Category Archives: Reading

So You Want To Write Full-Time?

People often talk bad about teaching, saying that it zaps a person’s creativity. And I will admit that there are challenges. But taking that job at ETSU let me take a breath. I returned to the manuscripts and made the changes that I wanted to make for my own artistic reasons. My choices were motivated by my goals for the story, not the fact that I needed to eat. That I would lose my little condo. Or that I might have to nove in with my parents. (Horror of horrors!).

So this is why I urge writers to think long and hard before making their writing their primary source of income.

Laughed So Hard I Cried

It’s not often I feel compelled to share something IMMEDIATELY. But once I controlled my uncontrollable laughter, I had to share this. I was laughing so hard, I’m sure the neighbors think I’m crazy.

Ah, Dan Savage. You rock. The religious right? Not so much.

What’s it about? It’s about nothing.

I don’t know who Brian Hennigan is, but after reading this, I think perhaps I should find out…

This had me in stitches.

It was also another one of those “I said this EXACT SAME THING!” moments (yes, I know exact same is redundant). (It happens w/ Anderson Cooper a lot. Which is why I think we could be BFF. But I digress.) Okay, I’ve not been quite as pejorative as he gets in his closing paragraphs. But this guy is Scottish, after all. I’m Canadian. You see the difference.

This, however, could be a direct quote:

Let me also say that, yes, I have read a Harry Potter book. It was nice enough – for a children’s book. But at no point did I ever think that I was involved in anything other than a book for children.

There was not anything of entertainment value for a fully-developed adult mind.

HP aside, these “Hey! I said that last week/month/year!” moments happen so frequently that I wonder if there is not an audience for my observations/opinions. Perhaps one needs to be semi-famous first before anyone is interested in what one has to say? Possibly. But maybe, just maybe, it’s simply a matter of articulating stuff that people identify with.

To memoir or not to memoir, that is the question

Don’t you just love it when someone else articulates something you’ve been thinking about / trying to say? Tayari Jones again, on whether writing a memoir is the right thing to do:


And it made more wonder if having the RIGHT to hurt someone makes it okay to do so.
…
In this piece I talk quite a bit anout my dad. Was it really okay for me to talk about him? Of course I have the right and desire to tell my own story, but I can’t really tell it without him.

She concludes:

I don’t know. I think I prefer the safe realm of fiction.

!!! I’ve thought a great deal about writing a memoir. This is always where I end up. Fiction does feel safe to me. I can write about more significant, weightier subjects in fiction than I can in memoir. The distance of fiction allows me to get nearer to the truth, if that makes any sense.

Writing a memoir would mean writing about my family, my childhood. That’s the key to the whole thing. Without that, there’s no point. But when I write personal non-fiction, even if I’m just testing it out, in a Word doc, I find myself hedging when it comes to my family. Who they are is crucial to who I am, hence I must write about them, if I am to write my story.

But the good daughter in me balks at hurting anyone. No one in my story is evil. There is no big bad.

It would be much easier if there was.

TCGN* Update

[*Tom Cruise Goes Nuts]

I’ve been confining my thoughts on this matter to Sallie’s ever-so-funny running commentary at So Anyway…, but I just had to share this tidbit.

Quite frequently, I’ll make an observation on something to myself or someone else, then later on I’ll hear someone else make the same observation in a more public forum. And then I’ll think, hey! I said that yesterday! (or whatever). I’m still trying to decide if this makes me a trendsetter or simply unoriginal.

Anyhoo.

Last Friday I commented on Eden’s post about TCGN’s appearance on Today:


You know back in the day (i.e. the 80s), I liked TC. That gradually wore down to neutrality. My feelings toward him remained pretty much neutral until the last, oh, how long would you say it’s been? two months or so? Now I actively dislike him. I may never pay to see another movie with him in it. And I can’t imagine I’m the only person who’s feeling that way.

Then last night I was noodling around TWoP and after catching up on the AC360 thread, I saw the Today Show thread, remembered Eden’s post (I didn’t actually see the interview) and thought I’d see what the TWoPPers had to say about it.

