Susan Tsui

So for the past week I’ve been looking around my pigsty of a study going I have to do something about this.  Yesterday, I finally did.

My main obstacle appeared to be the numerous books I’ve acquired laying scatter-shot about me, and my significant lack of bookshelf space.  Conceding defeat, I realized I had to get rid of some old books to make way for new ones.  I also realized I now have a Nook, and I can download a significant number of public domain books with expired copyrights.  So I took all my public domain books off the shelves, made a list of what they were so I could download them later from Project Gutenberg or Feedbooks.  I managed to clear off the equivalent of three small shelves or one and a half large ones.  Then I put all my new books away with space to spare and organized my room.

I wondered what to do with my old public domain books.  I did keep several that had special places in my memory, but what about the rest?  I could donate, sell, or give them away.  Then a thought occurred to me.  I asked my husband, John, “Do you think I should keep these for when we have kids?  A lot of these are children books.”  My husband, the Information Technology Specialist, just gave me this look that said, “Did you really just ask me that question?”  I realized that by the time we have kids, and they were old enough to read A Little Princess or Huckleberry Finn they would probably want new books, not old wrinkled used ones.  Worse they would regard my precious print books as archaic, and they might have Nooks or Kindles of their own.  Sigh.

Technology, I give up.  I open the door.  Welcome, come into my world.

Hey Folks.

My short story “Baby, Be Mine” is now available in the Warrior WiseWoman 3 anthology.  I’m so pleased.  Click on the cover image to check it out.  Also here’s some of the quotes released about the anthology courtesy of Norilana Books.

Norilana Books presents the third volume of an exciting new annual anthology series of science fiction featuring powerful and remarkable women.

Explore the truth of what it means to be female, and discover the wisdom and the strength of a woman in a grand universe without limits. Far-ranging scientific speculation meets action and adventure, grand space opera, thrilling discovery, and intelligent protagonists…

“The overall vibe is thought-provoking without being preachy, and easily accessible…”
—Publishers Weekly

“Editor Roby James has done readers a service in bringing together this anthology; let’s hope she’ll continue for many years to come.”
—Analog SF

“The stories are austere, lyrical, and fuse science with ethics and emotion in a way that is very rare.”
—Susan Shwartz

“Inventive, unusual, these are stories to ponder over time…whether the reader agrees that the women are warriors, or wise, or that anyone can be both.”
—Elizabeth Moon

I recently finished re-reading Louisa May Alcott’s novel Rose In Bloom.  The novel was published in 1876, but I had read it as a child in the late 1980s or early 1990s.  I didn’t remember all that much about the novel except for the love triangle involving Rose, Charlie, and Mac (and that I once had a huge, huge crush on Mac).  I was a little surprised when a Chinese American character came into play.  His name was Fun See Tokio.  Apparently, he eats “rats, puppies, and bird’s nest soup.” (Alcott 200)  Can you see me cringing?

Oh the horror.  Here was one of my favorite childhood books with all these blasphemies written into it.  How, how, how on Earth – even at such a young age – could I have missed this?  How did I forget?  The name of the character is little worse than a generic mismosh of incorrect gibberish, and Chinese people certainly do not eat rats!  It’s 1876 I kept repeating to myself.  It’s 1876, and I have very high doubts that Louisa May Alcott or any other person living in the small town of Concord, Massachusetts in 1876 had ever met, much less seen a Chinese American or Asian American of any sort.  1876.  1876!  But still, I couldn’t stop cringing.  Shudder.

Then I found a light at the end of the tunnel.   Fun See Tobiko was marrying a woman, a Caucasian woman named Annabel.  Not only was he marrying this woman, no one seemed to have the slightest objection.  People objected plenty to two other characters, Phebe and Archie, due to class status and economics, but not one word against Annabel or Fun See was ever mentioned in the book.  In fact two of the main characters Rose and Mac seemed absolutely delighted.  “‘Isn’t that a sweet prospect?’” (Alcott 200).

