tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-32663718089278046702024-03-13T21:12:46.719-06:00The Writing SisterhoodThe Sisterhoodhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09889577041903181315noreply@blogger.comBlogger200125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3266371808927804670.post-32064324958706464402014-07-06T13:50:00.000-06:002014-07-06T13:50:30.407-06:00All Good Things...<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">Yes, friends, I think you know how that one goes: All good things must come to an end.</span><br />
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">And here we are at the end.</span><br />
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">This will be a bit of an emotional post, since it is the final post you'll read here at the Sisterhood. Yes, you read correctly. This is our final post.</span><br />
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">This decision was not made lightly. We've thought about and discussed the closing of the blog for some months now. We've known since April that this summer would be our last. It had to be. The three of us, Lorena, Mary Mary, and Stephanie, have come to a point where we have to move on from contributing to the Sisterhood blog. We are all taking different directions with our writing and, unfortunately, we feel The Writing Sisterhood needs to come to a natural end.</span><br />
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">We have loved the writing community we've connected to through this blog and will miss sharing on a weekly basis. To say good-bye, we've all decided to write a closing paragraph or two. Enjoy!</span><br />
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<b><u><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #38761d; font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">SISTER STEPHANIE</span></u></b><br />
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: collapse; color: #222222; font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">I had never intended to blog, but when my brand-new critique partners Mary Mary and Lorena invited me to join their writing blog, I didn't have to think twice about it. I was in the midst of a novel, and the idea of writing about writing with other writers was very appealing. Writing can be a lonely business, and there aren't a lot of opportunities to get oneself into a supportive writing community. Critique-partnering was definitely one, but I loved the idea of opening it up to the world. Participating in a blog would also, I figured, give me some writing structure. The blog was on a schedule, so I had to come up with at least one idea every few weeks. Nothing teaches you about a topic more than writing about it. If I wanted to learn more about dialogue, then researching and writing a piece about dialogue would get me further than simply reading about it. I enjoyed getting feedback from other writers and hearing their ideas, too. It was a fruitful venture. </span><br />
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">Of course, there are only so many topics to write about; especially when it comes to a narrow subject like fiction-writing itself. Dialogue, characters, plot, yes. Commercial vs. literary fiction, got it. Why something as appalling as Fifty Shades sells a gazillion copies, check. But I have definitely felt myself digging deep for topics lately, especially since I have my personal blog to attend to as well. My sisters are moving along the path toward publication, which is exciting and time-consuming, and I've got other things vying for my own attention. I will miss the community we have built together at the Sisterhood, and all we have done for each other, but I'm happy to say I know we three writing sisters will be lifelong friends ... and I hope all of our readers will stay in touch with us, too. I will still be at my own blog, so please come on by!</span></div>
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<b><u><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #990000; font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">SISTER MARY MARY</span></u></b><br />
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">When we came up with the idea to start a blog with four different women discussing the highs and lows of the writing world, I loved it from the start. I have been privileged to work with not just these two wonderful writers over the last few years, but also those who have been with us in the past. I will miss the individuals we've connected with during our years at the Sisterhood blog, but I know this is the right timing for the three of us. </span><br />
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">For me, blogging was a new challenge, one I grabbed hold of whole heartedly. As things have changed for me over the past year or so, I've come to realize that it began to feel like more of a chore. I'd find myself searching for some topic that had yet to be discussed at the Sisterhood, when really, what I wanted to do was work on my fiction writing. Perhaps some writers enjoy the weekly schedule of putting out a new post, but for me, this is a good place to stop for now. I'm ready to move away from blogging and focus on my fiction writing and the road to publication. I will definitely be keeping busy. This summer, I started two new novels and I'm working on a play. </span><br />
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">I will, of course, continue to keep in contact with both Stephanie, Lorena, and others of you out there. Stephanie and Lorena's critiquing skills are indispensable, as is their friendship. And, hey, Lorena's now my agent sister! My other book review blog will still be around for a few months, but that one, too, will be ending sometime in August. When the time is right, I'll be back around, but I'm not sure if it will include blogging. Thanks for hanging out with us over the last four years!</span><br />
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<b><u><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #0b5394; font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">SISTER LORENA</span></u></b><br />
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">Dear readers and friends,<u></u><u></u></span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">What a wonderful experience this has been! I’m thrilled to have entered such a supportive community and to have met so many of you. I’m also grateful to my sisters, both current and former, for having embarked on this project with me for the last four years. I’ll admit that when I first considered blogging, I was terrified. For one, I had zero experience writing non-fiction and second, I was afraid to open my soul to the world in such a public way. The Sisterhood blog not only helped me develop some skill in interviewing industry professionals as well as writing articles and reviews, but also made me feel comfortable about interacting with other writers online and becoming part of this community.<u></u><u></u></span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">I don’t know what the future will bring. I may come back to blogging at some point in my life, but for now, I feel a need to close down the blinds and concentrate on a couple of new novels that have been on hold for the last four months. I’m also in the process of revising a beloved novel which has taken over a decade to develop so that my brilliant new agent can start shopping it around! <u></u><u></u></span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">I hope this is not a goodbye, fellow writers. I’ll still visit your blogs from time to time and you’ll be able to find me on <a href="https://twitter.com/SisterLorena">Twitter</a>. Best of luck to all of you in your careers and I hope we meet again soon!</span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;"><i>We wish all of you out there working on the road to publication nothing but the best of luck! Thank you for following us through the last four years!</i></span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: black;">Lots of Love </span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #cc0000;">♥</span>,</span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">Sisters Stephanie, Mary Mary, and Lorena</span></div>
Mary Maryhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09429769115085903305noreply@blogger.com6tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3266371808927804670.post-10199997489003052412014-06-27T11:45:00.000-06:002014-06-27T11:56:10.319-06:00Cephalopod Coffeehouse: Outlander<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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Welcome to this month's round of the Cephalopod Coffeehouse hosted by the illustrious Armchair Squid! Pull up a chair and pour yourself a mug of coffee or tea!<br />
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This month I chose Diana Gabaldon's very first novel <i>Outlander</i>. This wasn't really a random choice. A little over a month ago I attended a event put on by the local library called "A Word With Writers." The featured speakers were Diana Gabaldon and George R.R. Martin. If you'd like to read about the event, visit Sister Lorena's post <a href="http://divinesecretsofthewritingsisterhood.blogspot.com/2014/05/a-word-with-diana-gabaldon-and-george-r.html">here</a>.<br />
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Once upon a time I had tried to read Gabaldon's novel, but never finished. I knew why. I'd found it incredibly boring. But, after hearing her speak about her work, I thought I'd give <i>Outlander</i> a second chance. I dug around my bookshelf until I found my copy. The front cover was just as dated as I remembered and certainly didn't make me think that the lovely, delicate Claire was much of a beauty.<br />
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><i><b><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #20124d;">The cover of my copy. If you open the front<br />flap you'll find an equally unflattering<br />picture of Jamie with a late-80s<br />hairdo.</span></b></i></td></tr>
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I flipped my book open to where I'd left off all those years ago, which was less than a quarter of the way through the novel. I even had an old, faded receipt I was using as a bookmark. It's from World's of Fun in Kansas City and says I purchased the amusement park ticket for $28.54 on July 3, 2000. So, yeah, it's been a while since I last cracked this book open.</div>
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What did I glean from reading <i>Outlander</i> this time around?</div>
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First off, although still boring for most of the story, I managed to get through almost the entire novel. I have to admit that I still have about 100 pages to go, but I've skimmed to the end and have a general idea of what happens. If you don't know how long <i>Outlander</i> is, it clocks in at 850 pages.</div>
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Next, I realized that Gabaldon has a certain beauty to the way she writes. I love how she describes Claire's surroundings in the novel. Or even some things that we take for granted. Like giving birth. Near the end, when Jenny, Claire's sister-in-law describes to Claire, who has never had a child, what birthing a baby feels like it becomes such an intimate moment filled with descriptions I never even thought about when I was pregnant. With scenes like that, Gabaldon has a magical touch to the way she writes.</div>
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Going back to the boring bit, I was disappointed to find that I felt like I never really got to know the main character, Claire. So many things that would be questions in anyone's head if they fell through time and into a strange world they knew nothing about are not raised. It's as if Claire knew exactly what to expect as soon as she fell through those rocks. No toilets? Not a problem. No bathing? Not a problem. Expected to wear suffocating clothing? Not a problem. Questionable sanitary practices in the 1700s? Not a problem. There were times when I wanted to shake Claire and ask, "Now, tell me how you really feel about the absence or lack of..." How do you go from having toilet paper to none at all and not feel just a bit nervous about the prospect? Claire never seems to mind not having modern-day amenities. And if the argument is because Frank, her modern-day husband, and all his historical research prepared her for something like this, I don't buy it. Simply put, she had no interest in what Frank did. That was apparent in the beginning of the novel. So, because I felt like I didn't really know Claire, all the strings of lovely descriptions, sex, and bits of adventure seemed to drag in many places.</div>
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On that note, the novel didn't pick up for me until around page 500 and the witch trial. Now, that I liked, and the next 200 pages were exciting. I didn't know what would happen to Claire. Would she be drowned just to find out if she was a witch? Would her knight in shining armor (a.k.a. Jamie) show up at the last minute? What I was hoping and waiting for throughout the entire novel was whether Claire would end up back at the ring of stones. If you've not read the novel, I won't spoil it for you. Her final decision between choosing Frank or Jamie was the right one, I believe.</div>
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Finally, there are some final tidbits that stopped me while reading. Claire spots Geillis's inoculation scar, but, again, she doesn't think one thing about it, and only on a side note brings it up to Jamie. What? I think my mind would be racing with all kinds of questions. Claire, from the modern world of 1945 knows an awful lot of older vocabulary from the 1700s. Somewhere I heard that Gabaldon wrote the time travel aspect because she couldn't get Claire to curb her modern-day tongue. Um, no. As soon as she's back in the 1700s, Claire seems to know all the lingo. I actually wanted <i>more</i> of her worldly tongue in the novel, and just felt disappointed it wasn't there. There's also an awful lot of spanking or talk of spanking going on throughout the novel. Just a head's up.</div>
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In the end, if you're debating about whether to read <i>Outlander </i>or not, then keep a few things in mind: 1) Gabaldon is truly a lovely writer, 2) 850 pages was way too long for something that could have used some extra editing, 3) Claire almost seamlessly fits into the 1700s, and 4) after all that, you may or may not be inclined to read the next novel in the series. I have no desire to read the next novel at the moment. But, who knows? Maybe I'll change my mind in, say, fourteen years!</div>
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Check out other reviews on the Cephalopod Coffeehouse bloghop:</div>
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Mary Maryhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09429769115085903305noreply@blogger.com10tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3266371808927804670.post-21779339186380831482014-06-22T15:21:00.000-06:002014-06-22T15:21:09.568-06:00Postcards Tell a StoryRecently I came across <a href="http://www.foxnews.com/world/2014/04/26/rare-titanic-menu-that-doubled-as-postcard-could-fetch-thousands-at-auction/">this article</a> about a postcard from the Titanic that went up for auction. The postcard was reportedly expected to fetch $140,000. Why so much? Because this postcard is a rarity, and it tells a story.<br />
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><i><b><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #cc0000;">The postcard to be auctioned off.<br />It says:<br />"S.S. Titanic, April 11th, 1912. Nearing<br />Queenstown. Good voyage up to now.<br />Kind regards to all.<br />J.W. Gibbons."</span></b></i></td></tr>
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You see, the Titanic wasn't any different than the hotels of today. They plastered advertisement on just about anything, including the postcards that served as menus for each class. In this case, Gibbons, a second-class saloon steward, dashed off a quick message to his family back home before the final leg of Titanic's voyage. This postcard offers a rare glimpse into what the second-class passengers had for their breakfast: "Yarmouth bloaters; grilled ox; kidneys and bacon; American dry hash au gratin; grilled sausage; mashed potatoes and Vienna and Graham rolls." I don't know about you, but that sounds like a filling and hearty breakfast! Very few second-class menu postcards are known to exist, so this one is especially a treasure for any collector.</div>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><b><i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #cc0000;">Front image of the Titanic postcard.</span></i></b></td></tr>
