even now!) still feel like a stowaway on that boat.

As writers we so often have the feeling like we are a Scooby-Doo monster about to be unmasked. I don’t think you ever really lose that.

BUT — and here is a vital part of the lesson — you can help diminish that feeling in other writers by making them feel welcome and a part of the tribe.

Recognize other writers feel like impostors too — and you can combat the feeling in yourself by helping them combat it when you welcome them. In this, community blooms.

You’ll never lose it. But you can help others feel like they belong. And when community grows you feel less alone.

At whatever level you are, other authors are likely to feel isolated and impostor-ish. You aren’t alone. And you can help them not be alone, too. Thanks to @neilhimself for doing exactly that for me, that day. @leverus, @erinmorgenstern and obviously @MargaretAtwood, too.

* * *

Can we talk a little [more] about impostor syndrome? Let’s talk about it. More specifically, let me tell you how I — well, it’s not how I defeat it, but rather, how I lean into it.

DOCTOR PENMONKEY: HOW I LEARNED TO STOP WORRYING AND LEARN TO LOVE THE IMPOSTOR SYNDROME. Or something.

(This is a follow up somewhat to last week’s thread, which talked about the value of community in regulating impostor syndrome in others and, by proxy, in yourself.)

[Note, seen above]

So, the facts on the ground are, blah blah blah, impostor syndrome is bullshit, but most (all?) writers suffer from it regularly, you’re not alone, it’s totally normal, and so on and so forth.

But —

A lot of advice goes toward how you stop feeling it, which is not always helpful because — ennnh, you’re gonna keep feeling it. You just are.

Maybe you’ll experience it with less regularity, but it’ll be there. It’s like a ghost. You thought you got rid of the ghost but then you go to shower and BOO, the ghost is there, and you pee yourself a little, because ghost.

For me, writing is two things: it’s DOING THE WORK plus MITIGATING MY MINDSET. The first part is sitting down and gnawing your keyboard until words come out.

The second part is all in my head. And it’s a heady, gurgling broth of mental adjustment, from managing expectations to punching self-doubt in the kidneys to not comparing myself to others to not second-guessing myself and the book every 13 minutes, and so forth.

Part of the thorny tangle of my authorial brain-briar is the snarling snare of impostor’s syndrome. You feel like you don’t belong, as if at any moment someone will unmask you like a Scooby-Doo villain. AND I WOULD’VE GOTTEN AWAY WITH IT IF IT WASN’T FOR YOU MEDDLING BRAIN WEASELS

And yes, I used the Scooby-Doo metaphor in the above thread, but I like it, and I’m keeping it, so.

*tasers you*

Here, though, is how I lean into my impostor syndrome rather than suffering from impostor syndrome:

I learn to embrace the joy of the forbidden.

What I mean is this: impostor syndrome wants you to feel like a new kid in class, and every moment of your career feels like you entering the classroom and going to sit down at a faraway desk as everyone stares at you, The New Kid.

But there’s a different version if it, where you experience an illicit thrill of being somewhere you’re explicitly not supposed to be.

It’s like sneaking backstage at a concert. Or hanging out in your high school after hours, after everything is shut and everyone is gone. Or getting a tour of the chocolate factory OOPS one of the kids fell into the drink ha ha ha that’s okay she’s chocolate now, it’s fine.

There are a few real-world analogs to this I’ve experienced — in Hawaii, I’ve been to places where you’re not supposed to go, off-the-beaten-path, and you can see some truly delirious waterfalls, beaches, cliffs, if you do.

Or, having crashed a party or an event you weren’t invited to? Suddenly you’re shoveling down fancy horse-doovers and pretending like you’re supposed to be there.

Recently I got to sit in First Class for the first time, and it was like, exciting because I knew I didn’t belong there. I was like HA HA FUCK YOU I AM DRINKING SCOTCH BEFORE WE TAKE OFF AT 11AM THAT’S RIGHT, I’M A FLY IN YOUR MILK, RICH PEOPLE

I SEE YOU LOOKING AT ME, GUY IN THE THIRD ROW. IT’S ME, THE BARBARIAN IN ROW 4, BUDDY. HUGS AND KISSES, GUY-WHO-IS-PROBABLY-A-CEO. HA HA HA SUCK IT

And it’s that “ha ha ha suck it” that feels so good about being somewhere you’re not supposed to be. There is a great deal of freedom, in fact, in that.

