On The Job Training...

So today I had kind of a shock...a good one...a Google alert pointed me to a Publisher's Weekly article listing upcoming Spring 2010 fiction/first novels -- one book per publisher -- and ROCK PAPER TIGER was the pick under Soho. I don't know if this is any kind of big deal or not, but it felt a little...weird.

I realized that for all the years I've been writing and pursuing a creative career, I've never actually thought much about what it would feel like to have some small success. I'm still not sure what I feel, to be honest (and it's too early to be making pronouncements about "success" in any case). But I seem to be spending a lot of time reflecting on writing as a career and what it means to be an author, on how I'm handling it and what I might do better.

Writers talk a lot about the passion they have for their work. I'm not sure if passion is what drives me. Passion implies an excitement, a thrill, and though I'll hit stretches when everything flows and I'm feeling some of that, I can't count on passion to get me through an entire novel. Novels are, you know, long. Very very long. And they have to be rewritten a lot. And when you sell them, there's even more work involved.

What I count on instead is a certain pride in craft, consistency and the small amount of discipline that I possess. And patience. Patience that I'm going to be able to solve the next problem in front of me. Patience to not get too freaked out when it isn't coming or it's coming really slowly. The importance of patience is something I'm just now figuring out.

So what does this have to do with my odd reaction about having my book featured in a PW article? (which though hard to define, I'm guessing might have something to do with shyness, embarrassment, a fear of exposure...)

I think, maybe, this is connected to my desire to do a good job. Because at a certain point, namely, the point where people are paying you for your work, it is a job, not just a passion. And right now, one of the things I'm feeling is that I'm not working hard enough at improving my skills, at doing a better job.

I need to read more good books, books that can teach me something about craft. I don't mean books about the craft of writing, but books that illustrate it. I want to read great stories, beautiful language, rounded, developed characters.

Suggestions, anyone?

Bad blogger...

No donut. Hell no. I'm having a glass of Rioja...

So far the end of last year and the beginning of this one have been kind of tough. I'm rooting for a positive change when the Year of the Tiger rolls around on February 14th.

Anyway, I'll be back with a new post in a day or two, and hell, I might even do one about writing. Yeah, that.

Friday Cat Blogging!

Ghost and ARC!

Please consider a donation for Haiti

The news coming out of Haiti is beyond horrific. So many people already living on the razor's edge; now this.

Nathan Bransford has links to Doctors Without Borders on his site -- they are a fine organization. You can also text "HAITI" to 90999 to donate $10 to @RedCross relief efforts in #Haiti. It is that simple. Learn more here.

I know these are tough times, but every little bit helps in the face of something like this.

UPDATE: The text messaging campaign was set up by the State Department, which is coordinating the massive relief efforts underway. They've already raised three million dollars that's going for immediate needs on the ground. Keep it coming, folks. And you can't go wrong with Doctors Without Borders either. Oxfam is another good choice.

Laura Hruska

This is not the post with which I wanted to return to blogging, but so far this young year seems to be marked by loss.

Laura Hruska, publisher and editor-in-chief of Soho Press, passed away this weekend. She was a cofounder of the press, profoundly shaping its strong and idiosyncratic vision.

I never got to meet Laura. I was hoping to do so this summer. What I know about her is that she helped create a publishing company with real vision and guts and integrity. That she took chances. She took a chance on me and my book, and I will always be profoundly grateful for that.

Another thing I know about her: not long before her death, she did an interview with the Houston Chronicle about Stuart Neville's wonderful GHOSTS OF BELFAST, in which she managed to not only promote the subject of the interview but get in plugs for a whole range of upcoming Soho titles, including mine.

Now that's a publisher.

She will be missed.

Here are some links to articles about her...

Idiosyncratic Mind

Stuart Neville's blog

Shelf Awareness

Houston Chronicle article

Welcome 2010...

It's a new year and a new decade. I've had some things going on that have made posting impossible for the last two weeks. I'll be back on it soon, with a few more posts about my China trip, among other things...

Wishing everyone the best for this new beginning...