Just a few snippets:
ctygrltif2:

Between that and the “Matt, Matt, Matt” he was just so offensive. I hate the way he’s trying to force his cult on the rest of the world. I was never a big fan of his movies anyway so it’s no big loss that I’ll never pay money to see one again..

Damaris56:

Well, after this whole thing with Katie Holmes and Brooke Shields and this latest interview on Today, I’m boycotting his films. I’m never giving this guy a penny of my money. I had planned to see War Of The Worlds because Spielberg was directing it, but nothing will get me in to watch any movie with this idiot in it.

Lizziedrew:

Add me to the list of those who will be boycotting his movies in the future. That pompous asshat doesn’t need any more of my money, for damn sure.

BitchySmurf:

I never liked Tom Cruise. I never disliked him. But I never “got” the whole appeal. I’m never going to another one of his movies. War of the Worlds seems like the kind of thing I would enjoy too. But I won’t go.

So, heh. There are also links to transcripts of the interview wherein TCGN proves that he is, in fact, a crazy person. It’s funny (funny weird, not funny haha). The main reason my initial like of TC wore off was because I could never get a read on him in interviews. Maybe this is stupid, but if I find someone to be vacuous or annoying or assholey in interviews, I find it hard to like his/her work. Conversely, if someone comes off as bright or witty, I’m more inclined to enjoy his/her work.

Anyhow, to me, TC never came off as anything. He was like a robot, a shell. I got the impression that he had no personality of his own, he just filled this shell with roles, and when the role ended he was empty again. Now, I realize this was in part due to his publicist (you know, the one he fired) suppressing his urge to reveal that he’s a crazy person. But I also think that my instinct that he had no personality of his own is probably not that far off. That’s the kind of person that cults appeal to, after all, isn’t it?

One more thing: in all this frenzy, little mention has been made of TC’s children. I’ve been thinking about how they’re getting to that age (according to IMDb, they’re 12 and 10) where everything your parents do, regardless of how ordinary, is embarrassing. Can you imagine being a pre-teen and having to watch your dad behave as he has for the last while? I’m mortified for them.

Revisions

Writer Cody talks about changes to his novel ‘Ricochet River’

[T]his new version of the coming-of-age novel is missing certain sexual references and profanity that Cody thinks caused some high schools to ban it from their classrooms.

…

In one, the book’s main characters — all teens — spend the night in a hotel room in The Dalles. It’s a comic scene that has been one of Cody’s favorites for out-loud readings. But it involves alcohol and sex, and Cody understood parents’ and teachers’ discomfort with the messages the scene might send to high schoolers.

Cody removed this scene and toned down another that occurs in the woods near some mating salmon. He also replaced a few expletives.

Caveat: I don’t know this book.

That said, hmm. He says he did it because he understands teachers feeling uncomfortable with those bits in the classroom, not because of right-wing pressure / book banning.

Yeah, I dunno. Isn’t it the stuff that’s uncomfortable that’s most important to deal with–not avoid?

Alcohol and sex is the reality of high school for a lot of people. Aren’t we better off acknowledging and dealing with it directly that than pretending it doesn’t happen?

And seriously, profanity? Profanity is the reality for everyone.

A lot of people seem to want childhood/adolescence to be something that simply doesn’t exist. That never did exist. I think it must be true that when most people grow up, they forget what it was like to be 7, 10, 15.

In one of Madeleine L’Engle’s books (I think it’s Circle of Quiet) she talks about how when she’s writing about being 15 (or a character who’s 15), at that moment, she is 15. When I first read that, it was an “aha” moment for me. I realized that when I was telling a story of something that happened when I was 13, I’d go back there, I’d be 13 again, if only for a moment (people would sometimes comment on how worked up I could get about things that happened years ago, and I guess I wondered if I was weird for still being able to feel my 13yo pain). I think that ability is essential for a writer, but I guess not everyone has it.

Thinking…

I must be getting cooler (um, yeah, right) or at least more tuned in to the >cough< A-List, if I can read a list like this, and not only be familiar with five of them but have been so over one of the 5 six months ago (sorry, JB).

(The joke’s on me, of course, as he’s the one with the book deal.)