Being the barbarian at the gate comes with a great deal of reduced responsibility. Because you’re breaking the rules. You’ve changed the game. You’re not supposed to be here…

…and yet, here you are.

Impostor Syndrome can either be you, The New Kid, nervous about not belonging. Or it can be you, the Party-Crasher, joyfully gobbling down fancy foods and enjoying the anarchy of your uninvited presence.

* * *

DAMN FINE STORY: Mastering the Tools of a Powerful Narrative

What do Luke Skywalker, John McClane, and a lonely dog on Ho’okipa Beach have in common? Simply put, we care about them.

Great storytelling is making readers care about your characters, the choices they make, and what happens to them. It’s making your audience feel the tension and emotion of a situation right alongside your protagonist. And to tell a damn fine story, you need to understand why and how that caring happens.

Whether you’re writing a novel, screenplay, video game, or comic, this funny and informative guide is chock-full of examples about the art and craft of storytelling–and how to write a damn fine story of your own.

Out now!

Indiebound | Amazon | B&N

Okie dokie, hawks and doves, here’s the deal this week:

I want you to pick a song you really, really like. A song that moves you at the lyrical level — THE WORDS REALLY SPEAK TO YOU, WOW, WHOA, JEEZ.

Now, take a slice of those words — a smidgen of the lyrics, a line, a short stanza — and use them as the theme or basis for a bit of flash fiction.

(Example: I’m a huge Concrete Blonde fan — and some of you are sadly asking, “Who?” — and there’s a line in the song “Take Me Home,” where Johnette Napolitano sings, Life is beautiful and terrible and strange. It’s not particularly specific, but I always find that line sums up life pretty well for me, and the world, and people in general, and I could handily write a bit of fiction based on that single bit.)

Length: ~1000 words

Due by: noon EST, Friday the 19th

Post at your online space.

Give us a link to it in the comments below.

An email rolled into my inbox right at the end of November, and the email said this:

Hey man, I’m a big fan of yours and have been following your stuff since I was a kid. I’m 24 now, have just finished my Master’s in Creative Writing, and am seeking an agent for my fantasy novel which I’ve just finished.

I’m a couple of rejection letters deep at this point. Disheartening, as I’m sure you can remember, but I’m far, far from giving up yet. I write every day and take the craft of writing more seriously than, well, almost everything.

I just wanted to reach out to you and maybe get some advice on what I should be doing at this point in my career. Making it as a full-time writer is on my mind every day; my eyes are firmly set on this goal and they haven’t drifted – though at times it seems like an impossible thing to accomplish. After years of practising (and sucking), I am now confident in my skills and my ideas. The experience of writing a novel has honestly shocked me – it’s been exciting, tedious, frustrating, and immensely fulfiling all at once.

And I thought, instead of responding to this person individually, I would respond to him publicly (I asked him if that was okay, to be clear).

My easy, fast answer to this is, “YES, GOOD JOB,” because on a cursory read, hey, everything looks good. He writes a lot. He’s finished a book. He’s mindful of the work and the career. He’s right on about writing a book — exciting, yep. Tedious, sometimes. Frustrating, ha ha, oh shit, yeah. Immensely fulfilling? I certainly find it so, sure.

But I have deeper thoughts, too, if he — and you — care to listen.

Here goes.

a) “…have been following your stuff since I was a kid.”

OKAY SLOW YOUR ROLL, YOUNG MC — you’re only 24 and have been reading me since you were a kid? I’ve only been writing novels for 5-6 years now, jeez. Though I did work in gaming for years before that… oh god I’m getting older, aren’t I? Oh shit. Ohhhh shit. *cups hands over mouth* *eyes wide as pancakes* *quiet panic ensues*

b) “I’m 24 now.”

Actually, let’s hover over that number — 24. You’ve just finished a novel. Good! GOOD. That’s commendable work. You may very well be a talented, eager, and capable lad. But I want you also to realize that your brownies might still need to stay in the oven a while. I don’t know this. I haven’t read your book. But I’d argue most writers don’t really come into their own until their 30s — that’s not to say there are not a number of wunderkind who karate kick open the doors of publishing with their spry, energetic 24-year-old bodies, but at 24, you’re probably very limited, yet, in what you know, in what you’ve done. At 24, your brain literally stopped growing only a couple-few years before, and your heart is still a kettle of excitable fish. You don’t yet know what you know. But you expect to know everything.

You believe, at that age, you should have the world saddled up and already frothy with both vigor and distance. You expect to be miles down the road.