Even more intriguing is Annabel’s character.  She is a bit flighty, loves pretty things, but considers herself a proper lady.  She attends all the social events expected of her, behaves as society expects of her, and is absolutely as scandalized as anyone else about the idea that Phebe would step out of her social class.  Annabel is set up as the norm of what is expected of a woman in 1876, and that norm as far as Alcott was concerned, should be able to marry a Chinese American man with absolutely no objection.

There’s something about the whole situation that strikes me as rather extraordinary.  1876.  A Caucasian woman marrying a Chinese man with no objections.  Even the dreaded bit regarding rats and puppies (incorrect and offensive as it was) was treated by the author as little more than a cultural idiosyncrasy and not something objectionable.  This from an author living in a country that would someday practice the Chinese Exclusion Act and put Japanese Americans in internment camps during World War II.

Louisa May Alcott really didn’t know anything about Chinese Americans or Asian Americans, but to her they were still just human beings to her and an interracial marriage was just another marriage.  This in 1876.  There’s something admirable in that.

So I had a strange dream last night.  I was walking down the street under an elevated train.  Rain was pouring down and both my hands were occupied trying to hold onto a long rectangular box that might have contained flowers but seemed heavier than that.

My mother suddenly appeared, cursing me out for being so foolish as to wander in such weather.  She had a giant tarp that she used to cover both of us as we rushed home in the rain and tried not to slip over our own clumsy feet.  I should have been annoyed as she continued to scold me.  Instead I was concerned with how wet she was getting.  She seemed to notice her own state as well, and in addition to cursing me as three kinds of fool she cursed herself.

Once inside I instantly rounded on her and demanded that she get out of her wet things before she caught a chill.  I couldn’t get out of my head that she was older and more fragile and more prone to cold.  I shuffled her off to find warmer, dryer clothes.  Then I woke up.

I wonder what it all means.  I will probably wonder for the rest of the day, and I am certain that I will come up with a million conclusions.  Perhaps, one of them will be right.

So now that I have my MFA the question comes, what do I do with the rest of my life?  It’s strange because isn’t that the question I should be asking of myself every day when I wake up in the morning.  How can I better myself?  How can I accomplish a goal?  How can I get from one moment to the next to the one after that and the one after that without falling apart?  How do I make this day a better day, my life a happier life?  The thing is there are small moments, and there are big ones.

Oddly enough, for a variety or reasons, a number of my friends seem to be feeling the same way.  We are all at a point in our lives where something has ended.  I think what we all need to remember is that when one moment or event ends, another begins.  We mourn what we have lost, give it a final farewell, and move on.

It’s scary sometimes.  We don’t know if we are moving on to something better or worse.  We don’t know what the journey will entail, what treacherous pitfalls lie ahead or if we’ll be allergic to the flowers we do see, but this is the excitement of life.  It is glorious to not know, because not knowing means discovery.  It means adventure.  It means that even though there is the potential for worse there is also the potential for better.

We take this chance because that is the beauty of life, it’s potential.  To not chance is to stagnate, to wilt, to stay on the sidelines watching what every one else has while we let envy and bitterness and sadness swallow us.  To not chance is to make excuses for why we cannot be better.  To not chance is to die mourning what you never had without realizing that you never had the right to have it because you did not take that one step forward.  I do not want my life to be a series of excuses.  Yes the potential for worse waits, but even worse ends.  To paraphrase:

Life is a series of highs and lows.

Those who fail most are also those who succeed.

If at first you don’t succeed try, try, try again.

Every rose has its thorns.

Every cloud has a silver lining.

The sun will come out tomorrow. And I can’t wait to see what it brings with it.

So, a toast to my friends.  To life.  To potential, and chance, and not making excuses.  A toast to the yellow brick road, and all our tomorrows.

On Sunday I received my Masters in Fine Arts degree for Creative Writing from Goddard College.  I went on stage with seventeen other fine graduates, gave my three minute speech, received my diploma, and spent the rest of the day pretty much grinning my head off.  It feels wonderful to have accomplished so much and come so far.  Anyway, I thought I’d post the speech online as a bigger thank you to all the people I have to be grateful too.

The first time I asked my husband, John, the question, “Do you think I’ll ever become a successful writer?” he said “Yes, if you try hard enough.”