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As you can also see, this postcard also tells a story. I bet you're sitting there, wondering whether one Mr. Jacob Gibbons survived the sinking? I'll get to that in a minute.</div>
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Postcards have recently taken me on a strange trip down the avenues of history. This postcard story of the Titanic probably wouldn't have sparked much interest in me, if not for the fact that I've been researching some of the largest ocean-liners ever built. By the turn of the 20th century, immigration was at an all-time high for the United States. More and more immigrants were leaving oppressed or violent circumstances in Europe in search of a new beginning elsewhere. The number one destination for most immigrants became the U.S. and most notably, Ellis Island.<br />
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I had created a character for my story, but I didn't know where to start or where to place this certain individual. I decided to do what is often given as the first instruction to new writers: "Write what you know." At the turn of the 20th century most immigrants came from eastern Europe, from places like Germany and Austria. There were also many Italians and Irish flooding in. But I don't have much knowledge of those countries, so I went back to the one country I know best, which is France. France was more known for trying to slip prostitutes into the U.S., but they also had many immigrants who came seeking a new life like so many others. I got tangled up in researching French history and soon found myself immersed in the Champagne Riots of 1911. And guess what? I found postcards!<br />
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><b><i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #cc0000;">Revolution in Champagne -- 12 April 1911<br />This is a champagne house that was burned by rioters.<br />It was located in the city of Äy, which is found in the<br />Champagne region.</span></i></b></td></tr>
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These postcards present some of the best lasting images of a time come and gone. They are like gold to any writer looking for historical information on a topic. </div>
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Yes, it seems a bit strange that someone would pick up a postcard showing a burned out champagne house and decide that it was a good choice on which to write a message back home. History is strange, though. We don't always understand the mindset of the time or why things turned out the way they did. One thing we do have, if it's well-preserved, is a photographic history to offer us some insight into what once happened. That's why I like these postcards. There aren't many photos around about the Champagne Riots, but there are these snippets that are up for sale to avid collectors. They chronicle an important page in France's history.</div>
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Speaking of chronicling history, some of the very first "news" footage was filmed during the Champagne Riots. That's the only thing police had when it came to arresting those who partook in the destruction of Äy. I have no idea if the footage exists today (I've had no luck doing some simple online searches), but if anyone does know if the film is out there, I'd love to see it!</div>
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So, back to Mr. Jacob Gibbons. You can breathe a little easier, because he survived. He ended up getting rescued from a life boat. As soon as he could, he sent a brief telegram back home that read, "Saved, well, Daddy."</div>
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<i><b><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #cc0000;">Do you have an interest in historical postcards?</span></b></i><br />
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Mary Maryhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09429769115085903305noreply@blogger.com8tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3266371808927804670.post-42397333647719535782014-06-13T08:36:00.000-06:002014-06-13T10:35:25.358-06:00Then and NowFor this month’s post, I decided to participate in a fun blog hop hosted by <a href="http://armchairsquid.blogspot.com/" target="_blank">The Armchair Squid</a>, <a href="http://subliminalcoffee.blogspot.com/" target="_blank">Suze</a>, <a href="http://nickielson.blogspot.com/" target="_blank">Nicki Elson</a> and <a href="http://nanmock.blogspot.com/" target="_blank">Nancy Mock</a> called <em>Then and Now</em>, where we’re supposed to watch a movie we loved when we were younger and see what we think of it now. Little did I know that the exercise would prove to be a lot more challenging than I expected. Why? You ask. What could be so hard about watching a movie and talking about it?<br />
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Well, first of all, there was the issue of choosing the film. My first impulse was to select a movie from one of my favorite directors, John Hughes, but as you can see <a href="http://divinesecretsofthewritingsisterhood.blogspot.com/2012/09/dont-you-forget-about-me-john-hughes.html" target="_blank">here</a>, I’m pretty much obsessed with the man, so how could I rewatch his films with fresh eyes when I never outgrew them? I went through a list of non-Hughes films and there were a few that I recalled fondly that I hadn’t seen in ages, but I was confronted with another problem: FEAR.<br />
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As I mention in <a href="http://divinesecretsofthewritingsisterhood.blogspot.com/2013/05/a-crazy-little-thing-called-nostalgia.html" target="_blank">this post</a> last year, I have become a lot more critical of films and books since I started to write. As my expectations have grown, it’s increasingly difficult to find stories where I can lose myself and not think about what the director or writer were trying to do. My fear when watching a once-beloved film was that I would realize that it was not as wonderful as I remembered, and that nostalgia wouldn't be enough to forgive all the film’s flaws.<br />
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I pondered for a few days about movies that I used to like but wouldn’t be overly devastated if I discovered all their imperfections and I finally picked one that:<br />
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1) I was desperate to watch when it came out, but had to wait a few years due to my age;<br />
2) was incredibly popular during my childhood years; and,<br />
3) I hadn’t seen in a VERY long time. <br />
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So without further ado, I bring you...<br />
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<em>Flashdance</em>, for those who haven’t seen it, is the story of an 18-year-old girl who is a welder by day and dancer by night. She lives in a warehouse-turned-apartment with her massive dog and dreams of becoming a ballerina. The problem is she’s a self-taught dancer who doesn’t have the education nor the references to enter the prestigious dance school of her dreams. Her best friends also have goals of their own: one longs to be a professional ice skater while another one is a short-order cook who wants to become a stand-up comedian. As Alex witnesses her friends’ dreams collapse, she must find the strength to go along with hers, even it means swallowing her pride and having to face rejection.<br />
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My first reaction when I watched the film again was excitement over the soundtrack. My friends and I used to sing these songs to the top of our lungs (even though we didn’t know what exactly we were saying) and we used to play the tape over and over again during our first dance parties. I am convinced that a big part of <em>Flashdance’s</em> appeal was <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=65ynRuXN7GI" target="_blank">the music</a>. <br />
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The second thing I noticed was how young Jennifer Beals was (I'd thought the character was in her twenties, but she was only eighteen). I also questioned details I'd never considered before: Where is Alex’s family? How did she become so independent at such a young age? How did she meet her mentor, Hanna, the lady who encourages her to apply to dance school? And how and why did her elder friend die? Last but not least, how did she learn to weld (and what on earth was she building)?<br />
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Another interesting observation is that this time around, her love interest Nick (Michael Nouri) didn’t seem as ancient as I remembered. When I first watched the film in my early teens, I was extremely disappointed with the actor selection (my apologies, Mr. Nouri) mainly because he was SO MUCH OLDER than the protagonist, but now I realize he HAD to be older in order to be her boss and help with her audition.<br />
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The other detail that blew my mind was how many sexual comments between Alex and Nick I had missed when I first saw the film (and how I may have been too young when I watched it!). I didn’t even think it was weird that she removes her bra in front of him! (<em>She probably wants to be more comfortable</em>, I thought.)<br />
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Plot wise, it’s not the most complex or unpredictable story, but it follows a familiar underdog/Cinderella journey that pleases most audiences. It also offers a few positive messages. One, the 80s became a turning point for women’s fitness. In <em>Flashdance</em>, not only does Alex ride her bike everywhere, but she also works out at her home-gym (<a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8NjbGr2nk2c" target="_blank">an impressive routine</a> which I tried to mimic once but somehow was not as graceful as she was) and lifts weights with her friends. Two, Alex is a good role model. Despite her youth, she has a clear sense of right and wrong (something her best friend doesn’t always have). She initially declines Nick’s invitations because she “doesn’t date the boss,” she’s self-sufficient, doesn’t allow men to disrespect her and saves her best friend from ending up in a strip club for the rest of her life. In addition, she has sophisticated tastes like going to the ballet with her elder friend and eating lobster (in a very provocative manner!) But the best thing is that the film sends an encouraging message about following our dreams no matter how far-fetched and difficult they may seem. <br />
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In the end, I’m happy to report that I still found this film enjoyable. <br />
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What do you think of it?</div>
<br />Lorenahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17848249911635132594noreply@blogger.com35tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3266371808927804670.post-58794889769104470042014-06-08T09:30:00.000-06:002014-06-11T09:51:17.477-06:00Dear Adult Readers of YA Fiction: Shame on You!<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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Friday, box-office records were shattered as John Green fans flocked to the theaters for the premier of <i>The Fault in Our Stars,</i> the film adaptation of his mega-bestselling YA novel. If you haven't read the book yet and intend to, though, please make sure you are 17 or under. If not, you are an embarrassment to yourself and other adults everywhere. An <i>embarrassment</i>.<br />
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At least, that's the pronouncement by Ruth Graham, a writer who caused a bit of a stir with <a href="http://www.slate.com/articles/arts/books/2014/06/against_ya_adults_should_be_embarrassed_to_read_children_s_books.html" target="_blank">this article</a> published in Slate magazine this week. In it, Graham wags the naughty stick at adult readers who play in the kiddie pool of YA fiction. As she bluntly puts it, "Adults <i>should</i> feel embarrassed about reading literature written for children." Marching straight out of Corinthians 13:11, she exhorts us to put away our childish ways and resign ourselves to our grim fates: nothing but a diet of literary broccoli sprouts for you, old readers! Fun times are over.<br />
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Some of our readers here might be surprised to find me less than sympathetic to Graham's attitude, since I've often professed my belief that reading challenging material stretches a person and reading junky books does not. I am not one who thinks reading, all by itself, is edifying. I would rather my kids sit down in front of quality television than curl up with <i>Twilight</i>. But I also think pleasure for pleasure's sake is a fine thing. In Graham's world, to the contrary, if you are getting pleasure from a YA book you're doing it wrong. "The very ways that YA is pleasurable are at odds with the way that adult fiction is pleasurable," she writes. One imagines Graham's "pleasurable adult fiction" existing in a lofty airless room, white and sterile, at the top of an ivory tower—with YA books relegated to a basement full of crayons and stuffed animals.<br />
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It is a measure of how parochial Graham's reading habits are that she has bifurcated the choice between these two extremes, and that she doesn't even think of other genres competing for the adult reader's attention. "If [adults] are substituting maudlin teen dramas for the complexity of great adult literature, then they are missing something," she writes. This is just silly: one imagines some serious woman with a sleek, silver bun and tiny spectacles wandering into a dusty bookshop in search of <i>War and Peace </i>and skipping out with aviator shades, a mohawk, and a copy of <i><a href="http://www.amazon.com/Why-We-Broke-Daniel-Handler/dp/0316127264" target="_blank">Why We Broke Up</a>. </i>Readers generally know what they intend to read. If they're keen on complex adult literature, they're unlikely to accidentally find themselves reading Harry Potter.<br />
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Not only is Graham worried about the bad effects on adults who read YA fiction, she is worried that teenagers will never graduate to the serious stuff. "I remember, when I was a young adult, being desperate to earn my way into the adult stacks," she writes. "I wouldn’t have wanted to live in a world where all the adults were camped out in mine ... But the YA and '<a href="http://www.usatoday.com/story/life/books/2013/04/15/new-adult-genre-is-the-hottest-category-in-book-publishing/2022707/">new adult</a>' boom may mean fewer teens aspire to grown-up reading, because the grown-ups they know are reading their books." What? How does that even follow? First of all, I don't know why she was desperate (and apparently unable) to read adult books when she was young. The rest of us managed. I started reading Stephen King when I was about 13, and most of my friends were reading VC Andrews' <i>Flowers in the Attic</i> even before that. As for "real adult literature," that was hardly kept on a high shelf out of our reach. It was thrust upon us well before we could appreciate it—it was called "English class." Finally, Graham's entire premise is flawed: Just because an adult reads John Green does not mean a teenager will never go on to read Cormac McCarthy.<br />
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Cormac McCarthy, you say? That's not what Graham's talking about; that's not <i>literature</i>. Well, McCarthy won a Pulitzer for <i>The Road,</i> a novel as creepy as any Stephen King and as likely to be appreciate by a teen audience. Which underlines yet another problem with Graham's piece: the division between genres is often arbitrary. Salinger, with his angsty adolescent protagonists, would likely be marketed as YA today. And anyone who has read Junot Diaz (another Pulitzer winner) will have a hard time distinguishing his sex-crazed, profanity-spewing young protagonists from those produced by a YA writer. I've read dozens of award-winning adult literary books in the past few years that have caused me, here and there, to cringe. No so for Graham, apparently, who claims, "I think of John Updike and Alice Munro and other authors whose work has only become richer to me as I have grown older, and which never makes me roll my eyes." Really? Updike? The man who was notorious for writing terrible sex scenes? One example: "He loved it when she would clamp his face between her thighs like a nutcracker and come." <i>Like a nutcracker.</i> Not even a tiny eye roll for that one, Ms. Graham?<br />