And yet, you’re not.

Here, then, is what I consider to be one of the more crucial tests of being a writer — it is the ability to dig in, demonstrate patience, and keep doing the thing specifically because you realize you’re not ready to do the thing.

What I mean is this: a lot of writers, at this stage, do as you have done. But then this happens: I HAVE FINISHED THE BOOK. I HAVE RECEIVED THE REJECTIONS. I HAVE EXPERIENCED THE DISHEARTENMENT AND ENNUI. THE WORLD DOES NOT UNDERSTAND MY VERBAL AND NARRATIVE PUISSANCE, AND SO I SHALL REJECT IT BEFORE IT CAN REJECT ME FURTHER.

They fuck off.

They fuck right off, and choose not to admit that they’re unready, but rather, they project it onto the rest of the world. Publishing isn’t ready. The audience isn’t ready.

NOBODY UNDERSTANDS MY GENIUS, MAN.

Now, Guy Who Wrote Me That E-Mail, I’m not saying that’s you! But it is a trap some young writers fall into. I certainly almost fell into it myself. Even older, more experienced writers can experience it from time to time.

The greatest gift you can give yourself is patience — and, should patience fail, give yourself the gift of its darker, crankier cousin:

Bullheaded, spiteful stubbornness.

When one book fails, you write the next book.

As your failures pile up, you use that hill to climb to the next level.

c) “A couple of rejection letters”

Ha ha ha, ohhh, hah. Hah. Hee. Yeah. Yeaaaahhh. You’re going to get a lot more of those. You need to get a lot more of those. Rejections are normal. I still get rejections. Since publishing books I’ve written a couple books that just weren’t ready to go out into the world. I have so many rejection letters from my 20s into my 30s I could literally wallpaper my writing shed, inside and out. I could use them to make a siege engine. I could make ten thousand origami swans. I could burn them for warmth and it would provide me with seven years of reliable heat.

Rejections, however terrible, are your friend.

Rejections are scars; proof you’ve been fighting in the arena.

Let them frustrate you. Then do better the next time.

d) “Making it as a full-time writer”

This isn’t the worst goal, but it’s a distant one. Most authors have day jobs. I don’t, because I spent years in the freelance trenches, and once I ejected from that, I got really, really lucky. One day I may need to go back — though, let’s be honest, at this point I have winnowed my skill-sets down to “mashing action figures together to make them fight-and-or-fuck and then I write all fancy about it,” so I’m not sure what kind of job I could even get.

Regardless, let the goal be writing a good book and getting it out there.

Then do it again, and again.

Only worry about the “full-time author” thing when you have no other choice — when you are forced into a position where you can either keep the day job or keep writing books. When that happens, you disengage from the day-job, and you leap into the warm, dark void.

e) “I am now confident in my skills and ideas.”

Don’t be.

Oh, you should be able to write with confidence.

But you also shouldn’t be married to that confidence.

So, this is a weird one, because there’s a line here, and it’s a thin line, but you should try to tap-dance merrily upon it — you don’t want to be overconfident, and you don’t want to be flailing around a pool of under-confidence, either. Overconfidence means you make mistakes. It means you don’t grow because you believe you’re already all growned up. It means you view failure as someone else’s fault rather than your own. Under-confidence means you don’t think you can do it, so maybe, potentially, you just don’t do it.

Gotta walk that line, thin as it may be. Be sure in yourself while at the same time admitting you’ve still so much to learn. Writers possess a peculiar kind of ego, I find — we seem sometimes to have a big presence, a bloated ego, but soon you realize it’s more like a balloon than a wrecking ball. It’s puffy and large and ultimately empty inside. Better instead to have the ego of a small stone. A small stone is small, yes, and small in comparison to the many other stones around it. But it can also be potent in the right hands — it can break windows, it can be slung into the skull of a giant, it can, uhh, what else could you do with a small stone? Choke a bear? Let’s go with that: choke a bear.

The good news is, Dear E-Mailer, if you find the writing of a novel exciting, frustrating, tedious and fulfilling in equal measure, then I suspect you’ve at the very least got the proper mind-set to really do this thing. Just know that doing this thing is not a one-and-done measure.

