Karen Sandler

Tag: choice

  • Horse Shopping, Or, Choosing Among Writing Projects

    I recently sold my beautiful Andalusian/Morgan mare, Belle. She and I had been together for eight years, and we learned a lot from each other. Now she’s off to a new home, helping another rider learn the fine points of dressage.

    So I’m horse shopping. I have a clear idea of what I want in a new horse: not too young, not too old. Not located too far away (not going to check out that great horse in Vermont). I definitely want an easy-going gelding. Size matters–neither a 13H pony nor an 18H draft horse will do. And there’s only so much I can spend (sadly, I’m not independently wealthy yet). Which means it might take a while to find the perfect partner. But here are some of my current options:

    TOSHIBA Exif JPEGThis is Sequoia Mambo Man, an 8-year-old, 15.2H palomino Morgan. Very cute, and sounds like the easy-going temperament I’m looking for. But not a whole lot of miles under saddle yet.

    Bentley JumpingThis is Bentley, a 6-year-old, 15.3H Quarter Horse Paint. I don’t jump like you see Bentley doing in the picture, but I’ve seen videos of him ridden dressage too. He seems to have a decent amount of training under his belt.

    Kato cropThis is SQR Kato, a 9-year-old, 15.1H bay Arabian. The owner says he’s very quiet, and he looks quite talented as a dressage horse. This one seems to have the most training of the three.

    There are a few others I have my eye on, but you get the idea.

    So what does this have to do with choosing writing projects? Well, imagine that you’ve just finished a book (let’s call it THE BEST BOOK EVER). Finished as in, TBBE is completely polished to a quality where your agent is now shopping it around, or you’ve submitted to your editor. Or if you’re an indie-pubbed author, TBBE is completely vetted and ready to be uploaded to the various online booksellers.

    Now what do you do? All those story ideas that have been shoved to the back burner while you were getting TBBE to a publishable stage are now competing for your attention. Do you work on that hysterically funny romantic comedy you’ve been dying to start? The young adult paranormal that wakes you up in the middle of the night, the scenes so clear they’re begging to be written? Or that thriller that’s so powerful you can visualize it as not only a novel, but a film?

    How do you decide? One way is to do it the way I will probably choose amongst those horses I told you about. I will probably use something like the following checklist:

    • Which one do you feel the strongest about, with which one do you have the strongest connection? Just as it will be easier for me to work with a horse I really like, it will be much easier for you to spend the months it takes to write a novel if the concept is one you feel connected to and excited about.
    • Which one is the most developed? With a horse, I’ll consider how many months or years of training or under-saddle work he’s done. With a story idea, you have to think about how well fleshed out the plot is, how developed the characters are, and how comprehensively you’ve imagined the settings or world of the characters.
    • Which one is most likely to get you where you want to go? With a horse, the one that’s best trained and has the conformation and movement for dressage would be my best choice. When it comes to story ideas, you really have to look at the reality of your career and the marketplace. Have you got two books of a thriller series out that’s just begging for a third, but you’re considering detouring into a romantic fantasy novel? Maybe not the best choice, career-wise. Better to write that third thriller, and get back to the romantic fantasy later.

    It’s possible to fall in love with the wrong horse, and quite possible to become enamored with a story idea that’s not to your advantage to pursue. Go into both transactions with a level head, a clear eye, and you’re sure to make the right choice. And remember, with story ideas (unlike horses), the one you set aside will always be waiting for you to explore later.

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  • The Right to Choose What I Read

    I’m new to young adult literature. That is, I’m new as an author. Of course I read YA books as a kid, pretty much picking and choosing at will from the school library. That’s how I ended up reading decidedly non-YA books like Kafka’s Metamophosis and Rachel Carson’s Silent Spring when I was 14. Thank God for a mom who didn’t fear provocative literature.

    Since I’m such a newbie on the block (my first YA, the dystopian Tankborn, comes out in September 2011), I’ve sat back a bit regarding the “kerfluffle” over an opinion piece in the Wall Street Journal by Meghan Cox Gurdon. In her editorial, Ms. Gurdon declares, among other things, that today’s young adult books are dark and depraved. I’ve been unsure how to respond since I’m still working hard to get up-to-speed in YA. I’m learning as fast as I can, reading almost exclusively YA at this point, looking for the best, but also picking and choosing the books that most appeal to me.

    And here is my first quibble with Ms. Gurdon. Not every book is going to appeal to every reader. I’m okay with dark as long as there’s a wonderful character arc and there’s a sense of hopefulness at the end of the book. That’s why, although I voraciously read Suzanne Collins’s The Hunger Games and am half-way through Catching Fire, I’m thinking long and hard about whether I will read the third book or even finish the second. I can be an emotional wimp and based on what I’ve heard of book 3, I might not want to go there. It’s a fantastic series, and I’m sure I’ll miss a lot by not reading all three, but I might just exercise that freedom of choice I have and put the book aside. Does that mean the books should be banned from schools or that teens shouldn’t read them because I choose not to? Of course not. That would be silly.

    Should a young adult have that same freedom to choose as I do as an adult? For the most part, yes. A teen reading is a wonderful thing. Yes, some books might not be age appropriate, depending on the teen. When I was writing romance, my love scenes were fairly explicit. If a mom at a signing asked if my books were suitable for her daughter, I usually suggested they might be okay for a mature 15 or 16 year old, but I made it clear how “fleshed out” the love scenes were. The mom and the teen could make a choice based on that.

    That’s not to say the daughter might not find and decide to read my sexy books herself. Is that a problem? It might be if the son or daughter felt uncomfortable with what they read AND didn’t feel they could talk it over with their parent. But if a parent and child have an open and free flowing relationship, Mom or Dad can talk over the content of a book with their teen, both before he or she reads it and after.

    The thing is, so many of the YA books I’ve been reading in my effort to become more educated in the genre are tremendously thought-provoking. Scott Westerfeld’s Uglies series and the issues of beauty and obsession with fame that it raises. The Hunger Games‘s treatment of not only oppression and insurrection but our fascination with reality TV. Neal Shusterman’s Unwind‘s handling of the dichotomy between pro-life and pro-choice and where it could lead. These books are the Faranheit 451 and 1984 of our day.

    Who wouldn’t want their teens reading these books, considering these issues, critically analyzing these metaphoric stories? Teens are already thinking about these and even weightier issues, considering the world they live in. A novel can be a safe place to explore the darker side because it is fiction.

    Just my humble opinion.