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So I have a few guesses to make about Graham: she hasn't read Updike recently, she doesn't read much of what she's judging, and she doesn't have teenage kids. That final point is important, because most adults I know who read YA do so because their kids are reading it. It's conventional wisdom that teenagers want to be left alone, don't want adults listening to their music or reading their books, and Graham echoes this. But is it true? The teenagers I know, including my own kids and those of my friends, enjoy having cultural touchpoints in common with adults. Both my kids not only read many of the same books I do, but actively look to me for book suggestions. My oldest child, 16, reads YA but in the past year has also read <i>The Poisonwood Bible, The Life of Pi, Oryx & Crake, Purple Hibiscus, The Kite Runner, </i>and<i> Never Let Me Go—</i>voluntarily<i>.</i> Some teachers at her school formed an extracurricular book club, just for fun, and plenty of teens signed up. They read only literary fiction. Right now she is reading <a href="http://www.amazon.com/Will-Grayson-John-Green/dp/0142418471" target="_blank">another John Green</a> novel, but she's also reading <a href="http://www.amazon.com/Moral-Tribes-Emotion-Reason-Between/dp/1480538728" target="_blank">this book</a> by Joshua Greene.<br />
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If my kids didn't want me "camped out" in their book world, they probably wouldn't be recommending their own books to me, would they? And yet if they discover a book they love, they not only encourage me to read it, they sometimes pester me to. That's how I ended up reading <i>The Fault in Our Stars,</i> in fact: I was harassed into it—and glad to be. My daughter and I had a great time discussing it afterward, and now we're bugging little brother to read it. Although we might simply go to see it in the theaters...if Ruth Graham and the YA police will let me in.<br />
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Stephaniehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02187854108656107958noreply@blogger.com9tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3266371808927804670.post-5423989547396976152014-05-30T00:30:00.000-06:002014-05-30T00:30:01.391-06:00Cephalopod Coffeehouse: RebeccaI got bogged down with some difficult books this month, which slowed my reading considerably. I reviewed my actual favorite book on my <a href="http://stephstuph.blogspot.com/" target="_blank">personal blog</a>, so I'm kind of covering the leftovers here. BUT! That's not to say I didn't like any of them. In fact, my second-favorite novel of the month was Daphne du Maurier's <i>Rebecca</i>, and I liked it quite a lot.<br />
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But first, real quick, what slowed me down: I waded through <a href="http://www.amazon.com/Long-Man-novel-Amy-Greene-ebook/dp/B00EX477EQ/ref=sr_1_1?s=digital-text&ie=UTF8&qid=1401410577&sr=1-1&keywords=long+man+amy+greene" target="_blank"><i>Long Man</i></a>, a new novel that's receiving <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2014/03/30/books/review/amy-greenes-long-man.html?_r=0" target="_blank">rave reviews</a> but which just never quite grabbed me. Possibly I needed the audiobook companion ... more and more, I find it difficult to get into books unless I have a couple solid hours with a good audiobook version. On the flipside, I listened to an audiobook lecture titled <a href="http://www.audible.com/pd/Nonfiction/The-Modern-Scholar-Philosophy-of-Mind-Audiobook/B0042QM4FC" target="_blank"><i>Philosophy of Mind</i></a> that was not exactly boring, but was technical and difficult. I thought I was reasonably good at philosophy, in a layperson way, but no. I found a lot of the content so abstract and almost mathematical as to be nearly impenetrable. And because it was only aural, I kept losing my concentration. Lesson learned: have an audio and visual copy of most anything before jumping in. (Yay for libraries.)<br />
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On to <i>Rebecca</i>. Although I got a degree in English literature, I'd never read du Maurier before. Last year <i>Rebecca</i> kept coming up in book review after book review. It seemed every new novel was an homage in some way to this 20th-century classic. So, because a book about a haunting kept haunting me, I figured I ought to give it a whirl.<br />
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<span style="text-align: center;">My first surprise was that it <i>was</i> a 20th-century novel. I was thinking... ghosts and English estates and brooding lords-of-the-manor, gotta be 1820 or so. That would be because the novel draws heavily on the Bronte sisters. However, it's actually fairly modern, more Great Gatsby than Wuthering Heights. <i>Rebecca</i> was published in 1938, the same year this photo was taken:</span><br />
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That is my grandmother. Isn't she lovely? She was 21 at the time, approximately the same age as the nameless narrator who tells the story of Rebecca. The narrator is a stand-in for du Maurier herself, who wrote the novel as an exploration of her own jealousy—her husband had a previous paramour that du Maurier suspected he was still a little in love with. (My grandmother, as far as I know, never had this issue.) <i>Rebecca</i> is not really a ghost story, I discovered—or at least not the story of an actual ghost. There is nothing supernatural here, in spite of the gothic setting and tone. The titular Rebecca does indeed haunt the narrator, but she does it by simply having existed and lived a huge life that the narrator, her opposite, constantly bangs into. Where the narrator is small, self-effacing, plain, uptight, moral, and a bit weedy, Rebecca was tall, extravagant, beautiful, luscious, and wicked.<br />
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Of course, the real center of the story is the truly evil Mrs. Danvers. The housekeeper steals every scene she is in. I couldn't help thinking of Frau Blücher from Young Frankenstein whenever she was described ... which made me giggle a little, which in turn took some of the creeping horror away from those scenes. That didn't stop me from gasping at one of the truly over-the-top scenes in the middle of the book, which was as delicious as it was theatrical. (For those who've read it: the bit where the narrator and Danvers are looking out the window over the paving stones.)<br />
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Stay close to zee candles. Zee stairway can be ... treacherous</td></tr>
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Once I got into this book, I was turning pages pretty feverishly. But it took a while. The narrator is a wimp, and wimpiness doesn't sit too well with modern readers, myself included. I had to keep reminding myself that novels aren't (always) prescriptive, and protagonists are not and shouldn't always be expected to be heroes. Protagonists should be allowed the full range of human experience, and cowardly, sniveling people have stories to tell too. We may not like being inside such a person's head, but if the story is plausible and well-written, with interesting characters, it's worth sitting with a problematic protagonist. It was for me.<br />
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<b>Want to read other Cephalopod Coffeehouse reviews, and/or participate in future ones? Visit our host, t<a href="http://armchairsquid.blogspot.com/" target="_blank">he Armchair Squid</a>. </b>Stephaniehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02187854108656107958noreply@blogger.com18tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3266371808927804670.post-91025087047974474742014-05-25T15:05:00.000-06:002014-05-25T15:05:29.953-06:00Starring: Tom Hardy's Face<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
I went to see the movie <i>Locke</i> this week, after hearing nothing but praise about the film from every critic I trust. It was not showing in the megaplex, but in a theater that tends toward Sundance and Cannes winners, so that gives you a notion of what the film is like. The other thing you need to know before going (which I did know, and which I warned my two companions to expect) is that the entire movie is set inside a BMW. Tom Hardy is the only human being we see, and he does nothing more than talk on the phone (and to himself) for the 85-minute duration. It's set in real time, so his 85 minutes are your 85 minutes.<br />
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When I told my son about the premise, he said, "That sounds awful." And I have to agree ... it does sound awful. And yet—it works. It certainly is a refreshing change-up from the CGI-filled, city-destroying, fire-breathing, smash-everything, superhero explody megamovies one usually finds in the theaters this time of year. (Or any time of year.) There's not much less cinematic than a dude talking into space for an hour and a half.</div>
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So how does this film work? Well, first, think of the screenplay as akin to <i>Waiting for Godot </i>(cited in the film, surely not by accident), in which the setting is static and dialogue is everything. Very good dialogue can carry a story forward, and the writing does about half the heavy lifting in this film. (So, writers: take note.) Tom Hardy's face does the rest of the lifting. For those who are familiar with his work, you already know what a phenomenal actor Hardy is. He is a chameleon, not a type actor. He can be the impassioned Heathcliff from <i>Wuthering Heights,</i> the cold, evil Bane from <i>The Dark Knight Rises,</i> or the silky, charismatic Eames from <i>Inception. </i>If there is one thing that holds true from character to character for him, it's a sense that he's simmering. Hardy always a bit coiled, a bit ready to explode. He brings that panther-like impression to his Locke character in this movie, which is one way the audience's attention is held rapt. <i>When will this Locke fellow lose his shit? </i>You know it's got to happen at some point.<br />
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You know it's going to happen because during the 85-minute car ride, Ivan Locke's life falls apart. We begin with him at his workplace, somewhere outside of London, where he is a foreman in a construction company that is just about to undertake “the biggest concrete pour in the history of Europe, barring nuclear and military.” So this is the eve of the biggest job of his career, and in the next few hours quite a bit hinges on the decisions he makes—and that's just at work. He's been a company man, a solid man, reliable and steady, for nine years. But as everyone is about to discover, he has not been entirely responsible. Almost, but not entirely. <i>Almost</i> a perfect employee. <i>Almost</i> a perfect husband and father.<br />
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As his wife is soon to remind him, <i>almost</i> counts for nada. One of the first calls he takes is from Bethan, a woman who is not his wife and who, we learn, is about to give birth to his child. Bethan is "quite old, she's forty-three," and "not an oil painting." The child was begat seven months ago, on a night that included two bottles of wine, forced time away from the wife, quite a bit of stress and loneliness, and a dose of pity for poor "old" Bethan. [On behalf of all 43-year-olds out there, meanwhile, I protest.] Bethan's labor has begun two months before term, so Locke has made a sudden decision to meet her at the hospital, rather than go home to a wife and two sons who have been waiting for him, anxious to watch the big football match.<br />
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Ivan Locke is a man determined to make things right. He knows he made a horrible mistake and he's determined not to muck things up more than they already are. He is a man, above all, trying to <i>be</i> a man. A real man, the kind who faces up to his responsibilities. What's driving him, we soon find out, is the spectacular failure of his own father. One of Locke's most impassioned conversations in the car is the one he has with his invisible, long-gone father. I would not qualify this bit of the film as one of its successes: all three of us were convinced for a bit that Locke was raving at a body in the trunk or something. The camera picks a few stand-ins for the father, including a patch of light in the rear window, a pair of headlights, and a backseat. It's confusing and a little odd.<br />
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While he's dealing with his daddy issues, meanwhile, things are going to hell with the construction project. (Of course they are: you don't have a story unless things are going to hell, and you especially don't have a man-driving-a-car story in which disaster isn't imminent.) Locke was supposed to guide the project to completion that very night, but because of the Bethan emergency he's ceding control to his deputy, the hapless Donal. While things go sideways with scared, drunken Donal, Locke also has to let his boss (whom Locke has labeled "Bastard" on speed dial ... layers of meaning there, of course) know that he's taking off for London, and why. "Bastard" is not happy. Locke gets yelled at. A lot. By everyone.<br />
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Hardy chooses to play Locke with a beautiful, melodious Welsh accent, which helps illustrate the careful control the character is trying to maintain. As tears well up and eventually spill down Locke's cheeks, his voice remains firm, reassuring, reasonable. Meanwhile, because it <i>is </i>Hardy on the screen, we can see the control beginning to slip.<i> When will he explode?</i><br />
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In spite of what I said about Godot, this film is not entirely static. It wouldn't make a good play. The cinematography, in fact, is key to maintaining tension. There are lights all around Locke. His face is bathed in light. Headlamps in his rearview mirror, traffic lights, oncoming headlights, brake lights ... and a lot of emergency vehicles. The audience may not even consciously notice all the ambulances sharing the road with Locke's Beemer, but these flashing lights and sirens plant the expectation of disaster. Locke is also as distracted a driver as you could get: he chugs down cough medicine, stares at his phone, reads pages of information to Donal, and argues with his invisible father in the backseat. His eyes are off the road quite a lot, and when they are on the road, we notice oncoming lights going in and out of focus, as if that's how Locke is seeing it. He looks exhausted, he's tearful, he's half-asleep. And then we get the call that the birth may not be going well, so in addition to wondering how that story is going to turn out, we're left wondering whether Locke will even survive long enough to get to the hospital. Tension, tension. It's how you keep an audience at the edge of their seat while never leaving one small claustrophobic setting.<br />
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In the end, I felt <i>Locke</i> was a redemption story, the story of an Everyman who has made his mistakes and is dealing with them head on. Locke is not a superhero, he's a regular hero. An ordinary working stiff and family man who's doing his level best not to screw it all up too badly. Students of philosophy won't miss the reference to John Locke, and indeed director Steven Knight says the title character's name is not a coincidence. "Although these events won’t make the paper or the local news, for the people involved it’s the end of the world and that does deserve a film, it’s worthy of drama," Knight says in <a href="http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/04/24/tom-hardy-locke_n_5204902.html" target="_blank">this interview</a>. "Just deciding that in an ordinary man’s life there are events that are tragedy, in the classic sense. He’s called Locke because he’s the John Locke philosopher of rationality, and he’s trying to do stuff logically." Not only that, but John Locke believed humans were blank slates, whose selves were determined by deliberate action and choice. The choices Ivan Locke makes in these 85 minutes determine what kind of man he is and will be; by his own definition, by his own will.<br />
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<i>A few interesting facts I learned about the movie as I researched it for this piece:</i><br />
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• Hardy didn't learn the lines; he read them from a script that was projected in front of him, and in some scenes he reacted organically to live phone calls from the other actors.<br />
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• The whole film was shot in eight days.<br />
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• The movie was filmed in real time, as if it were indeed a play. They did not stop for reshoots. From the NY Times: "In effect, they shot the entire film twice a night, breaking only to change the cameras’ memory cards, every 27 minutes."<br />
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• Most of the time Hardy sat in a car that was itself sitting on a flatbed attached to the back of a truck. The truck was driven down a highway as the crew filmed.<br />