Cat people

There's a Cat Lady in the Beijing compound where I was staying. Old, round, bundled up in layers of quilted, padded clothing, hunched over a wheeled cart she fills with kibble and canned food for her charges, the outside cats who live on the grounds. Apparently they have different food preferences, and she is very concerned with making sure that each gets what it wants. She has her own tribe of cats too, indoor cats, "four or five," she told one of my hosts, as if she weren't sure.

I had a chance to talk to her briefly, as she made her rounds. I stayed at a distance but still frightened the orange and white kitty she was feeding, though she told me that he ran off when she tried to give him medicine for his ear: "he has a hole in his ear," she explained. "The first time I gave him medicine, he wasn't afraid, but the second time, he was." I wish I could have understood everything that she told me, but I did get that much.

I saw one of the cats she feeds as I was leaving for the airport today, sitting in a box against the wall, a little shelter against the bitter cold of the last few days. He is a big orange cat, regal, wonderful coat, and if anything, slightly overfed, and he sat there with his eyes half-closed looking content with his box and his world.

I like that there are cat ladies in Beijing. I like that this elderly woman gives care and attention to these cats and receives affection and satisfaction in return. Pets were considered a "bourgeois" habit in the past, and though you can always make arguments about the morality of caring for pets in a country where millions live on the razor's edge of poverty, to me, it's a sign of humanity allowing to shine.

My favorite Beijing bar is a little place on a hutong off Gulou Dong Dajie, owned by a Mongolian. He recently took in two kittens -- I saw them in July when they were tiny, and again in November, at the beginning of my trip -- two adolescent females with the run of the bar, climbing on the laps of patrons and up and down the tree in the small courtyard. The owner lavishes considerable attention on these kittens. They have their food (good quality) and their litter and if you ask him about them, his eyes go all soft. Apparently this is a change from his former persona: "He used to be a conquerer of the steppes!" a friend told me. I always thought he seemed friendly enough, but apparently he was somewhat of a hard-ass. No more.

My last night in Beijing, I stopped in at the bar to meet that friend for a drink. The kittens were not there. The owner had taken them in to get spayed the day before. We asked after them. The owner explained: "They are at home. They need to xiuxi" - to rest.

A souvenir in questionable taste...

I mean, okay, the Red Guard, that's one thing. But the victim of a struggle session? That's a little dark even for me...

The privatization of everything...

To anyone paying close attention during the criminal clusterfcuk that was the Bush Administration's conduct of the Iraq War, this will come as no surprise. There was plenty of evidence for private contractors' (AKA mercenaries) participation in interrogations such as those that took place in Abu Ghraib. Still, here's another emerging piece of evidence illustrating how deep and how pervasive the corruption was...and I use the past tense here advisedly. From the NYT:

Private security guards from Blackwater Worldwide participated in some of the C.I.A.’s most sensitive activities — clandestine raids with agency officers against people suspected of being insurgents in Iraq and Afghanistan and the transporting of detainees, according to former company employees and intelligence officials.

The raids against suspects occurred on an almost nightly basis during the height of the Iraqi insurgency from 2004 to 2006, with Blackwater personnel playing central roles in what company insiders called “snatch and grab” operations, the former employees and current and former intelligence officers said.

Several former Blackwater guards said that their involvement in the operations became so routine that the lines supposedly dividing the Central Intelligence Agency, the military and Blackwater became blurred. Instead of simply providing security for C.I.A. officers, they say, Blackwater personnel at times became partners in missions to capture or kill militants in Iraq and Afghanistan, a practice that raises questions about the use of guns for hire on the battlefield.

Yeah, it sure does raise some questions. Here's one the article doesn't ask: why did the United States government empower a private firm owned by a right-wing Christian militarist, involving it in the most sensitive clandestine missions and not incidentally enriching its coffers by lord knows how many millions of dollars?

Will we ever know? Not if the Obama Administration persists in its enabling by continuing Bush-era policies and protecting Bush administration officials from prosecution*, and continues to insist that we "look forward," forget about the past, nothing to see here...

*and my posted link is by a pundit trying to give Obama the benefit of the doubt...

What a country...