It’s not about getting a degree and writing a book and then just cashing those sweet checks. It might mean getting a day-job. It might mean writing two, five, seven more novels before you really hit on your voice, your skills, or even figuring out what the fuck you actually want to write. It might mean growing up more than you already are. It might mean endless more rejections, failure after failure, where after each you have to salvage some lesson, some truth, some kind of windy wisdom that will fill your sails and move your boat further upon this seemingly silent and often still sea. It means doing the thing even when doing the thing is hard. Harder this time than the last. Maybe even harder the next time you try.

But try, you must.

Onward you go.

* * *

DAMN FINE STORY: Mastering the Tools of a Powerful Narrative

What do Luke Skywalker, John McClane, and a lonely dog on Ho’okipa Beach have in common? Simply put, we care about them.

Great storytelling is making readers care about your characters, the choices they make, and what happens to them. It’s making your audience feel the tension and emotion of a situation right alongside your protagonist. And to tell a damn fine story, you need to understand why and how that caring happens.

Whether you’re writing a novel, screenplay, video game, or comic, this funny and informative guide is chock-full of examples about the art and craft of storytelling–and how to write a damn fine story of your own.

Out now!

Indiebound | Amazon | B&N

No, that’s not a macro photo.

OR IS IT

MAYBE THAT’S A CLOSE-UP OF A CAR WINDSHIELD

AND THAT BIRD IS JUST REALLY, REALLY TEENY-TINY

YOU DON’T KNOW

Ahem.

Hi!

Welcome back! Slowly, but surely, we kick the cold machinery that runs this place, pouring boiling water on it to unfreeze its gears and flywheels. I’m not sure we’ll return to a full-bore schedule just yet, as I’m in the midst of finishing a novel (and a somewhat important one, it being the very last Miriam Black novel, Vultures), so bear with me as everything slowly grumbles and grinds to life once more.

Finishing the last book in a series is traditionally very difficult, as it is here — compounded by the fact this is not merely a trilogy, but rather, six whole books (and a novella, and a short story). Just as you want to stick the landing on the final act of any book, you really really want to stick the landing on the final act of six books, because holy shit. But have trust: the books have been building to something, and after the, um, ending of The Raptor & The Wren, you’ll get some sense of where it’s headed — at least, until I knock you off balance once again.

That seems then to be a good segue into a review of The Raptor & The Wren, this one coming in from Library Journal:

[Stuff cut out because slightly spoilery.] With a dark story line and an even darker protagonist, this vivid adventure takes readers on an emotional, violent ride. VERDICT: The fifth book in the series (after Thunderbird) drives further down the road into Miriam Black’s life: the trauma, the fears, and the forgiveness. It will please fans of Joe Hill and Joe Abercrombie. —Kristi Chadwick, Massachusetts Lib. Syst., South Deerfield

And, in case you missed it, Let’s Play Books is running a pre-order deal — buy the book, I’ll sign it, I’ll even personalize and predict YOUR DEMISE into the pages, and they’ll get it to you on release date with free shipping. Details here.

Or you can just come to the book launch at Let’s Play Books on 1/23.

Or or or you can come hang out with me at the Elgin Literary Festival (Chicago ‘burbs) on 1/26 – 1/27, should you so decide.

Let’s see. What else is a-brewing?

You will find that my Heartland series — think John Steinbeck’s Star Wars — is on sale for a buck per book for your Kindle, so, check out Under the Empyrean Sky, Blightborn, and The Harvest.

ANYWAY, here, have a tweet thread, goodbye!

“Put a jade egg in your hoo-ha.”

“Gwyneth, no.”

“Coffee enema.”

“Seriously, Gwyneth, c’mon.”

“Eat three rubies in a ruby smoothie and an elf will arrive to open your Sex Chakras.”

“What the fuck, Gwyneth.”

“Feed a stolen baby to a cunning wolf at midnight–”

“GWYNETH, NO.” https://t.co/POfpvQpGmY

— Chuck Wendig (@ChuckWendig) January 7, 2018

“Steam the vulva.”

“Gwyneth.”

“Steam it. With moon-steam.”

“The fuck is moon-steam, Gwyneth.”

“It’s acai berries macerated in diamond powder and magic sugar and run through the bowels of a civet cat.”

“Gwyneth, this is cocaine.”

“Now put it all in your colon. All of it.”

— Chuck Wendig (@ChuckWendig) January 7, 2018

“Transvaginal papaya cream.”

“Gwyneth, what does that even mean?”

“Irradiated lemur protein.”

“You’re just… you’re just saying things, now.”

“Activated urethra charcoal.”

“Gwyneth, what the hell — oh my god are those the launch codes?!”