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<b>Have you seen Locke? What did you think? If you haven't seen it, does the premise intrigue or repel you?</b><br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiLWoCIX83G-FMQszxBYod9NrzmgpafafphLWkcy4uHNky8egDQXQ_dy6eYf6Hkir-frR7WXhqHdYX5I2caLv9nR9ByQQjgel5Msxi9OK3pfVwZMv_6LD5VT1gq3S9JQE_l6AOnzDOzeoWX/s1600/Screen+Shot+2014-05-22+at+4.38.16+PM.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiLWoCIX83G-FMQszxBYod9NrzmgpafafphLWkcy4uHNky8egDQXQ_dy6eYf6Hkir-frR7WXhqHdYX5I2caLv9nR9ByQQjgel5Msxi9OK3pfVwZMv_6LD5VT1gq3S9JQE_l6AOnzDOzeoWX/s1600/Screen+Shot+2014-05-22+at+4.38.16+PM.png" height="608" width="640" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">From www.rottentomatoes.com</td></tr>
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Stephaniehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02187854108656107958noreply@blogger.com7tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3266371808927804670.post-37279856870708391242014-05-18T12:23:00.000-06:002014-05-21T11:32:02.906-06:00A Word with Diana Gabaldon and George R. R. Martin<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
Last weekend, my writing sisters and I attended a fun event sponsored by our city library and a local bookstore. <em>A Word with Writers</em> consists of a candid conversation between two acclaimed authors who share experiences and anecdotes about their writing. The inaugural lecture featured none other than the beloved Diana Gabaldon, the author of the <em>Outlander</em> series, and George R. R. Martin, the brains behind the successful <em>Game of Thrones</em>. They both had a lot to say about what inspired their work and what their writings processes are like. Here are some of the evening’s highlights.<br />
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<strong><span style="color: #741b47;">About their backgrounds and what inspired their books:</span></strong><br />
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Gabaldon’s background is very interesting because she’s a scientist with degrees in zoology, marine biology and ecology. She blames her father for this copious amount of studying since when she was young, he had told her that she was a “poor judge of character” and would probably marry badly. To avoid a life or poverty, he recommended that she became a self-reliant professional. Gabaldon obediently got her PhD.</div>
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In her mid-thirties, Gabaldon decided to write a novel, more as practice than anything (she didn’t intend for anyone to read her work). Since she was so good at doing research and she liked history, she decided it would be a historical novel. Now the only question was where/when should she set it? The answer came to her while she was watching an episode of Dr. Who and spotted a man in a kilt. She was so taken by this man that she decided to write about a Scotsman. Being that a novel requires conflict (to her own admission, this was all she knew about novel-writing) she settled on the Scottish wars against England during the 1700s. Of course, she needed a woman to create some sexual tension with this beautiful man. Claire came to Gabaldon through an image of a woman in a cave full of men. She was English and very different from other 18th century women. When Claire opened her mouth, she recited her full name. There was nothing Gabaldon could do to tame her modern spirit. She fought with her throughout the novel, but eventually gave up and told her: “Go ahead and be modern, I’ll figure out why later.” In that sense, she confesses, the time-traveling element in <em>Outlander</em> was an accident.</div>
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In contrast, <em>Ser</em> George had always been a writer and a reader. He was a Sci Fi, Fantasy and Horror fan—which used to be the same genre—and as a child, he wrote and sold horror stories to other kids. He eventually earned a master's degree in journalism. For many years, he worked in Hollywood as a TV writer in shows such as <em>The Twilight Zone</em> and <em>The Beauty and the Beast</em>, but there came a time where he wanted to work on his own stories, and so he turned to novel writing. When asked about his inspiration, he mentioned Tolkien as a big influence.</div>
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<strong><span style="color: #741b47;">About their writing processes:</span></strong><br />
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Martin offered an interesting analogy for writers. He said there are two kinds of novelists: gardeners and architects. An architect designs a blueprint, plans how he’s going to develop it and then does it. A gardener digs a hole in the ground, throws seeds and water, and hopes something will grow. Martin admits he’s a gardener. When he started <em>A Song of Ice and Fire</em>, he didn’t have a clear idea of where he was going with the story. All he had was the first scene and characters who kept telling him what they wanted. But characters can be treacherous, he says, and like a gardener he sometimes has to pull out weeds—which might explain why he kills so many of them!</div>
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Following the same analogy, Gabaldon also calls herself a gardener. However, her process is not linear, like Martin’s, but “organic.” She gets an image in her head and fleshes it out into a scene. Once she has several chunks, or scenes, she stitches them together into a narrative. She admits that when she started she didn’t know anything about writing novels (she had, however, written a 400-page dissertation). So she set two rules for herself: a) she wouldn’t stop, no matter what, and b) she would do the best she could.</div>
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Before she was done with the first <em>Outlander </em>book, she found an agent who was so taken with her story he signed her on right away and sold her book in four days. She didn’t originally plan to write so many sequels, she just knew that “there was more.” Her agent originally got her a three-book deal, but the novels kept coming. Her writing is so accidental that her next series following the adventures of Lord John, a secondary character in the Outlander series, came about because she was invited to participate in an anthology of short stories. Since she didn’t want to interfere with <em>Outlander’s</em> main characters and plot, she thought of Lord John—who then took a life of his own.</div>
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Martin agreed with Gabaldon in that he didn’t plan to write such a long series either, but he was happy to do it since readers nowadays love to follow characters for 10-15 years. He says his entire series is one continuous story told in several books. <br />
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Diana Gabaldon and George R. R. Martin signing autographs</td></tr>
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<strong><span style="color: #741b47;">About their use of language:</span></strong><br />
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Since Martin’s novels are set in a “quasi medieval world” he had to find a balance between modern syntax (so the audience wouldn’t be lost) and flavoring his text with archaic words to give the novel a proper context and avoid anachronisms. He called this the “common tongue of all fantasy novels.” He initially overused words like “mayhaps” or “forsooth,” but his editor objected. They reached a compromise by having the older characters use these terms and the younger ones employing a more modern language—as it tends to happen in real life.</div>
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Martin did not invent languages the way Tolkien did (he joked that Tolkien wrote <em>The Lord of the Rings</em> just so he could use his languages) but he made up five words of High Valyrian, and will make up a 6th if necessary. For the show, however, whole languages had to be invented since you can't just say, "She said in High Valyrian." Now when he writes a scene, he has to call HBO to ask how a character might say something in whatever language. The show hires people whose hobby is to invent languages with proper syntax and grammar to develop Dothraki and High Valyrian. As a funny anecdote, Martin mentioned that a fan once requested a High Valyrian dictionary.</div>
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Gabaldon mentioned that she has a few translators who help her with Gaelic, and she loves the sound of it.</div>
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<strong><span style="color: #741b47;">About their TV shows:</span></strong><br />
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Gabaldon announced that the <em>Outlander</em> series is now in production. The producer, who had previously worked in <em>Battlestar Galactica</em>, took two days to talk to her about the show. They decided that as a prologue, they would show a scene of Claire in a military hospital during WWII. Gabaldon had a blast inside the “Outlander world.” She admitted that at first she didn’t like <a href="http://www.imdb.com/name/nm1537825/" target="_blank">the actor</a> selected to play Jamie Fraser, but after seeing his audition she knew he would be absolutely perfect for the role (even though he accidentally said "OK" during a scene where Jamie was being pressured to marry Claire).</div>
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It took a lot longer to find Claire and poor Sam had to go through innumerable "chemistry tests.” Eventually, they found <a href="http://www.imdb.com/name/nm2928020/?ref_=tt_cl_t3" target="_blank">an actress</a> who had the right chemistry with Sam and would play the perfect Claire. When someone asked Gabaldon if she would like to write for TV, she confessed she’s not a team player and likes to keep control of her writing.</div>
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Martin, on the other hand, mentioned that he writes one script per season and would love to write more, but he has yet to finish two 1500-page books. Yeah, you read correctly.</div>
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What’s interesting is that both shows will share actors. Apparently the BBC has churned out twenty or so actors, who participate in everything involving an English or Scottish accent. Every single one of them is in <em>Game of Thrones</em>, and, according to Martin, will appear in the <em>Outlander</em> series after they are killed off from GoT. (Ha!)</div>
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<strong><span style="color: #741b47;">Anecdotes and questions:</span></strong><br />
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Martin was asked which part of Westeros he'd choose to live in, if he could. He said Dorn. "It's warm, the women are warm and the food is spicy. It's New Mexico!"<br />
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Gabaldon mentioned that during an interview with a German reporter, tired to keep her tongue in check, she said she loved a man in a kilt because "you know he could have you up against a wall in 30 seconds."<br />
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When asked about their thoughts on self-publishing, neither one of them recommended it. Martin said writers are supposed to write, not publish or market books. He commented how sad it was to see writers desperately trying to sell their work in Bubonicon conferences and such, and how people often avoid them. Martin thinks that self-publishing is only a good idea for well-known authors whose names alone sell books.<br />
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They both acknowledged that it’s not easy to break into publishing, but the only thing a writer can do is keep writing.<br />
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In spite of the fans who wanted hints about how both series will end, neither Gabaldon nor Martin said a word. The only thing Gabaldon admitted to was having written the last scene ten years ago. “How I will get there is an entirely different question,” she said.<br />
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<strong><span style="color: #741b47;">On a side note:</span></strong></div>
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This has been a year of changes and exciting new opportunities for me. I would like to share some of them with you, my dear readers. First, I have a new agent for my generational saga (the first novel I wrote) the awesome Liza Fleissig of the Liza Royce Agency! Last but not least, my historical novel, <em>The Black Letter</em>, has made it to the Amazon Breakout Novel Contest Quarter Finals! If you’d like to take a look, you can find an excerpt <a href="http://amzn.to/1l9fUAL" target="_blank">here</a>. </div>
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Lorenahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17848249911635132594noreply@blogger.com16tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3266371808927804670.post-82257076235116687972014-05-11T15:22:00.000-06:002014-05-11T15:22:21.384-06:00Some of the Best (and Worst) Moms in Entertainment!I had a completely different post in mind for this week, but the Sisters convinced me to go with a Mother's Day theme. I thought a lot about how to narrow down the broad range of mother portrayals out there, and I couldn't come up with just one medium of entertainment to use. So, here are moms you'll find in film and television and which ones I enjoy and ones that make me so glad I had my own mom raising me. It's kind of a mixed bag, so feel free to let me know about your favorites!<br />
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<b><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #cc0000;">MOTHERHOOD ACCORDING TO DISNEY</span></b><br />
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Now, I know there are those single fathers who are thrown into the mix like Belle's father in <i>Beauty and the Beast </i>and Jasmine's father in <i>Aladdin</i>, but, hey, dads have there own day, so let's focus on the mothers.<br />
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><i><b><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #cc0000;">Snow White's Evil Queen<br />Wouldn't you want to sit across from her<br />at Thanksgiving?</span></b></i></td></tr>
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<li><b><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #351c75;">Worst mothers in a Disney film</span></b>: I'd think most of you would agree that stepmothers get a bad rap when run through the almighty Disney machine and spit out on the other side. You have Snow White running for her life and eventually living with seven little men. I can't imagine any mother wanting her daughter to live with another man at Snow White's age, let alone seven of them. But, when your Evil Stepmother is out to kill you, you take what you can get. At least they were nice little men. Snow White's mother takes the cake for horrible mothering skills, but Cinderella's stepmother ranks right up there with her. Not only does she ban Cinderella to the ashes of the kitchen, but she locks her away in the attic when the Prince shows up. Keeping a girl from her man, especially a nice man like the Prince, is like playing with fire. Last but not least is Mother Gothel and the Tangled web she weaves. Like the witchy Evil Stepmother's downfall in Snow White, I also enjoy Mother Gothel's disappearing demise in the end.</li>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><b><i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #cc0000;">Queen Leah looking very worried.</span></i></b></td></tr>
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<li><b><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #351c75;">Best mothers in a Disney film</span></b>: I don't know if all of you would agree with me, but I have a soft spot for Aurora's (Sleeping Beauty's) mother. Here is a woman who sadly gives her brand new baby over to three fairies just so her daughter can stay alive. For me, that is such a heart-wrenching moment in the film. Grant it, maybe she should have swallowed her pride and invited Maleficent to the christening, but who would've wanted such a malicious woman like that at the special event? I think Maleficent dug her own grave when she placed a spell of death on the innocent baby. Then there's the saddest mommy story of all when it comes to a Disney film: Bambi's mother. 'Nuff said.</li>
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<b><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #cc0000;">MOTHERHOOD ACCORDING TO PIXAR</span></b><br />
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Do you see my animation theme here? Don't worry. I'll get into some harding hitting stuff here in a minute.<br />
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><b><i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #cc0000;">She's not seen very often in the films, but here's Andy<br />with his mom in the Toy Story 3.</span></i></b></td></tr>