I'm back in Beijing, where I plan to take Chinese classes (already signed up, had my first session today) and do all the writing I'm supposed to be doing (er...yeah. That). Yesterday I had the great good fortune to meet author and long-time Beijing resident Catherine Sampson -- I highly recommend her most recent novel, The Slaughter Pavilion , an insightful look at modern China and a great mystery too!

We met for coffee at one of Beijing's best known foreign language bookstores. I'm used to finding officially censored materials in Chinese shops -- I find a lot of that in DVD stores. But I honestly was not expecting to find this displayed prominently by the cash-wrap.

Some things I don't even try to understand any more...

Awesome...

I have no explanation...

If it's Tuesday, it must be Yangshuo...

I'm staying in a small village outside of Yangshuo, on the advice of guidebooks warning that Yangshuo proper, with its "West Street" filled with bars, backpackers and banana pancakes (apparently backpackers and banana pancakes go together like, I dunno, white on rice) was hardly the peaceful retreat that I craved after the urban overload that is Shanghai (even if I did spend most of the time lounging on my friend's couch). This village is awesome. It features several inns, including one with a rooftop Italian restaurant and a full wine list, and a cluster of "farmer's restaurants," dishing out the famed local specialty, "beer fish." And what could be wrong with beer fish? Nothing, I tell you. I had some, and it was delicious.

Apparently it was primarily these farmer's restaurants that transformed this village from a poor backwater to a prosperous little place whose residents are busily competing to see who can build their house the highest (I'm told that no one even occupies the upper floors; it's all for show). The restaurants attract busloads of Chinese tourists, every day. The food is cheap and good and they've cut some deals with the tour operators.

Chinese tourism is a pretty recent phenomena, and it feels that way, reminding me a bit of post-war American tourism, with its packaged tours, busses and guides waving flags to lead their charges to the next historic location ("We're walking, we're walking, we're walking..."). It can be a little depressing at times, seeing these large groups go here and there, wearing identical baseball caps, pausing in front of the designated scenic site to pose for photos, then onto the next in obligatory fashion, not seeming to take in much about the actual site at all.

Other times, I watch the tour groups, and I feel completely charmed by them. A lot of these domestic tourists are older, and I think, if you'd asked them thirty years ago if they ever thought they'd be touring their own country in air-conditioned busses, posing for photos with their loved ones, enjoying the scenery, they would have considered the notion highly unlikely, if not completely absurd.

And more and more I see Chinese travelers who take a more independent approach. Around Yangshuo, the favored form of tourist transportation is bicycle. This is a great area to bike. The traffic is light on the main road, and the side roads take you through some of the most staggeringly beautiful, unearthly landscapes I have ever seen. There's a silence here that's rare in China, when you are out on your bike, just the birds, the flowing water, the wind pushing against the trees and the earth. I see a lot of younger Chinese travelers, mostly in pairs, sometimes in small groups, on rented bikes, exploring the countryside. What a different experience this is from following around a guide reciting her memorized spiel through a distorted bullhorn.

Chinese tourists, stop uniting! You have nothing to lose but your chains...

Scenes from my walk today...

(you have to click on this one to see the whole sign and why I shot it)



(this is a goof on a wide-spread Chinese internet meme from earlier this year -- pretty funny!)

The view from my window...

And these don't really do it justice...

Strangers on a train...pt. 2

Sometimes a long trip on a Chinese train is a better concept in theory than in actuality...

I do like the train. I really do. I like the rattle of the rails, the mournful horns, the sense of distance and the time it takes to travel. I like having my little bunk surrounded by my stuff and a book and the feeling that I'm wrapped up in the quilt in this weird mobile cocoon. It reminds me when I was a really little kid, how I used to love to fall asleep in the car, in the dark. There's just something wonderfully comforting and soothing about the movement and the sounds of it.

Except for the fact that, you know, I rarely sleep when I'm actually on the train. There's the cheesy guangbo -- in the olden days, patriotic anthems and Chinese renditions of "Do Ray Mi" and "Home on the Range." Nowadays, it's more likely to be a video screen (which you can't turn off) showing whatever lame history soap is on tap, preceded by endless safety recitations. Lately, I seem to suffer some respiratory ailment every time I'm on a train for a long haul, which I'm guessing has to do with the cigarettes smoked in the vestibules and occasionally sneaked in compartments and hallways.