— Chuck Wendig (@ChuckWendig) January 7, 2018

“Make a cocktail of ghost peppers, cordyceps zombie ants, macaw sweat. Muddle with ancient lavender and mummy’s gauze. Pour over a poultice of forgotten aspirations. Put it in all your orifices. Pack it tight.”

“Gwyneth, can’t I just eat some kale?”

“Now you fight a jaguar.”

— Chuck Wendig (@ChuckWendig) January 7, 2018

“Before you fight the jaguar, you must be naked. Except for this.”

“Gwyneth, is that a butt plug?”

“It is a lunar detox wand.”

“It’s a butt plug.”

“It is made from upcycled meteors.”

“Does it go in my butt?

“…”

“Gwyneth.”

“It goes in your butt.”

“Goddamnit, Gwyneth.”

— Chuck Wendig (@ChuckWendig) January 7, 2018

“Just put it up there. To detox.”

“Gwyneth, where do you get this stuff?!”

“Goop.”

“What the shit is Goop?”

“It is a catalog. It is a way of life. It is primordial ooze that fills your negative psycho-spiritual nooks.”

“Gwyneth, are you high?”

“Yes.”

“On what?”

“On Goop.”

— Chuck Wendig (@ChuckWendig) January 7, 2018

“Gwyneth, is Goop just cocaine?”

“No.”

“Gwyneth. We talked about this.”

“…”

“…”

“It’s cocaine and crime fraiche. And a little ayahuasca.”

“Jesus Christ, Gwyneth.”

— Chuck Wendig (@ChuckWendig) January 7, 2018

From the award-winning author of Cookie Cutter Superhero and Kid Dark Against the Machine comes a brand new novella about girl reporters, superheroes, and interdimensional travel

In a world of superheroes, supervillains, and a machine that can create them all, millennial vlogger and girl reporter Friday Valentina has no shortage of material to cover. Every lottery cycle, a new superhero is created and quite literally steps into the shoes of the hero before them–displacing the previous hero. While Fry may not be super-powered herself, she understands the power of legacy: her mother is none other than the infamous reporter Tina Valentina, renowned worldwide for her legendary interviews with the True Blue Aussie Beaut Superheroes and her tendency to go to extraordinary lengths to get her story.

This time, Tina Valentina may have ventured too far. 

Alongside Australia’s greatest superheroes–including the powerful Astra, dazzling Solar, and The Dark in his full brooding glory–Friday will go to another dimension in the hopes of finding her mother, saving the day, maybe even getting the story of a lifetime out of the adventure. (And possibly a new girlfriend, too.)

I still have a lot to say about superheroes.

I talk about superheroes a lot, in my everyday life. My kids and borrowed kids have grown up in a world of superhero media and my longtime love of the genre has grown a lot over the last decade because of that.

When I wrote “Cookie Cutter Superhero” for the diverse YA anthology Kaleidoscope, I felt like that was my superhero story. It said a lot of things that were important to me, particularly about the role of women in super teams. It was short and punchy and done. Then I started to get comments about how much people wanted it to be a novel, which… okay, it’s lovely, I’m not going to whinge about that feedback. But I didn’t want to write a novel about superheroes. That’s why it was a short story.

Then the Book Smugglers slipped under my defences, with their Year of the Superhero short story theme and it turned out I had one more superhero story in me: Kid Dark Against the Machine, a love letter to teen sidekicks.

I was done. I was totally done. But then Ana and Thea asked me if I could write a novella set in the universe and… well. Okay. I still have a lot to say superheroes. But this time, I wanted to write about the women who report on superheroes, the love interests who don’t actually get to punch robots. Friday Valentina and her mother fell into my head as if Lois Lane herself had thrown a typewriter at me.

I may never be done writing about superheroes.

Everyone has a little smashed avo to unpack.

I’ve been making fun of the “Millennials are killing…” memes for almost as long as they’ve existed. Australia literally invented the story about how eating decadent brunches involving avocado toast was the reason that 20-somethings weren’t starting mortgages as early as their parents did.

A big part of Girl Reporter was about showing the generational divide in media… comparing an old school broadcast journalist’s career to that of a young vlogger with all the social media at her fingertips.

But I went too far. My editors pointed out that I had written myself into a binary corner in the first draft, with too much separation between new and old media as if they are different things (spoilers: it’s all media). Worst of all, I’d had Friday falling into the same habits as the older generation, sneering at the contribution of the younger women coming up after her.