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<li><b><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #351c75;">Worst mothers in a Pixar film</span></b>: Where's Boo's mother in <i>Monster's Inc.</i>? This little girl is missing for what seems like days in the human world, but we never know if her mother is worried about where her toddler has run off to. On another note, I think Remy's mother has way too many children to look after in <i>Ratatouille</i>. There should be a limit on the number of rats a rat can have.</li>
<li><b><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #351c75;">Best mothers in a Pixar film</span></b>: Worst is harder with this category. Pixar does a great job at creating kick-ass, loving, and hard-working mothers. One of my favorites would have to be Andy's mom from <i>Toy Story</i>. She seems to have a sense of humor, and when you watch all three films and follow her over time, you know she's always had Andy's best interests at heart. Another personal favorite of mine is Elastigirl from <i>The Incredibles</i>. She puts up with a lot, especially when it comes to fights at the dinner table and saving her family from imminent danger. She's one tough cookie. Finally, I don't think I could round out this category without mentioning Queen Elinor, Merida's mother from <i>Brave</i>. It's not my favorite Pixar film, but their story is one of sincere mother and daughter love.</li>
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<b><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #cc0000;">MOTHERHOOD ACCORDING TO TELEVISION</span></b><br />
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I know, I know. This is a broad category and I bet many of you fear I'm going to include June Cleaver. (Ironically enough, Barbara Billingsley, the actress who played June, was a single mom off-screen.) No, my plan is to focus on samples from the last twenty years, so don't worry.<br />
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><b><i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #cc0000;">If you haven't watched it and you<br />love the 80s, well...what are<br />you waiting for!</span></i></b></td></tr>
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<li><b><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #351c75;">Worst mothers on television</span></b>: If you're a fan of <i>Revenge</i>, then you've got to know that the most scheming mother in the world shows up there: Victoria Grayson. She has one of the most fantastic wardrobes, but sometimes all her malicious scheming makes my head hurt. Then there's Regina from <i>Once Upon a Time</i> who has an adopted son she barely pays any attention to. Why should she when she's busy taking down Storybrooke? I always find it interesting that Alexis on <i>Castle</i> has a mother who's consistently AWOL. I haven't been able to watch the last half of this season, so I don't know if she pops up at all. All I know is that she certainly didn't partake in many of the child rearing duties. I don't want to inundate you with too many, because I'm sure you have many other awful mothers circling in your minds. These are simply a sample.</li>
<li><b><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #351c75;">Best mothers on television</span></b>: Can I just say that even though she's a bit dippy at times that I absolutely love Lindsay and Sam's mom on <i>Freaks and Geeks</i>? Even though she reads her daughter's diary during that one episode, she learns from her mistake. Another, more recent, television mother who makes me roar with laughter is Beverly Goldberg on <i>The Goldbergs</i>. She loves her "scrumptious" boys, puts up with a pants-less husband most of the time, and does her best not to cuss out the neighbors when their son breaks up with her daughter. Priceless. Another mom I'll throw into this category to round it out is Tami Taylor from <i>Friday Night Lights</i>. She juggles a new baby, a temperamental husband, and an irate teenage daughter. And she always looks good doing it!</li>
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<b><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #cc0000;">MOTHERHOOD ACCORDING TO FILM</span></b></div>
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Movies are perhaps the most relatable, since many of us have viewed the same films. Again, as I did with the other categories, I'll only give a sample of the many moms who have graced the Silver Screen.</div>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><b><i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #cc0000;">If you haven't seen Grey Gardens,<br />then you're missing out on a<br />crazy good film!</span></i></b></td></tr>
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<li><b><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #351c75;">Worst mothers in film</span></b>: If you're a fan of films from the 70s, then you know that Joanna Kramer in <i>Kramer vs. Kramer</i> is the poster child (mom?) for child abandonment. She leaves the family once, only to come back over a year later to gain sole custody of her son. She gets custody, but then leaves him behind once more. Nothing like glamorous abandonment with Meryl Streep playing the role. One bad mommy role that always gives me the creeps is April Wheeler from <i>Revolutionary Road</i>. The woman is so hell-bent on aborting her child that she's willing to risk her own life by doing the procedure herself, but winds up botching the whole thing in the process. And, of course, the role of horrible mothers wouldn't be cemented without a little <i>Mommie Dearest</i> on the side for portraying the psychotic nature of Joan Crawford. Last, but not least, I want to give a shout out to <i>Grey Gardens</i>. If you haven't seen it, you definitely should. Just bring a strong stomach with you.</li>
<li><b><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #351c75;">Best mothers in film</span></b>: In <i>Little Women</i>, mother Margaret (Marmee) is always there for her daughters. She lets them be themselves during a time when it was hard for a woman to step out of any role set in stone for her. At the same time, though, she makes sure to teach them about helping the poor, loving their neighbor, and strengthening their own self-worth. <i>Stepmom</i> with Susan Sarandon and Julia Roberts is one of those films where you're glad to see the bond between two women trying to take care of the same set of kids. It's touching to see as their relationship melts from one of anger and cold indifference to an understanding that the baton will be passed and how to best go about doing it. Stepmoms don't seem as evil as they should be in this film. Finally, <i>The Blind Side</i> is one of those movies that makes you glad that people are willing to adopt children at any age. Leigh Anne Tuohy doesn't see only an aspiring ball player, but a young man struggling to keep his head above water enough to graduate high school.</li>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEirFJE3RoGCaGlU-auExqXFMPbTeZRCccnozEhQ61JVLsVA4RtAzUiFzkMnF9FWi6VMXWtleYN1kc-QSYfvfIzyU4HisIOHsFovSz2-5LHSGLd_J0rQERV01H5vCmzT0yu4GbJnQmzeG7o/s1600/Little_women_poster.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEirFJE3RoGCaGlU-auExqXFMPbTeZRCccnozEhQ61JVLsVA4RtAzUiFzkMnF9FWi6VMXWtleYN1kc-QSYfvfIzyU4HisIOHsFovSz2-5LHSGLd_J0rQERV01H5vCmzT0yu4GbJnQmzeG7o/s1600/Little_women_poster.jpg" height="320" width="213" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><i><b><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #cc0000;">A sweet one to watch with your<br />mom if you haven't done so<br />already!</span></b></i></td></tr>
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Okay, so that's just a sampling of films to give you an idea of what I see as good mommy roles verses bad mommy roles. You may agree, disagree, or simply be indifferent to the whole thing, but whatever you do, go watch a great Mother's Day film with your mom. </div>
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<b><i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #cc0000;">HAPPY MOTHER'S DAY!</span></i></b></div>
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Let me know what great mom films you like (or despise)!</div>
Mary Maryhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09429769115085903305noreply@blogger.com9tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3266371808927804670.post-2143772738830610502014-05-04T16:18:00.002-06:002014-05-04T16:18:47.790-06:00The Death of the Independent BookstoreFor a few years we had a real treasure in our neighborhood: a locally-owned bookshop. It was in a shopping plaza nestled between a coffee shop and a bike store. Both those businesses failed but the book store persisted. And then it expanded: from a fairly mainstream setup, like a smaller-scale Barnes & Noble, it went niche and grew. They acquired another location nearby — though not, unfortunately, adjacent — and opted to brand themselves as a children's bookshop. One location stocked mostly baby through middle-grade books, with a few shelves of nonfiction; the other concentrated on YA books and speculative fiction, although it had a healthy stock of general fiction as well. Around Christmas, when I went in to do my usual holiday shopping, I saw they were clearing a space for a coffee bar. A few months later I went in on a Friday night and a local band was playing: this was, they told me, a regular Friday event now. The YA store had become (appropriately) a hangout for teens. Only ... very few teens were actually in the store. Nobody was really in the store.<br />
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Then, last week, I saw the news on their Facebook page: "With heavy hearts we are facing the last days of our wonderful bookstore adventure. We will be closing our doors this summer." I can't say I was entirely shocked, as too frequently I was the only shopper there, but I was very disappointed. This bookstore added to the community what independent bookstores always add: a place to meet other book nerds, a warm and intellectual richness to the plaza, a shopping space that was quiet and peaceful, and a place to go and get book recommendations from real people. Knowledgable people. I had come to know the men and women who worked at our bookshop, and we'd fall into long geeky conversations about our favorite books, often excitedly running to the shelves to pull out some treasure, pressing into each other hands and gushing, "You have <i>got</i> to read this!" The kind of recommendations I got from these guys was totally different than what Amazon's big-data bots would tell me to buy. Just yesterday, the Bookshop Guy handed me <a href="http://cathcrowley.com.au/books/graffiti-moon/" target="_blank">this book</a> to read — a quirky little delight, he said, that I'd never have heard of otherwise.<br />
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So what's killing these bookstores? I suspect one problem in this case was just a matter of sinking too much money into the store too quickly, expanding beyond what it was able to sustain. It was doing OK when it was just the one store. But in general, one cause is obvious: print books are giving way to ebooks. For a quality rant on this topic, you can read Seth Godin's grumpy-old-man screed <a href="http://sethgodin.typepad.com/seths_blog/2013/08/an-end-of-books.html?utm_medium=twitter&utm_source=twitterfeed" target="_blank">here</a>. Although I do find it a bit odd for a young technophile to be this curmudgeonly about ebooks, he has plenty of company. Most people, I have found, feel and think this way about books these days ... even as they participate in the new, "worse" paradigm.<br />
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Another cause, which encompasses the former, is capitalism. As much as I favor Adam Smith over Karl Marx, it's not hard to see various downsides of laissez-faire these days. Market forces are rarely going to favor tiny-local over giant-corporate, so any shop that is local and independently owned is inherently fragile. You can find lots of blogs and articles urging consumers to buy local, to support independent alternatives, to keep City X "weird," and so forth. But exhortations are unlikely to overcome the allure of cheap goods ... especially when said goods can be delivered right to your door. (Or to your e-reader.) I can't see a way out of this, myself: it seems we're on an irrevocable course to the disappearance of all things small and local and to the Walmartization of everything. <br /><br />Hmm ... now <i>I'm</i> the one being curmudgeonly.<br />
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But wait! Rescuing me from this doom and gloom is a wisp of promise. As I began writing this piece, I googled "death of independent bookstore," because of course. Curiously, however, most of the hits I got were about the <i>resurgence</i> of independent bookstores. Apparently, in spite of the death of my neighborhood shop, many indie bookstores are doing all right. The key seems to be "small and niche." Of course, our store tried that tactic and it didn't work, but they may have been working against a few other obstacles, too. Expanding too quickly, as I noted earlier, and locating themselves in a shopping plaza without much foot traffic. When I've gone to successful indie bookshops in other cities, such as <a href="http://www.waucomabookstore.com/" target="_blank">this one</a> and <a href="http://www.mariasbookshop.com/" target="_blank">this one</a>, I've noticed that they're located in pedestrian-heavy areas, especially in vibrant downtowns. Foot traffic and local-indie go together. People who are out shopping as an <i>event</i>, like tourists, or girlfriends having a shop + coffee afternoon, are the kind of people who end up patronizing the cute little bookshop. It's not the sort of destination people build into their schedule, like trips to the grocery store.<br />
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For local indie bookstores to survive and thrive, they (and we who love them) have to think of what they offer that Barnes & Noble does not, that Amazon does not. What magical ingredients could we think of to help this happen? Combining bookshop with coffee shop? Book shop with ... wine bar? (Now <i>that</i> would draw me in.) Cookbookery shop with cookware and specialty foods store?<br />
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What do you think could keep these community assets alive ... or do you (like <a href="http://www.slate.com/articles/technology/technology/2011/12/independent_bookstores_vs_amazon_buying_books_online_is_better_for_authors_better_for_the_economy_and_better_for_you_.html" target="_blank">Farhad Manjoo</a>) think it's time for these "cultish, moldering institutions" to give up the ghost, already?<br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://www.pw.org/files/imagecache/conference_pic/literary_site_images/parnassus_books.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="http://www.pw.org/files/imagecache/conference_pic/literary_site_images/parnassus_books.jpg" height="240" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Parnassus Books: author Ann Patchett's own indie bookshop</td></tr>
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<br />Stephaniehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02187854108656107958noreply@blogger.com7tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3266371808927804670.post-48210020873526364862014-04-25T10:24:00.000-06:002014-04-25T18:02:33.262-06:00The Cephalopod Coffeehouse: Waiting to be Heard <br />
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By now, you’ve probably heard of Amanda Knox. You may even have
an opinion about her case and whether or not you think she was involved in the
murder of her roommate, Meredith Kercher. My interest in the case started when
Amanda was acquitted a couple of years ago, but it grew with recent
developments (in January, her appeal was reversed). In addition to the
popularity of the case, I became interested in her memoir as a source of
research for my third novel since it also deals with an exchange student who
gets into trouble abroad. <o:p></o:p></div>
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After all that has been said about Amanda on news shows,
magazines, the internet and even a made-for-TV movie, Amanda finally gives us
her version of the story. In a prose that is easy to follow and insightful, we
meet Amanda a few months before she moves to <st1:place w:st="on"><st1:city w:st="on">Perugia</st1:city>, <st1:country-region w:st="on">Italy</st1:country-region></st1:place>.
We get to know her parents, her siblings and her sometimes quirky and
adventurous nature in her native Seattle, where she has planned in some detail
her year of studies in Italy—a lifelong dream of hers. <o:p></o:p></div>
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Amanda is not very different from other people her age who
travel abroad. I also traveled to <st1:place w:st="on">Europe</st1:place> in my
early twenties and Amanda seemed as ordinary as any other girl I met during my trip.