Continuing Sagas

Conspiracy Theories

“If you liked The Da Vinci Code, you’ll love the Downing Street Memo.”

Okay, so this article at Slate isn’t really about the Da Vinci Code. But I had to share anyhow, because it’s exactly what I’ve been thinking ever since the hype started and exactly why I haven’t read it yet (well, that and the hardcover vs. paperback thing).

A few weeks ago, at an airport in Europe, I saw Dan Brown’s Da Vinci Code staring at me across the bookstore bins. I had seen it many times before and averted my gaze, but I was facing a long delay, and I suddenly thought: May as well get it over with.Well, of course I knew it would be bad. I just didn’t know that it would be that bad. Never mind for now the breathless and witless style, or the mashed-paper characters, or the lazy, puerile reliance on incredible coincidence to flog the lame plot along. What if it was all true? What if the Nazarene had had issue, in fleshly form, with an androgynous disciple? The Catholic Church would look foolish but, then, it already looks foolish enough on the basis of the official story. “Opus Dei,” according to Brown, is a sinister cult organization. Excuse me, but I already knew this, so to speak, independently.

OPEN LETTER TO KANSAS SCHOOL BOARD

As previously mentioned, snarking at creationists? Always fun.

I and many others around the world are of the strong belief that the universe was created by a Flying Spaghetti Monster. It was He who created all that we see and all that we feel. We feel strongly that the overwhelming scientific evidence pointing towards evolutionary processes is nothing but a coincidence, put in place by Him….

We have evidence that a Flying Spaghetti Monster created the universe. None of us, of course, were around to see it, but we have written accounts of it.

…

It is absolutely imperative that they realize that observable evidence is at the discretion of a Flying Spaghetti Monster. Furthermore, it is disrespectful to teach our beliefs without wearing His chosen outfit, which of course is full pirate regalia.

…

I think we can all look forward to the time when these three theories are given equal time in our science classrooms across the country, and eventually the world; One third time for Intelligent Design, one third time for Flying Spaghetti Monsterism, and one third time for logical conjecture based on overwhelming observable evidence.

Bwahahaha.

The coolest Avon Lady on the planet…

…er, make that in the universe.

Hey, Klingons have feelings, too!

“Mrs. Jaworski, 8 has been suspended from school for one day.” She wore an arctic blue power jacket over black slacks, and I self-consciously tried to pull my hooded sweatshirt further over my pink pajamas.

“It’s Ms., please. And sorry for my attire, but I ran a marathon yesterday and I’m too sore to change this morning.” I tried to infect her with my smile, but she wore a tight-lipped expression as frosty as her jacket. “So, anyway. What did he do?” I picked at the hem of my sweatshirt, looked just to the right of her face. I couldn’t meet her eyes. I felt nervous. I felt underdressed. I wondered where 8 was.

So she told me what he did. And as she told me, I started to laugh. I didn’t laugh a little, either, but I belly-laughed and grabbed my stomach. My son stood with his class this morning, put small right hand over heart, faced the American flag, and recited his own personal pledge of allegiance:

I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United Federation of Planets, and to the galaxy for which it stands, one universe, under everybody, with liberty and justice for all species.

“Mrs. Jaworski. This isn’t humorous. The Pledge is an extremely important and patriotic moment each morning in the classroom. I am ashamed of your son’s behavior, and I hope you are, too.”

She had me at “Ms.” Then she threw in a marathon. Then she started to laugh at Principal IAmMiserable&ThereforeYouShouldBeToo (believe me, I know the type) and became the coolest mom ever. Also, she can write.

Please.

Javanomics 101: Today’s Coffee Is Tomorrow’s Debt

She just graduated summa cum laude , after three years of legal training that left her $115,000 in debt. Part of that debt, which she will take a decade to repay with interest, was run up at Starbucks, where she buys her lattes….

“A latte a day on borrowed money? It’s crazy,” said Erika Lim, director of career services at the law school.

I love how it’s the career services person who’s all aghast at the lattes. Shouldn’t she be doing something useful … like finding students jobs?!

Seriously, bigger issues here than $3/day spent on coffee.