I’d done the thing I usually criticized in others, going for the easy joke based on a stereotype. So that was embarrassing.

Rewriting is a pain, but it feels good to make the universe better, even when it’s your own fictional universe. Lift as you climb became Friday’s mantra.

Sometimes you have to steal from yourself.

Readers of my fantasy novel Ink Black Magic will laugh at me when they get to the scene where our heroes are transformed into retro parodies of their own superhero costumes. I didn’t realise I’d copied myself until it was TOO LATE to take that scene out because I loved it too much.

Kill your darlings? Pfft. I will defend my darlings to the death, even against myself. Fight me.

Sex is easy…

When my editors asked me to add a sex scene to tie the story up at the end, that part was easy. I adore writing sex scenes, and I wrote this one in a single sitting, without hesitation.

I once read a ‘how to’ guide on writing sex that said a scene can either be sexy or funny, not both. I have pretty much made it my mission in life to prove that advice wrong with everything I write. You learn so much from characters when you see how they turn each other on, and you learn even more when you find out what makes them laugh.

…but Romance is hard.

Writing romantic storylines are agony for me. I admire romance so much in other people’s books, but there’s something in me that always wants to undercut the moment, to leap over the tension and tropes and pretend they don’t exist. To skip to the good part, where the relationship is established and there are inside jokes and someone’s making a cup of tea.

Writing romance embarrasses me in a way that writing sex doesn’t, and I don’t know what that means about me as a writer! I’m still working on it.

What I do love to write is unromance. The characters that hook up because it’s convenient and need an intervention to figure out they’re genuinely into each other. The ones who aren’t ready to make the leap of faith yet (and oops, too late, the story’s over). The ones who admit they want to kiss each other right away, because who can be bothered with ‘will they, won’t they?’ Given a choice between star-cross’d lovers and the friends who stand on the sideline making fun of the star-cross’d lovers, I’ll take Beatrice and Benedick every time.

The central emotional relationships in Girl Reporter are about family – Friday’s baggage about her busy mother and unknown father, her intensely platonic ‘you’re my brother now, live with it’ friendship with Griff. Her romance with one of the female superheroes sneaked into the margins of the story, playing it cool, pretending it was no big deal.

(Turned out, it’s kind of a big deal!)

(I fell in love with them anyway)

There’s another sneaky romance in Girl Reporter too, which also manages to be both sweeping and epic. Trust me. You’ll know it when you see it.

* * *

TANSY RAYNER ROBERTS is an award-winning writer of science fiction, fantasy, feminist essays, and humour. She lives in Tasmania, Australia, with her husband and 2 superhero daughters.

Tansy Rayner Roberts: Website

Girl Reporter: Amazon | B&N

I’m told now is the time to get those awards eligibility posts out there, and I don’t usually do these, but I’ve had a few people ask, so here we are.

I have complicated feelings about awards and eligibility posts — from me, not from you — because I like to think, if I wrote something really good, really impactful, you’d remember it. It would’ve stuck with you. That said, 2017 was the year that lasted ten years, and I have full-facedly forgotten what books actually came out in 2017. I only recently realized that Kameron Hurley’s STARS ARE LEGION came out in 2017? I thought it was 2016? (Probably because I read it in 2016, I think.) As a sidenote, I recommend that book and others over at the Book Smugglers.

So, given that two of my releases — Thunderbird and Empire’s End came out very early in 2017, I guess I’ll pop by and say, hey, those books.

I wrote them.

I hope you liked them.

I suspect there exists a zero percent chance anyone would nominate Empire’s End or the now-completed Aftermath trilogy for any Major Awards, because I don’t think that tie-ins tend to earn them. I am very proud of those books, though, and tried to own them and own the voice even while sharing this epic universe with all the Stars and all the Wars. And I do enjoy the fantasy of them earning a nomination, if only for the underwear-chafing that ensues amongst a certain bigoted cabal of very loud toilet-humans.

Bonus: I wrote a Jar-Jar chapter, and I think it is very good. Which I know, doesn’t sound like reality, but it is reality. It happened. Here we are.

Also, there’s Damn Fine Story, though I’ve no idea what award that would even go for, or if a book that talks about how the Emperor’s name is really a Star Wars version of “Steve” really deserves an award anyway.

So, there you have it.

Happy award season, word-nerds.

*stomps button with foot*

*trap door opens*

*quietly oozes into the open floor portal*