Then there's the food. I've never really gotten a handle on the dining car routine, and sometimes the quality of the food makes stocking up on snacks and fruit a better proposition. Kind of like flying United across the Pacific. Eating is just problematic.

There are the bathrooms, which can get pretty scummy pretty fast, and the competition for the washing up room -- well, this really only happened on the Beijing to Shanghai overnight train (insert your Shanghai jokes here), when as we were due to arrive in Shanghai, I waited behind several passengers who performed entire elaborate hygiene and beauty rituals at these shared facilities, and I mean tweezing and exfoliation level here, in spite of the fact that there were about a half dozen of us waiting to just do a simple teeth-brushing.

Plus there's the reality that most train stations are, well, pretty grungy, that getting on the train feels like you're an extra in a mob scene out of an escape from Nazi Germany movie, that finding a taxi when you get off the train can be problematic (today in Guilin, all of the legal taxis refused to use their meters, wanted to barter for the rate and when I finally settled on one, she spent the entire ride trying to talk me out of the place I'd reserved and into the "best hotel in Guilin, the most luxurious, the most peaceful, not too expensive!").

But the real weirdness of long train trips inevitably comes down to your compartment mates. I offer as an example my two day marathon from Chengdu to Xinjiang. After that epic misadventure, 22 hours from Shanghai to Guilin seemed like it should be a breeze.

And it really was, except for the aforementioned sudden onset of sneezing and nose-blowing and trying to do all this quietly in an upper bunk. And the inevitable eccentric compartment-mate.

The first guy in after me was a young man on a business trip, hauling a dolly stacked with some kind of, I'm guessing, electrical components housed in hard plastic cases. Naturally this couldn't fit in the overhead compartments or under the seats so it just squatted there on the floor. He was a nice guy though, friendly, and we bonded over our mutual loathing of the video that couldn't be turned off.

Next was a middle-aged woman, trim, energetic and loud. She came in hauling a large suitcase, a laptop and several shopping bags (she'd been on a shopping trip for clothes in Suzhou), and after she sat down, the first thing she did was get out a kleenex and blot her forehead, saying that she was "Re si le!" "Hot to death!" from her exertions. The second thing she did was pull out her cellphone and start up a loud and complicated conversation. Third, she grabbed a cigarette, lit it in the compartment and stood outside in the corridor smoking and chatting, until one of the train workers shooed her toward the smoking area -- "Ah, wo re si le!" she exclaimed again, by way of explanation for her scofflaw behavior.

Not more than twenty minutes into the trip, she was replaced by another man, who had asked the train workers if he could switch compartments. I didn't hear the explanation for his request, but whatever it was, the woman agreed, and with the help of one of the attendants carried her stuff into her new compartment.

Our new roommate had a small backpack and two small plastic grocery bags that looked much used. Thin, with sunken cheeks and a thick wedge of hair. He spoke in a quiet, near-mumble, at least he did the only time I heard him speak, which was to ask the young businessman that the compartment door be kept open part way, because it was more comfortable. He did not make eye contact when he asked this. At some point in the evening, one of the attendants shut our compartment door for the night, and that was the end of that.

He spent a lot of time outside the compartment sitting on one of the jump seats in the corridor. When he was in the compartment, for a long while he sat hunched in the corner, head bowed, forehead resting on hand, as though he'd been crushed by some terrible news. Actually, I think he was just dozing. He sat like this even when the lights were turned off and it was time to sleep. Finally, he did lie down, face down, arms and legs splayed out like a corpse. He never used his pillows or his quilt. Though the next day, he spent a good five minutes rubbing at a spot on one of the pillows with a wetted cloth.

The next day, I wanted to offer him one of my bananas, but as mentioned, he wouldn't meet my eyes. I thought maybe he was uncomfortable having a foreigner in the compartment, though he hadn't spoken to the young businessman either, other than that initial request to leave the door open. He spent an hour or so making notes on a folded square of paper, crossing out characters and writing in new ones. I decided he was composing poetry, though I have absolutely no evidence of this.

About three hours before we arrived in Guilin, his hand darted toward me with a square sweet neatly wrapped in cellophane -- "Hao chi," he near-whispered, ducking his head and looking quickly away.

