YA Guy Reads... Classic Plague Novels!

YA Guy will admit that the title to this post is perhaps the weirdest I've ever written. But as I'm sure I've mentioned, I'm not only a YA writer; I also have a doctorate in American literature and teach at the university level. What this means is that I read a lot of non-YA literature, and sometimes, I find that it dovetails with the YA I read (and write).

That seems to be the case now, though I'm not sure exactly how or why I started reading the genre I'm currently reading: classic novels about plague. Plague novels are super-popular right now, in both YA and non-YA: we have zombie plagues, hot zone plagues, superbug plagues, and so on and so forth. No doubt this plague craze has to do not only with actual medical threats but with generalized anxiety about the state of the world.

And I suppose, though I've never written (and have no plan to write) a novel specifically about plague, all of my novels are similar to plague novels in that they're about people surviving against hostile environments: the desert-plus-monsters environment of the Survival Colony novels, the sentient, predatory Nature of the Ecosystem trilogy, the threatening exoplanet of Freefall. Come to think of it, the draft novel I just completed does feature a disease as one key plot element. So when I started reading plague novels, maybe I was preparing for my own next book.

Anyway, here are the top three classic plague novels I've read, in order of the date of publication. I wish I could say "enjoy," but like all books of this sort, these three are pretty grim.

Daniel Defoe, A Journal of the Plague Year (1722). Written by the author of Robinson Crusoe, this is a fictionalized account of the 1665 plague in London that killed nearly 100,000 people. Defoe's book relies on archival research, testimony from survivors, and other sources, but its narrator is pure invention, as are some of the incidents. That makes it an early example of experimental, hybrid fiction (or creative nonfiction). Coincidentally, the novel I wrote my senior year in college was titled after Defoe's work, which I'd heard of but hadn't read as of then.

Mary Shelley, The Last Man (1826). Almost one hundred and fifty years before Richard Matheson's 1954 I Am Legend, Shelley wrote this novel of a worldwide plague that leaves no one but the narrator alive. Shelley's Frankenstein (1818) is sometimes considered the first science fiction novel, and you could call this book the first post-apocalyptic novel (unless you think of the Book of Revelation that way). It's nowhere near as influential as Frankenstein--and, truth be told, it's nowhere near as well written, with the first 100 pages in particular being full of turgid prose and Romantic excess--but it's still quite an accomplishment.

Albert Camus, The Plague (1947). Originally published as La Peste, this novel tells the tale of plague descending on a twentieth-century city in French Algeria. Narrated by one of the town's doctors--who avoids death himself but loses his wife, ironically, from an unrelated illness she's escaped the city to cure--the book can be seen as an allegory of the German occupation of France or, more generally, as a work of existential philosophy, with the plague standing for the human condition of inevitable death and capricious fate. Either way, it's beautifully written, focusing much more on people's diverse reactions to the pestilence than to the graphic details of plague itself.

YA Guy Experiences...Self-Publishing!

YA Guy's self-published novel Ecosystem came out last month. A survival story set on a future Earth in which the physical environment has evolved into a sentient predator, it's on sale for only 99 cents through May 25, if you want to check it out.

Ecosystem isn't the first novel I've self-published--that distinction goes to The Passing of Boss Krenkel, which came out several years ago--but it's the first self-published novel I've taken seriously. I splurged a bit on cover and interior design, and I'm doing much more to market the book than I did with Boss Krenkel. I don't expect to become a millionaire on this book or any self-published book--but then, I wasn't becoming a millionaire on my traditionally published novels, either. I do, however, see Ecosystem (which is the first in a three-book series) as the start of what might turn out to be a viable alternative path for me as a writer.

The decision to take the self-publishing route is a personal one, and I'd never be one of those writing-advice gurus who tell people that the ONLY way to go is to self-publish. (By the same token, I wouldn't tell anyone that traditional publishing is the only legitimate option.) Having experienced both forms of publishing, I can confidently state that they both have their advantages and disadvantages. I won't belabor the obvious, but I will take a few moments to talk about the three major factors that appeal to me about self-publishing.

1. Creative control. This is huge for me, as it probably is for most authors who self-publish. To start with, I like the idea of not having anyone tell me that a story concept that intrigues me isn't "marketable" enough or doesn't fit into a convenient category. Ecosystem is an ecological, post-apocalyptic survival story with elements of both science fiction and fantasy, featuring a teen protagonist but possessing crossover adult appeal. That might be a hard sell for many, possibly most, traditional publishers. By self-publishing, I can forego these gatekeepers and put out a book that's close to my heart as a writer. I did hire a freelance editor--I think every self-published writer owes it to themselves to do so--but in the end, the final decision about form and content was mine; I didn't need to convince anyone that my creative vision was sound, or argue with anyone who didn't like a choice I'd made. I'm not going to badmouth anybody, least of all the editor for my first three books--who undeniably made those books better than they were when they left my hands--but I felt the need to spread my creative wings and venture out on my own, and through self-publishing, I had that opportunity.

2. Speed. Traditional publishing is incredibly slow. It was two years between the two books of my Survival Colony series, which is an awfully long time to wait. With self-publishing, I can make books available to readers as quickly as they can be written, revised, edited, designed, and published. Ecosystem came out in April, I'm currently preparing a collection of science fiction short stories for publication no later than July, the sequel to Ecosystem will appear by November, and the final book in the trilogy will be available by early 2019. Putting books out quickly isn't necessarily a good thing in itself, but as with my desire to control my books creatively, I like having the power to control when and where they appear.

3. No pressure. For me, this is probably the biggest benefit to self-publishing. As a writer, I hate pressure: the pressure of external deadlines, the pressure of other people's expectations, the pressure to sell large numbers of books. Maybe some writers thrive under such pressures; I find that they kill creativity and strip the joy out of writing. I've wanted to be a writer since I was six years old--and I've wanted to be a writer because I love telling stories, not because I want to become rich and famous. But in traditional publishing, the pressure to meet certain standards or hit certain targets is always there, whether that be the pressure to "earn out" your advance, to have a new book ready to satisfy the option in your contract, or to "outperform" your previous books. With self-publishing, the only pressure I feel is internal, and it's a good pressure: the pressure to tell the stories I want to tell, the way I want to tell them.

At this point, it's too early to say which direction I'll ultimately take as a writer--whether I'll go hybrid, self-publishing some books and traditionally publishing others, or whether I'll settle into self-publishing exclusively. For the time being, I'm still working with an agent on some of my projects, including one that she's shopping around right now. I'm not fretting about the future; I'm just enjoying the moment. And I hope, if anyone out there is weighing the possibility of self-publishing, this post will help you to make your decision.