I won’t go into too much detail about her story since: a) it’s all over the
internet and b) if I tell you too much, you won’t want to read it (and if you’re
interested in her story, I believe it’s worth reading. Especially because we’re
so used to making quick judgments based on what the media tells us.)<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I’ll just say that Amanda goes into great
detail about those first months in <st1:country-region w:st="on"><st1:place w:st="on">Italy</st1:place></st1:country-region>, the people she associated
with, her relationship with her roommates, the boys she met, etc. She doesn’t
portray herself as a saint as she admits to having smoked pot and engaged in
sexual activity with two or three guys. This, she says, were
mistakes the media and the prosecution exploited during her first trial.<o:p></o:p></div>
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Amanda claims her relationship with Meredith was good. According
to her, they were confidents and friends who explored the city together and
shared similar experiences (both were English speakers trying to find their way
through a new culture and a new language). Then she describes the moment she
met Raffaele—her then boyfriend and partner in this ordeal—their short-lived
but intense relationship, the day Meredith died, the police interrogations, her
two trials and her life in prison. She brings insight into a few things that
are not explored much on the internet or news shows:</div>
<ul>
<li>What, according to Amanda, happened during the interrogation where she accused her boss of killing Meredith (and later admitted to lying about it). She offers a theory as to why she lied that night. </li>
</ul>
<ul>
<li>During her appeal, there was an important testimony from a man who’d been imprisoned with Meredith’s convicted killer (Rudy Guede, who’s DNA was all over Meredith’s room). This man said Guede confessed to having raped and stabbed Meredith in conjunction with “a friend” (who wasn’t Raffaele or Amanda, which is what the prosecution alleges). In fact, Guede was supposedly having a moral dilemma as to what to say during their appeal. (Guede had a separate trial and conviction from Amanda and Raffaele.) This story made more sense to me than the prosecution’s theories of a “sexual game gone bad” or a “Halloween Eve sacrifice.” </li>
</ul>
<ul>
<li>Explanations as to why there were traces of Amanda and Raffaele’s DNA in a couple of items that the prosecution assigned as proof of their culpability. </li>
</ul>
<ul>
<li>Insights on the people in Amanda’s life in prison and outside. I was especially touched by three people in her life: a Catholic priest who befriended Amanda—an agnostic—during her hardest times in prison (Don Saulo); one of her best friends from Seattle who moved to Perugia to be near Amanda after she was sentenced to 26 years in prison (Madison) and Laura, an American inmate who grew up in Ecuador and became sort of a foster mom or older sister to her. Amanda’s family is also commendable as they never abandoned Amanda and during her four-year-ordeal always made sure someone was in Italy on visiting days. Her stepfather went as far as to move to Perugia for some time. Amanda’s story, as sad as it is, also serves as a testimony that goodness is sometimes found in the most unexpected places. </li>
</ul>
After reading Amanda’s memoir, I conclude that yes, she made
MANY mistakes, primarily not taking the police interrogations seriously—she
didn’t wait for a lawyer to be present and she never called the American
embassy before answering questions in a language that she didn’t speak well.
Her lying during one of her confessions, I admit, is hard to understand and
made me wonder if she was covering up for something else (heavy drug use?)
however, I do not believe she was involved in Meredith’s attack. It just
doesn’t make sense. Our civilization has become SO reliant on technology that
sometimes we drop common sense out the window. The prosecution claims that a
girl like Amanda—with no prior convictions and a model student who came from a
good family—is guilty of murdering (savagely) and raping her friend (when she
doesn’t even have the *right* equipment, if you know what I mean). What we do
know is that there is no motive. The prosecution claimed Amanda and Meredith
argued over the bathroom’s cleanliness, but only a psychopath would kill over
this, right? Not to mention the fact that there is no evidence of her presence
in Meredith’s room. The prosecution claimed Amanda and Raffaele wiped their own
DNA in the room but left Guede’s, as though it was possible to see DNA! Plus,
there was no proven relationship between Guede and Amanda or Raffaele (Raffaele
said he’d never met the man and Amanda said she saw Guede once or twice with
her downstairs neighbors but couldn’t even remember his name.)<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p><br />
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I truly believe that Amanda’s problems stemmed from her
immaturity and naivety at the time of her trip. Not only was she cavalier about
who she spent time with (including working at a bar with people she barely
knew) smoking pot on a regular basis and having sex with guys she’d just met. Unfortunately,
this is not uncommon in people her age. When I moved to the <st1:place w:st="on"><st1:country-region w:st="on">US</st1:country-region></st1:place> to go to college, I had the
fortune of having a couple of family members here to guide me through the
process of moving to a different country and start a new life as an adult.
Also, my parents came with me and helped me settle in the dorms. When Amanda
arrived to <st1:country-region w:st="on"><st1:place w:st="on">Italy</st1:place></st1:country-region>,
she had nowhere to live and found her new roommates on a bulletin board. I
know, LOTS of college kids do this, but this doesn’t mean it isn’t dangerous.
ESPECIALLY in a different country where you barely speak the language and you don’t
know the “rules of the land.”<o:p></o:p></div>
<br />
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By the end of the book, however, you see Amanda as a
different woman. Not sure this has to do with the fact that Amanda is a writer
(currently studying Creative Writing in Seattle) and she knows that in every
journey, the hero must show change and growth, or that she truly matured with
all the hardship she went through, but her transformation was evident to me.<o:p></o:p></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">Have you been
following this case or read her memoir? Do you believe in her innocence? What
do you think will happen now that her appeal got reversed? Do you think the <st1:country-region w:st="on">US</st1:country-region> will extradite her to <st1:country-region w:st="on"><st1:place w:st="on">Italy</st1:place></st1:country-region>? Do you
think it’s fair that she was tried twice for the same crime? </b><br />
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"></b><br />
Check out these coffeehouse reviews!<br />
<br />
<table class="sl_linktable" id="sltable_6a4eb6f5-c997-423b-9bac-0cdda9ec44fa"><tbody>
<tr><td width="5%">1.</td><td width="45%"><a href="http://armchairsquid.blogspot.com/" rel="nofollow" target="_blank"><span style="color: #3778cd;">The Armchair Squid</span></a></td><td width="5%">2.</td><td width="45%"><a href="http://mycreativelyrandomlife.blogspot.ca/" rel="nofollow" target="_blank"><span style="color: #3778cd;">My Creatively Random Life</span></a></td></tr>
<tr><td width="5%">3.</td><td width="45%"><a href="https://www.blogger.com/null" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">Wishbone Soup Cures Everything</a></td><td width="5%">4.</td><td width="45%"><a href="http://www.flyingplatypi.com/" rel="nofollow" target="_blank"><span style="color: #3778cd;">Valerie Nunez and the Flying Platypi</span></a></td></tr>
<tr><td width="5%">5.</td><td width="45%"><a href="http://spiritcalled.blogspot.com/" rel="nofollow" target="_blank"><span style="color: #3778cd;">Huntress</span></a></td><td width="5%">6.</td><td width="45%"><a href="http://servitorludi.blogspot.com/" rel="nofollow" target="_blank"><span style="color: #3778cd;">Servitor Ludi</span></a></td></tr>
<tr><td width="5%">7.</td><td width="45%"><a href="http://cmock127.blogspot.com/" rel="nofollow" target="_blank"><span style="color: #3778cd;">MOCK</span></a></td><td width="5%">8.</td><td width="45%"><a href="http://strangepegs.blogspot.com/2014/04/abandoned-places-north-brother-island.html" rel="nofollow" target="_blank"><span style="color: #3778cd;">StrangePegs -- Mrs. Frisby and the Rats of NIMH</span></a></td></tr>
<tr><td width="5%">9.</td><td width="45%"><a href="http://stephstuph.blogspot.com/" rel="nofollow" target="_blank"><span style="color: #3778cd;">Words Incorporated</span></a></td><td width="5%">10.</td><td width="45%"><a href="http://subliminalcoffee.blogspot.com/" rel="nofollow" target="_blank"><span style="color: #3778cd;">Agatha Friggin' Christie</span></a></td></tr>
<tr><td width="5%">11.</td><td width="45%"><a href="http://eddyandreuben.blogspot.com/" rel="nofollow" target="_blank"><span style="color: #3778cd;">Ed&Reub</span></a></td><td width="5%">12.</td><td width="45%"><a href="http://divinesecretsofthewritingsisterhood.blogspot.com/" rel="nofollow" target="_blank"><span style="color: #3778cd;">The Writing Sisterhood</span></a></td></tr>
<tr><td width="5%">13.</td><td width="45%"><a href="http://katieosullivan.blogspot.com/" rel="nofollow" target="_blank"><span style="color: #3778cd;">Read, Write, Repeat</span></a></td><td width="5%">14.</td><td width="45%"><a href="http://wp.me/p3AKEA-uy" rel="nofollow" target="_blank"><span style="color: #3778cd;">V's Reads</span></a></td></tr>
<tr><td width="5%">15.</td><td width="45%"><a href="http://sallys-scribbles.blogspot.co.uk/" rel="nofollow" target="_blank"><span style="color: #3778cd;">The Cephalopod Coffeehouse: April 2014 </span></a></td><td width="5%">16.</td><td width="45%"><a href="http://debioneille.blogspot.com/" rel="nofollow" target="_blank"><span style="color: #3778cd;">Debi O'Neille, writing against the wind</span></a></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
</div>
Lorenahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17848249911635132594noreply@blogger.com12tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3266371808927804670.post-31298464955395798682014-04-20T13:22:00.000-06:002014-04-20T13:29:56.900-06:00Trimming the Fat (aka Expendable Scenes) in Your Novel <div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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I don’t blame you if you don’t want to read this post. Revisions can be dreadful, overwhelming, confusing and frustrating for many writers and the idea of doing them (or reading about them) may sound as fun and exciting as standing in line at an airport security check point. But revisions have a strange quality, they can also be infinitely satisfying once you figure out what needs to be done and the end result is a stronger manuscript.<br />
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One of the reasons why revisions are so difficult is because you must tackle several elements at once: character development, plot progression, pace, prose (to include style, grammar and dialogue), among other monsters. Today, I’m going to focus on what constitutes the structure of your novel: scenes.<br />
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Since your novel is basically a sequence of scenes with transitional sentences/paragraphs/thoughts, it's essential to evaluate each and every one of them as both a unit and a part of a whole. My writer friends tease me because I’m ruthless with them (“If I were you, I would delete this scene” is my motto!) But there is a good reason for my callousness. More often than not, a pacing issue is the result of a scene—or several—that aren’t serving an important purpose in your novel. These “problem scenes” are difficult to spot because we often grow so attached to them. (Very often we need someone else to point them out.) So how do we determine if a scene is important enough to keep or if it’s more problematic than useful?<br />
<br />
Here are the five questions I ask myself when evaluating a scene.<br />
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<span style="color: #741b47; font-size: large;">1. Is the scene active or reflective?</span><br />
<br />
Ideally, you should have a good balance between active and reflective scenes. Active scenes being the ones where something important happens (an action that moves the story forward), and reflective scenes are those where the character ponders on his situation, informs other characters of his problem or fills the reader with backstory and/or information dumps. In my experience, agents and editors often complain that novels are “too slow.” This problem may be the result of too many introspective scenes or instances where characters engage in ordinary activities. Arguably, you will need more active than reflective scenes to create a good progression, but the balance of active vs. reflective heavily depends on the genre you’re writing (though the consensus seems to be that even in literary fiction there must be enough action to keep the reader’s interest). In genres such as adventure and thrillers, most of your scenes should be active, but in Women’s Fiction, for example, it’s tolerated and even expected to have many introspective scenes to reflect the author’s voice and the character’s personality. Once you figure out if your scene is active or reflective, determine whether or not you have too many of one or the other. Perhaps you have too many reflective scenes in a row and the pace would benefit from moving them around (if it doesn’t affect your sequence of events, of course). The same goes for active scenes. Perhaps it’s time to give your character a coffee break from all the chaos surrounding him!<br />
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<span style="color: #741b47; font-size: large;">2. Is the scene repetitive?</span><br />
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Do you have similar scenes throughout your book? In other words, have you used the same setting many times before, have you had similar conversations or too many scenes between the same characters? Perhaps it’s just a matter of condensing two scenes together.<br />
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<span style="color: #741b47; font-size: large;">3. Is an entire scene necessary to convey this information?</span><br />
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Sometimes we hold on to a scene because we think that the information shared on a particular line of dialogue is vital but we don’t realize that an entire scene may not be necessary in order to divulge this one, tiny, bit of information. When I’ve recommended my friends to cut scenes that are dragging forever, I try to spot what is important about them and suggested they move this information elsewhere. But what about “show, don’t tell,” you may ask? As you know, “showing” (in this case, enacting a scene) is fundamental for a reader to identify with a character or situation, but not all events are equally interesting or deserve this much attention. It’s your job to determine which events are relevant enough to turn into a scene.<br />
<br />
<span style="color: #741b47; font-size: large;">4. What purpose is this scene serving?</span><br />
<br />
It’s important for a writer to understand why a scene deserves to take room in his or her novel. Is the scene in question advancing the story? Enlightening the reader about the character’s past or his quirky personality? Developing a bond or conflict between characters? If you don’t understand the purpose of a scene you’re holding on for dear life, you may have a problem.<br />
<br />
<span style="color: #741b47; font-size: large;">5. If I remove this scene, will it affect the flow of my novel?</span><br />
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I may have told you that my first novel started as a <em>telenovela</em> for the Latin American market. As you know, soap operas have tons of characters and last A VERY LONG TIME. Therefore, writers have the luxury of penning what I call “peripheral scenes.” These are scenes where secondary characters catch up with the main action, or where the heroine ponders her decision with friends, or where a subplot between secondary characters develops (but does nothing for the main plot). When I translated my soap opera to English and formatted it as a novel, I had tons of scenes like these (no wonder my novel was over 143,000 words!) In novels, these scenes are sometimes hard to spot because they can be considered “bonding scenes” between characters. A good test is to evaluate if your novel will suffer if you remove a particular scene. From my experience, it probably won’t. Readers are smart and will catch up with the action without you having to over explain how things came to be. If you’re doubting the validity of a scene, you’re probably on to something.<br />
