A New internet (Hit refresh, you will not lose your changes, we promise)

Not to be alarmist or anything, but The New York Times reports that "there is a growing belief among engineers and security experts that Internet security and privacy have become so maddeningly elusive that the only way to fix the problem is to start over. What a new Internet might look like is still widely debated, but one alternative would, in effect, create a 'gated community' where users would give up their anonymity and certain freedoms in return for safety.

"... the current Internet might end up as the bad neighborhood of cyberspace. You would enter at your own risk and keep an eye over your shoulder while you were there."

Fascinating. Though to me that sounds like the current internet now. How many of us actually know which websites to trust? Someone must fall for those pop-up ads. Someone must believe the emails that offer something better, bigger, longer, or more effective if you'd just CLICK HERE. The other day I received a phone call - a real live person on the phone! - telling me that they knew from my IP address that my computer had downloaded malicious software and if I just gave them all my information and passwords and paid them money they could clear it up for me. So would I like to protect myself? Would I!

This new internet, then, might be a place where we were all safe. A utopia where you wouldn't have to be anonymous. Chat rooms full of first and last named individuals, music websites where you paid the correct price for every track, and important information doled out by the authorities, correct in every way they want it to be. Kind of like China, except of course we could trust our corporations and authorities not to censor, edit, or lie. Why would anyone else follow China, after all? They'd have no reason to! Er...

Wait a minute. "Certain freedoms?"

I think I'll stay right here and watch my back.

Tess Gerritsen at Borders

Last Thursday I went to the Borders on Charing Cross Road and got to hear Tess Gerritsen and Dennis Lehane talk about writing and their new books.



Tess's Rizzoli/Isles series got me last October when I brought The Mephisto Club to read on a holiday. Out of series order and without context I still fell in love with the un-lady-like Detective and the Ice Queen medical examiner. The story seemed to be a regular kind of serial-killer thriller, except with the main characters and therefore the main thrusts of the character-based stories being distinctly female. It wasn't feminist or revolutionary, but it spoke to me. And anyway the mysteries were good regardless of who was investigating.

When I later read The Surgeon, having worked my way in leaps backward through the series, I was surprised that Maura Isles didn't feature at all and the main character was one of the lesser characters from later books. I liked him, but I was curious what led to the changes.

Tess gave me one answer last Thursday. She said that a lot of people asked her about Jane Rizzoli, and complained that she was completely unlikeable in The Surgeon. She explained that Rizzoli was meant to die in that book, but when she got to the scene she refused. She fought back.

I know the scene and I know how I felt when I read it. Rizzoli had to fight back. It was the truth of the character and the scene, and it read true.

I love hearing about the writing process in this way. I've done the same sort of thing, coming to a place in the story and realizing that you can't force your characters to do what you want them to do, you have to let them do what they would anyway. And knowing that Rizzoli is one of those head-strong characters too full of her own truth to bend to a plot makes her that much more real to me, and that much more fantastic.

Unfortunately I did not get to stay for the entire event, but this information on its own was well worth the trip. It made me want to re-read The Surgeon so I could experience that rebellion again.

Sorry about the quality of the photos here. I wanted very much to stand up and push my way through the crowd to get a good shot, but resisted.

Desperate times

Last night I needed a book to read. This can be a desperate situation. I read any time I'm not doing something else, and often when I'm doing something else I'd rather be reading. It used to frustrate me when I'd sit with a book and people would talk to me, as if they thought I was only reading because I was alone, or because I didn't have anything better to do. The truth is, there isn't anything better to do!

Okay, there's writing.

But last night I needed to read, and I was at a loss. I don't have my library of favourites with me and it was too late to go to the public library. And since I do not currently work in a library or book store I don't have my usual stack of "maybes" I always used to collect.

I loved working in a bookstore. Brand new beautiful books coming in all the time, shiny best-sellers, coffee table monstrosities, tiny gift books with useless content... and all the time I had an excellent idea of what was popular. What people enjoyed. For months we sold nothing but The DaVinci Code. By the end of I wanted to yell at every customer, "Surely you know someone who has it by now!?" But I still loved it (the job, not The DaVinci Code) because books were everywhere.

Working in a library was even better. Instead of what had to sell, and what everyone thought they'd like for a plane ride or to put in their mother's Christmas stocking, I got to see what was really, truly loved. The books that kept going out, that got recommended from person to person. Those that kept getting requested, with dozens of people on the holds list. The books that were only withdrawn when they were bundles of falling apart pages and glue.

Now my methods for collecting the "maybe" pile have withered. And last night I was desperate. I whined to my partner: "I need a book." I expected brief sympathy. Instead, he went to his bookshelf and started reading titles and authors. He started describing plots. He opened two enormous boxes and pulled out volumes. He summarized, he recommended, and he reviewed. Eventually I had five "maybes" and a "I'm going to start this right now."

I also had yet another reason he's my partner. Aw.

So now I get to ignore him and read this book. It's an author I haven't read before, and I'm excited to try. This week I might also begin speaking with bookstore clerks and librarians in the area. I used to love it when people asked me for recommendations. I hope these locals are similarly inclined, or they may find me hanging around the front desk all the time, asking each and every patron, "Read any good books lately?"

Setting the bar

As readers of my twitter page might have been surprised to see, I'm finally continuing with the edit of the mystery novel I wrote last summer. I'd gone through a first edit and polished various plot-holes last year, but fuelled by the workshops at the SIWC and long winter evenings trying to figure out what was wrong with it I realized it lets me down on the promises it gives. The story is good, the characters are good, and yet it all comes together too slushy and tame. Something's missing. It is not the book it should be. Line edits and plot-hole polishes are not enough. It needs a full re-write.

It was a depressing realization, and an important one. The book that currently exists is interesting, well written, and generally of a fair quality. The book it should be is enthralling, brilliant, and staggeringly life-changing.

Think I'm aiming too high? It isn't arrogance. What's the point in setting out to spend hours and hours and days of my life and precious creative energies toward writing something that is "O.K."? I can write something that's just O.K. when I construct my grocery list. I'm aiming for better. I'm not claiming I can reach it. I'm saying I have to try.

I'm excited about this edit. I have a lot of good ideas from others, and a lot from myself. I've moved far away from my wonderful writing guild and my first reader, but daily check-ins and a strict schedule will keep me in line. And! Excitement upon excitement: I have a new desk! With a beautiful window and a lot of space to work. No excuses left. Unless that plant gets in the way.