I would like to start by thanking my friend Glen for suggesting that I apply to Goddard’s MFA program.  Thank you to Paul Selig for accepting me into this program and for your insight in choosing Reiko to be my advisor.  Thank you Reiko for pointing out to me, amongst many things, that it’s okay to stop trying to control my story and to let my story control me instead.  Thank you to Rogelio for serving as my second reader and for your wonderful insights into the little nuances of my novel.  Thank you to Rachel, my more recent advisor, for helping me see the grand scheme of things and guiding me towards finding the overall theme of my novel.

I would also like to thank some other people, including those who couldn’t be here, my friend Lisa for being like a second reader to me long before I came to Goddard, my friend Rachael for her advice and friendship on this journey through the MFA program.  Thank you to my sister Daisy for encouraging me to attempt my first novel at the age of twelve.  A wonderful piece about unicorns and a wanderer and a princess.  It didn’t get published.  Thank you to all the people who have ever cared for me and supported me that I may have forgotten.  But mostly, Thank you, John, for believing in me and for just being you.  Till the end of the numbers, my love.

Thank you Goddard.  I will miss you.  Thank you all.

Okay, so I’m still dieting.  I haven’t reached my goal quite yet, still a few pounds shy.  Actually, Sunday and Monday were a disaster resulting in a one pound gain.  Father’s day and a celebration of sorts with my husband.  I’m back on track again though.  I hope.

I have made some progress on my novel, about four pages.  I’ll have to look them over to see if they are four pages that I am happy with.  Still, it’s progress.

I’m finding my life for some reason is very, very busy right now, and very distracting.  However, I’m trying not to come up with excuses.  Maybe what I need is a new strategy.  I’m thinking waking up an hour early ever morning to work on my writing.  I’ve tried that before without success, but perhaps that was then and this is now.  Anybody have any other suggestions?

A friend and I were discussing how much it would cost to start up a small publishing company or small press.  She found a figure of $10,000 for 2000 prints of 1 book.  That would total about $5 per book, just to produce the book.  The retailer/distributor then pays the publishing company 55% of the suggested retail price to buy the book for resale.  The result looks like this.

Suggested retail price: $8.99 (standard paperback)
Distributor pays publishing company $4.05.
$5 production minus $4.05 = loss of $0.95 per book for the publishing company.
Retailer would profit $4.94 before taxes($8.99-$4.05).

Suggested retail price: $14.00 (standard large paperback)
Distributor pays publishing company $6.30.
$6.30 minus $5 production = profit of $1.30 per book for the publishing company and author.
Retailer would profit $7.70 before taxes($14.00-$6.30).
Royalties = $6.30 x 0.10 (10%).
Author earns $0.63 per book.
Publishing company earns $0.67 per book.

The numbers get worse for hardcovers.  Keep in mind though that this is the cost for small start-up publishers.  The more books printed, the lower the production cost, and the less likely the loss in money.  I suppose this explains the push by big publishers for the next bestseller.  Yikes!

I hate writer’s block.  I really, really hate writer’s block.  My writer’s block doesn’t mean I’ve stopped writing altogether so much as it means I’m writing very very slowly.  I’ve managed to add 6 pages.

On the plus side, I’m fairly certain my writer’s block will end sometime around June 18 to 21st or something like that.  How can I be so certain?  I’m on a diet, and the start of my diet coincided with when my writer’s block started.  I am therefore surmising that when my diet is scheduled to end all will return to normal.  Otherwise I will be well and truly pissed, more so than I am now.  I’m fairly certain my brain decided that I wasn’t receiving enough calories and had to therefore conserve energy, in other words shut down on me.  Arrghhh!!!  Great, now my writing has been reduced to inarticulate noises.  At least I’ve only got 6 more pounds to go.

So, not much to report.  I’ve started another novel.  I keep wavering on the voice of my character.  There are so many annoying things about third person that I never noticed before just as there are so many advantages.  The same is true for first, and I’m still having trouble deciding between the two.  Not much progress on the progress meter as you can tell, but it’s only the first week.  Plus, I’ve sort of written and dumped 11 pages so far so I think that makes up for it a little bit.