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In conclusion, the trick to revisions (especially if you’re going to do them on your own) is to be honest with yourself—which can be difficult considering your emotional attachment to your work. As a critique partner, I have noticed that many writers are very resistant to deleting superfluous scenes. (Sometimes they’re more willing to kill a character than a beloved scene!) I think it has to do with the fact that these scenes become familiar to us and it becomes harder to envision our novels without them. However, many times after the deed is done, writers realize how much better their novel flows and they don’t look back (it’s happened to me several times). It’s rare that after deleting a scene, a writer will bring it back (at least not in its entirety).<br />
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<b>What do you think? Do you have an emotional attachment to your scenes or are you ruthless when it comes to evaluating (and getting rid of them)?</b></div>
Lorenahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17848249911635132594noreply@blogger.com10tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3266371808927804670.post-70831934095669769832014-04-13T15:45:00.000-06:002014-04-13T15:45:20.808-06:00Let's Talk NebraskaLast weekend, the hubby and I rented the Oscar-nominated film <i>Nebraska</i>. I'd seen a little bit about it before Oscar season broke out into full swing. I decided I really wanted to watch it for a couple of reasons: 1) I like just about everything director Alexander Payne has put out there (Hello? <i>Sideways</i> or <i>About Schmidt</i>, anyone!), 2) I'm from the Midwest, from a town very similar to the one depicted in <i>Nebraska</i> (only smaller, if you can imagine that) and I went to college in Nebraska, and 3) I just don't think the modern-day Midwest gets highlighted enough in films.<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjKEN6rM40z3b3ZA8JHjB6-4ZadM2l7pkV3y5-TifSvdp28FT9QkfYuia6RBC5Qc3gSf8CRWbB2FpiD6tg-6Exhbw6UQlsyDZGyoXll2q0lpLLvkGXzIa9Ul6VfC47On-KYPkxZj-SU8D8/s1600/MV5BMTU2Mjk2NDkyMl5BMl5BanBnXkFtZTgwNTk0NzcyMDE@._V1_SX214_.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjKEN6rM40z3b3ZA8JHjB6-4ZadM2l7pkV3y5-TifSvdp28FT9QkfYuia6RBC5Qc3gSf8CRWbB2FpiD6tg-6Exhbw6UQlsyDZGyoXll2q0lpLLvkGXzIa9Ul6VfC47On-KYPkxZj-SU8D8/s1600/MV5BMTU2Mjk2NDkyMl5BMl5BanBnXkFtZTgwNTk0NzcyMDE@._V1_SX214_.jpg" height="320" width="205" /></a>When I first heard about the film, it was being discussed among a group of friends. One woman in the group, who spent a majority of her life living in the actual state of Nebraska, vehemently denounced the movie altogether. She had no intention of ever seeing the film. At first, I thought it might be because of the film rating (R, for language), but then after watching <i>Nebraska</i> I think it was for a more specific reason. I think she viewed Nebraska as akin to the Holy Land with only hard-working saints living there. In other words, she believed that Nebraska would be portrayed poorly.<br />
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Not so, my friends!<br />
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I'd have to say I loved every minute of it because, in my opinion, Payne hit the nail on the head when it comes to families such as the one portrayed in <i>Nebraska</i>. Payne, himself, is from Nebraska, so who better to do the storyline justice than he.<br />
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Here's a little rundown on what goes on in the film:<br />
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<i>Woody Grant, an aging alcoholic and perhaps suffering from early Alzheimer's, sets out almost weekly to claim his million dollars waiting for him in Lincoln, Nebraska. Only problems are that he can't drive and he lives in Montana. To appease his father, even though he knows the "sweepstakes" is a scam, Woody's estranged son David agrees to drive him down to Lincoln. Along the way, they get caught up with family in Hawthorne, Nebraska, where David learns more about his father than in all the years when he was growing up.</i><br />
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It's a sad, yet bittersweet story about family. Watching it, you realize that there were so many problems lying just below the surface of this family, waiting to come to light when the time was right. Woody's a man with long-suppressed demons, but it's David's connection to his father that twists, turns, and in the end grows into a final act of love. Even if it only means taking a drive down the center of town. Holding a lifelong grudge because someone is unwilling to sacrifice for you, only hurts you. Letting go and finally sacrificing for that other individual without accepting payment in return is sometimes the one thing you have to do. This is what David comes to realize about his father.<br />
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You may have watched <i>Nebraska</i> and all the while were asking yourself, "Do people really live and act like this?" The short answer is yes. Let me point out a few things about Woody and David's family that was readily recognizable with my own:<br />
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><i>Woody and David searching for that "borrowed" tool.</i></td></tr>
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<ul>
<li>Old men really do sit around talking about random things, like a car one of them owned once upon a time. I've been to those family reunions and have heard those conversations. And I've been down to the local diner/convenience store, which is filled with old men discussing the most random things.</li>
<li>There is the occasional relative who likes to sit alongside the road in the evenings and watch none of the traffic that goes by. Ours was, and still is, the front porch for our family. Usually while shelling peas or pitting cherries. Believe me, not much happens on my parents' street back home.</li>
<li>People really do go and pay respects in cemeteries even if no one has recently died. It's just what you do. I still do it when I go back for a visit. We'll be driving down a country road somewhere and my mother will say, "Do you know so-and-so is buried there? Let's stop by." And the next thing I know I'm standing over the grave of some unknown great aunt I never knew I had. My mother tells me her life story and introduces us like it's about time we met, probably hoping we could have coffee and bologna and butter sandwiches with the lady.</li>
<li>There's always a black sheep in the family, and that black sheep still usually lives at home (or thereabouts) and everyone acts like the sexual assault/robbery/drug bust never happened. Although, I must say my mother has warned us over the years of who to steer clear.</li>
<li>Everyone pretty much drives an American-made car. Here's why: Where I grew up, the only local dealerships were Ford and GM. If you wanted any other type of vehicle you had to go to the city, sixty miles away. No local mechanic really worked on foreign cars, so if your city-bought car broke down, guess how far you'd have to drive to get it fixed?</li>
<li>Finally, you'd be surprised at the brazenness of neighbors if you weren't used to it. The guy across the street could borrow your lawnmower, never return it, and he'd still come over all the time to talk to you. It goes the other way, too. Vegetables tend to get left quite often on doorsteps. It's like Mayday all summer long. I should know. My parents are one of those neighborly donators. </li>
</ul>
Like anyplace in America, the Midwest has stories to tell, and they can be pretty darn good at times. I recommend seeing <i>Nebraska</i> if you haven't already. It's a simple storyline, but a very telling and touching one.<br />
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<i>P.S. It really is in black and white.</i><br />
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #cc0000;">✿ ❀ ✿ ❀ ✿</span></div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhmpzdRCPcCmRHulkNYpeTDa-pWKVGdB_S8SwSuF1aMx6VIwZDcKIFcDSvqbUJH-LZSayFH9U_8WIMVhVGzlHHNHmtlxgWV9oK-G7p0qGmu3hPYkVMrgaLn8PFG3QzB5IaNXg8JLHCLw0c/s1600/NMPW+Award.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhmpzdRCPcCmRHulkNYpeTDa-pWKVGdB_S8SwSuF1aMx6VIwZDcKIFcDSvqbUJH-LZSayFH9U_8WIMVhVGzlHHNHmtlxgWV9oK-G7p0qGmu3hPYkVMrgaLn8PFG3QzB5IaNXg8JLHCLw0c/s1600/NMPW+Award.jpg" /></a>On another note, we just wanted to announce that for the third year in a row <i>The Writing Sisterhood</i> has received first place in the New Mexico Press Women Awards for best informational blog in the state of New Mexico! We're thrilled to have this award! If you'd like to check out any of the winning entries, feel free to do so:</div>
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<li><i><a href="http://divinesecretsofthewritingsisterhood.blogspot.com/2013/10/writing-through-storm.html">Writing Through the Storm</a></i> ~ by Sister Mary</li>
<li><i><a href="http://divinesecretsofthewritingsisterhood.blogspot.com/2013/10/teaching-empathy-novel-approach.html">Teaching Empathy: A Novel Approach</a></i> ~ by Sister Stephanie</li>
<li><i><a href="http://divinesecretsofthewritingsisterhood.blogspot.com/2013/10/breaking-bad-double-standards.html">Breaking Bad Double Standards</a></i> ~ by Sister Lorena</li>
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Mary Maryhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09429769115085903305noreply@blogger.com12tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3266371808927804670.post-11173082479656183582014-04-06T17:52:00.000-06:002014-04-06T17:52:56.882-06:00Children's Stories for Grown-UpsI had another post planned for today, but it requires research and logic and thought, and as it happens I got horribly sick this weekend—just a gastric virus, nothing fatal (though for about twelve hours there death seemed preferable)—and, as this is the <i>second</i> weekend I've come down with a stomach bug, I just don't have the energy to pull that off. Instead I'm just going to write about a pleasant trend I've noticed lately ... but with a caveat.<br />
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The pleasant trend is that more and more serious literary writers are creating adults novels that read like childhood adventure stories. I really enjoy these romps, which bring with them that all-encompassing joy of nights spent under the covers with a flashlight, tearing through Joan Aiken's <i>The Wolves of Willoughby Chase</i> or Susan Cooper's <i>The Dark is Rising</i> series.<br />
<span style="text-align: center;"><br /></span>
<span style="text-align: center;">Three that come to mind most readily are Donna Tartt's </span><i style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://www.amazon.com/The-Goldfinch-Donna-Tartt/dp/0316055433" target="_blank">The Goldfinch</a>,</i><span style="text-align: center;"> Neil Gaiman's </span><i style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://www.amazon.com/Ocean-at-End-Lane-ebook/dp/B009NFHF0Q/ref=sr_1_1_title_0_main?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1396826156&sr=1-1&keywords=the+ocean+at+the+end+of+the+lane" target="_blank">The Ocean at the End of the Lane</a>,</i><span style="text-align: center;"> and Chang-Rae Lee's </span><i style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://www.amazon.com/Such-Full-Sea-Chang-Rae-Lee-ebook/dp/B00C5R722A/ref=sr_1_1_title_0_main?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1396826183&sr=1-1&keywords=on+such+a+full+sea" target="_blank">On Such a Full Sea</a>. (</i><span style="text-align: center;">That last book I just finished this afternoon, as I lay half-dead on the sofa, willing my mind to escape my body.) Not surprisingly, all three books follow the escapades of a young teenager, an ordinary kid who finds himself or herself in extraordinary circumstances. Adolescence feels so surreal and bizarre anyway, it's a natural landscape for this sort of story. All three novels infuse the confusion of pubescence with the atmosphere of an even earlier bit of youth: Lee's novel, for example, often reads like a Grimm Brothers fairy tale, in the best possible sense. One character stumbles from what feels like an idyllic reprieve scene into a field of human bones, turning to find a child "with a wide skewed smile, which was not for Fan but for the rest of her family, who were now out in the clearing and heading toward them in a pointed mass ... The biggest boys carried machetes." Some will shudder, of course, but I adore this sort of thing. </span><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Juniper_Tree_%28fairy_tale%29" style="text-align: center;" target="_blank"><i>The Juniper Tree,</i></a><span style="text-align: center;"> anyone?</span><br />
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<a href="http://images.bwwstatic.com/columnpic6/A5DA9038-BDC5-2151-A7454DC1F79BC956.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em; text-align: center;"><img border="0" src="http://images.bwwstatic.com/columnpic6/A5DA9038-BDC5-2151-A7454DC1F79BC956.jpg" height="320" width="208" /></a><i>The Goldfinch</i> is the story of a teenage boy who loses his mother to a terrorist bombing and finds himself the possessor and protector of a prized painting that soon becomes his most beloved treasure ... and a terrible burden. What I loved about this story was the way Tartt just threw herself into making the boy's life utterly colorful, with no restraint. Restraint was quite popular for a long time in literary fiction. Reality was parceled out parsimoniously, always in shades of sombre grey. I can appreciate that mode of writing, but I am loving this meaty, full-fat version of fiction, bursting with fervid imagination.<br />
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Imagination is at its fullest with Gaiman's <i>The Ocean At the End of the Lane.</i> Perhaps because Gaiman doesn't wear the mantle of "literary star," (unlike Tartt and Lee) he can do whatever he wants. So this slim novel plunges us right into fantasyland. It could almost be classified as YA except that the beginning and end of the book anchor it as intended for adults. (Not to mention one discomfiting scene in the middle, involving the father and the wicked witch.)<br />
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And that brings us to the caveat: all three books are strongest in the middle, where they allow themselves to fully plunge into the adventure story. But because the authors want to be taken seriously as writers of adult literary fiction, they laden a bit too much exposition into the story. In Tartt's case it's really egregious, as she takes the last ten percent of her novel to do nothing but think deep thoughts via her protagonist. (It's not even plausible that the protag would think such thoughts—it's obviously Tartt speaking.) Lee sprinkles his deep thoughts throughout <i>On Such a Full Sea</i>, in aphorisms I'm sure were highlighted hundreds of times by Kindle users. The philosophy these authors share is explicit, heavy-handed, and not especially original. Authors of fiction who think they're doing philosophy should really let it come through in the story. "Show, don't tell" applies as much to philosophy as anything else. Authors who want to take part in the laudable trend of adventure stories for adults might want to look to Gaiman for guidance: he seems to understand, better than most, that just because you're writing for adults doesn't mean you have to be <i>boring</i>.Stephaniehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02187854108656107958noreply@blogger.com9tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3266371808927804670.post-84292799886286417482014-03-28T10:24:00.000-06:002014-03-28T10:24:51.457-06:00The Cephalopod Coffeehouse: The Girl Who Played with Fire<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<b>"Salander heard a sound and saw a movement out of the corner of her eye just as she was putting the key in the door of the Honda. He was approaching at an angle behind her, and she spun around two seconds before he reached her." (<i>The Girl Who Played with Fire</i>, Page 193)</b></blockquote>
Welcome everyone to this month's round of the Cephalopod Coffeehouse. Make sure to make the rounds and see what everyone has been reading over the past month.<br />