I thanked him, offered him a banana, which he did not want, and ate the sweet -- mochi and bean paste.

Both of us dozed the final two hours of the ride. When we pulled into Guilin, he was still asleep, head the wrong way on the bunk, feet tucked under the pillows.

Sinister Kitsch

I've been traveling to China for a long time, but there are some things I will never claim to understand. The above is one of them.

Okay, China has changed tremendously over the last few decades; citizens are pretty much free to lead their lives the way they want, as long as they don't cross that invisible red line and get involved with politics or organizing.

But we're still dealing with an authoritarian state here. And portraying your police officers as refugees from the Cartoon Network does not really make them cuddly.

Then there are things like this:


Behold, "Haibao," which means, "Treasure of the Seas." Or as I like to call him/her/it, "Blue Gumby." Haibao is the official mascot of the World Expo 2010 Shanghai China. You cannot escape Haibao. Haibao is everywhere. Haibao does "hip-hop dances." Haibao is just a little creepy.

My all-time favorite, however, is this:

Heading to Shanghai

I'm leaving for Shanghai tonight, and I kind of wish I weren't. No offense, Shanghai. But having settled in so nicely in Beijing, I'm more in a mood just to stay here and get some writing done. Take Chinese lessons (my Chinese really sucks, and that bothers me). But this isn't the way the schedule worked out, so my pal Richard (AKA the Peking Duck) and I are taking the sleeper train to Shanghai, followed by a week or so of travel. Sigh. My Februrary/March trip here was a near solid month of travel, and as much fun as I had on that trip, I think I might still be tired out from it.

But at least I'll be staying with my good pal, Shanghai Slim, for a couple of days, and once we head south, maybe we'll run into some warmer weather, which would be nice. I plan on seeing some places I either haven't seen in years or never visited at all, and that's something to look forward to.

A random, ceaseless churning...

I'm staying near the Drum Tower, probably my favorite area in Beijing -- in a city that's become a massive monument to China's massive global aspirations, it's one of the few neighborhoods that's still built to human scale. Even so, Gulou is still characterized by the same seemingly endless construction and remodeling that goes on throughout the capital.

For example, the entire Drum Tower/Bell Tower plaza and surrounding hutongs (lanes) are totally torn up. The pavement has been jackhammered or pick-axed away, fresh asphalt laid in places though most of the lanes and plaza are still exposed, rutted dirt (making the efforts of huge tour busses trying to squeeze down tiny allies even more absurd and amusing than usual). There are stacks of gray paving stones everywhere. I have no idea what any of this is for, if it was needed or what the end result will be, though I expect I'll see it before I leave in mid-December. Walking down Guloudong Dajie (Drum Tower East Road), I navigate similar obstacles of torn-up road and sidewalk and stacks of gray brick. Workers at all hours carry beams and wallboard in and out of little stores in the process of remodeling.

There's simply so much activity here, always, all the time, in a city with thousands of years of history that never stands still.

Mysteries of the Narita Aiport...

I hadn't flown through Narita (Tokyo) in years, not since United got direct routes to China. But because I was using miles and because I had a lot of stuff to carry and didn't feel like trying to get me and all of that to LAX at 4:30 AM to catch UAL 889, I decided to go via Narita.

Interesting facts about Narita:

1. They still care about having sundries in a Baggie.

2. But you get to keep your shoes on.

3. My tri-band phone could not get any service there. (I was afraid it had finally died but it perked right up again once we landed in Beijing)

4. You can get all day internet access for six bucks by signing up with a service called Boingo.

5. Most of the toilets come equipped with bidets, and the bidets include a pre-recorded "flushing sound."

Now, I actually would love to have one of those toilet-lid bidets. I think bidets are a fine idea. What I can't figure out, though, is the purpose of the "flushing sound." It's the button on the far right with the green eighth notes. I of course had to try it. It's a very loud, somewhat distorted recording of a toilet flushing. Is this to cover up the noise of bodily functions, maybe? But why would the sound of actual peeing be any more embarrassing than an over-amped recording of a flushing toilet?

Enquiring minds, etc.