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A couple of weeks ago I finished up the second book in Stieg Larsson's <i>Millennium</i> series, <i>The Girl Who Played with Fire</i>. I was going to review the third book in the series, <i>The Girl Who Kicked the Hornet's Nest</i>, over at The Random Book Review, but I haven't quite finished it. It's kind of been a busy week for me but, hey, I'm still reading!<br />
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This is the part where I make the assumption that everyone under the sun has heard of Stieg Larsson and his Swedish <i>Millennium</i> series, but considering that not everyone enjoys the same genres, I won't make that assumption. When reading Larsson's background, it's really not surprising he chose topics such as misogyny, sex trafficking, and corrupt political systems to use in his books. Here's a little bit about Larsson's background according to <a href="http://www.stieglarsson.com/">this website</a>:<br />
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<i>Stieg Larsson (1954-2004) was a Swedish writer and journalist. Prior to his sudden death of a heart attack in November 2004 he finished three detective novels in his trilogy "The Millennium-series" which were published posthumously...Altogether his trilogy has sold more than 20 million copies in 41 countries, and he was the second bestselling author in the world in 2008. Before his career as a writer, Stieg Larsson was mostly known for his struggle against racism and right-wing extremism.</i></blockquote>
He liked extreme storylines, to say the least. There is supposedly a fourth book hidden inside Larsson's computer, but much controversy surrounds who should own the rights to Larsson's estate: his father and brother or his life partner Eva Gabrielsson. Feel free to visit the website I listed if you're interested in checking out the controversy.<br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjhVmo4OhZTNLagDNPEPZdduh1TL3NGWPj2XJiDddYKPFfSxck3IUro1hRGZibrbjb_fVUaPJt6cMsxzuTFbAbjVx9X_gu1lZZ4Zah1TdcUH5R7udq2hK8ifHRkWrDT0ZbI8RmqS8iH9vo/s1600/larsson.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjhVmo4OhZTNLagDNPEPZdduh1TL3NGWPj2XJiDddYKPFfSxck3IUro1hRGZibrbjb_fVUaPJt6cMsxzuTFbAbjVx9X_gu1lZZ4Zah1TdcUH5R7udq2hK8ifHRkWrDT0ZbI8RmqS8iH9vo/s1600/larsson.jpg" height="213" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><b><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #e69138;">Stieg Larsson</span></b></td></tr>
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About the book:<br />
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<i>Mikael Blomkvist, crusading publisher of the magazine Millennium, has decided to run a story that will expose an extensive sex trafficking operation. On the eve of its publication, two people are brutally murdered, and the fingerprints found on the murder weapon belong to his friend, the troubled genius hacker Lisbeth Salander. Blomkvist, convinced of Salander's innocence, plunges into an investigation. Meanwhile, Slander herself is drawn into a murderous game of cat and mouse, which forces her to face her dark past.</i><br />
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If you've read the first book in the trilogy, <i>The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo</i>, then you know that <i>The Girl Who Played with Fire</i> picks up roughly a year or so after the first novel. After Salander and Blomkvist's harrowing ordeal in the previous book, Salander has skipped the country with her loot and has spent time abroad. We find her in Grenada at the beginning of the story, doing what she does best: saving a young woman from certain death at the hands of her husband. This element is important because as the story unfolds we see that Salander's past, which is riddled with abuse, will come back and rear its ugly head.<br />
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Where in <i>The Girl in the Dragon Tattoo</i> Salander and Blomkvist spend a large portion of the book together, in the sequel, they only come in close contact with one another at the end of the book. I struggled with that a little bit, because I was expecting more one on one work between the two of them. The third book is shaping up to be much of the same, but I've yet to finish it (I have about a third of the book left), so I don't know if there will be any resolution to their relationship. I'm hoping so (but please don't tell me how it ends)!<br />
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Overall, I enjoy the hacking capabilities of Salander. I'm very fascinated with every nuance of the hacking world Larsson creates. I have no idea if what he's saying is true about how hacking works, but at least it makes for an interesting read. I do struggle with Larsson's portrayal of women in his books. None of them seem like the type of woman a man would want to settle down with and raise a family. Berger, Blomkvist's longtime love interest, is tough as nails in the publishing world. She knows what she wants, goes and gets it, and stops for a little hanky-panky if the need arises. Which seems to be quite a bit with her and it usually borders on kinky. For whatever reason, Larsson feels the need to divulge all the ends and outs of the female characters' sex lives, but he doesn't go too much into the mens' unless they're the ones doing the sex trafficking. Salander is a very damaged individual and more of who she is comes out in the second novel. When Blomkvist learns the truth about her rape, I feel it's disappointing how he rationalizes his physical relationship with Salander. She had come to him not long after her rape, so that meant it was okay. Sorry, but that's just sad. What the girl really needs is someone willing to listen to her, but Larsson builds her into an individual full of mistrust and the need for isolation that all I ever feel for her is pity.<br />
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><b><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #e69138;">The hard-looking Lisbeth Salander from the Swedish films.</span></b></td></tr>
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If you've not read the book, know this: the story feels dated. Larsson drops so many brand names, especially with computer technology, that it loses some of that here-and-now feel. Grant it, the book does deliberately state that it's 2004, but time can be tricky when it comes to contemporary thrillers. Readers are constantly wanting to feel the technology and brands of today. Palm pilots may have been cool in 2004, but I don't know anyone still using them now. The book also tends to become a tedious read. There are some pretty long passages of information dumps and over explanation of the basic facts that at times the storyline gets swallowed up. As a whole, though, Larsson weaves a great story concerning Salander's background. Which, is why I had to read the third book.<br />
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<b><i>Have you read any of Stieg Larsson's books? If so, what's your opinion?</i></b><br />
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Make sure to check out the rest of the Cephalopod Coffeehouse reviews:<br />
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<script src="http://www.simply-linked.com/listwidget.aspx?l=366BB6B0-2E65-427D-833E-C14730E567CC" type="text/javascript"></script>Mary Maryhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09429769115085903305noreply@blogger.com19tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3266371808927804670.post-83331391851555420742014-03-23T13:55:00.000-06:002014-03-23T14:00:11.544-06:00Interview with Agent Christa Heschke<br />
Hey, writers! Looking for an agent to represent your YA/NA/Children's book? Agent Christa Heschke of McIntosh & Otis, Inc. is still open to new clients, and she has kindly agreed to answer my questions about her preferences and the current state of the publishing industry. Check out what she has to say and get those query letters ready!<br />
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<i><b><span style="color: #cc0000;">Hi Christa, welcome to The Writing Sisterhood!</span></b></i><br />
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<b><span style="color: purple;">Q: Writers are always curious about what goes on behind agencies’ closed doors. Could you share with our readers what a day in the life of a literary agent is like?</span></b><br />
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A: Every day is very different, as we’re a full service agency, so we handle pretty much everything for our authors personally, such as contracts, foreign rights and other subsidiary rights (some agents have different people at their agency who do these types of things for them and don’t handle personally). Each day generally starts with me going through my emails, answering questions, checking in with editors on submissions, payments etc. then throughout the day I’ll have phone calls, meetings and lunches with editors, negotiate deals, work on contracts etc. Of course, all of these things don’t happen every day, so this is just to give you an idea of what may cross my desk.<br />
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<span style="color: purple;"><b>Q: About how many submissions do you receive per week? What do you look for in a query letter? </b></span><br />
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A: About 75 submissions a week, sometimes more. Well, first thing I look for in a query is that it’s a genre I am currently looking for. My current wish list is on my blog and on the M&O website under Agents. Next, I look to see if it’s something that’s new or different. If you send me something that sounds like a knockoff I likely won’t read on. Make sure your letter is professional and not too conversational. I’ll also look to see if the project is a standalone or a series and if the author has written anything else or has a website so I can learn more.<br />
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<span style="color: purple;"><b>Q: Will you be open to adult fiction in the near future? </b></span><br />
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A: No. We have two great adult agents here. If I ever were to fall in love with an adult project I would co-agent with one of my colleagues. The adult world and children’s world are very different and working in children’s I’m not regularly meeting adult editors or expanding my contacts there. <br />
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<span style="color: purple;"><b>Q: What is one of the most common problems you see in the manuscripts you receive?</b></span><br />
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A: I still see a fair amount of projects that are trying to chase trends. If you’re writing something only because you think it will sell a lot of copies because it’s similar to Twilight and Twilight sold a lot of copies you’re often hurting your own chances. Writing for trends can lack passion. When you have an idea for a novel and can’t get it out of your head, that’s passion. You’re not thinking of the endgame, just that you need to write it. Those are always the best books, if you ask me, and you can feel it when you read. Writing for trends can be formulaic and it’s often too late. Books take 18-24 months to publish on average and if there are already 10 books on mermaids and you’re only now writing one, many editors may have already had their fill of it.<br />
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The other problem I see a lot is a story that reads like a first draft and isn’t fully realized. Find critique partners or have a friend read your novel before sending it out. It’s best to send a project that has gone through revisions and is as good as you think it can be before sending to agents.<br />
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<span style="color: purple;"><b>Q: Would you take on a client based on his/her potential even if the manuscript is not ready to be sold? </b></span><br />
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A: Yes! I have never instantly sent out a manuscript after taking on a client. We always at least do a bit of tweaking. I wouldn’t take something on though that needed a lot of work. If I liked it and saw potential I’d likely ask for a revise and resubmit. It’s important to make sure an author is good at revision before taking them on.<br />
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<span style="color: purple;"><b>Q: Why do you think YA fiction has become so popular in the last few years? There also seems to be a preference for fiction with supernatural/fantastic elements. Do you think these trends will continue for much longer? </b></span><br />
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A: YA fiction is often hopeful. It’s about teens who are at the beginning of their lives. There’s so much promise. It’s about growth and becoming who you’re meant to be, first experiences and making mistakes. Anyone can relate to that even as adults. It’s just so accessible and often more fast paced than an adult novel. Depending on who you ask, the response will probably vary, but those are some of the main things. Paranormal and dystopian is on the way out; we’re seeing ends to series mostly in these genres now and I can’t think of too many editors or agents looking for it. In fact, many are specifically saying they aren’t considering it. Not too many standalones or beginning of series these days. I think everything is shifting back towards contemporary, but I also think people are trying to figure out what the next big thing will be. Magical realism is pretty highly sought after. There’s been some sci-fi, horror, thriller and light fantasy that has been doing well and editors and agents are still looking for those genres.<br />
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<b><span style="color: purple;">Q: Writers are often times frustrated with how difficult it is to get the attention of industry professionals. What do you think is the most effective method for a writer to get noticed: conferences, blogs, query letters, contests? </span></b><br />
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A: That’s a hard question. Meeting an editor or agent at a conference certainly helps as we generally will put priority on those submissions. Networking is always helpful. Join writing groups or book clubs with other writers. If any of the writers are published or become published they may recommend you to their agent. Referrals always get priority. Send your best work. It likely won’t be that first novel. Many writers have several novels under their belt before submitting to agents or editors. You keep getting better with practice. Make sure the book you submit is polished and as good as it can be. Have friends and critique partners give you opinions. Sending an agent every project you have isn’t going to get you noticed. Most agents frown on it unless they specifically ask to see more work. Send the project you think is the best fit for that agent. An online presence is nice to see but it doesn’t sway me either way unless it’s particularly negative towards editors/agents/the industry. Try to keep your online presence professional and positive. Contests are good too. I’ve found some of my clients that way. It’s hard work to get noticed and you really have to dedicate yourself to it and not let yourself be troubled too much by rejection. It’s all about finding that right person to champion your work and it may take some time to find them.<br />
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<b><span style="color: purple;">Q: How do you feel about writers posting excerpts of their unpublished novels and/or creating websites for them? </span></b><br />
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A: I think short excerpts are fine. It can help get you some readers/fans who will buy your book once you are published. I don’t think an entire website dedicated to an unpublished book is necessary. I’d stick to an author site or blog and you can talk about your work there. But, be wary as there are people out there who steal ideas so I’d say less is more.<br />
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<b><span style="color: purple;">Q: Do you think e-books present a threat to traditional books or they can happily co-exist? </span></b><br />
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A: They can happily co-exist. I think there was some worry about it, when they first started becoming popular, but I hope that there will always be those book lovers who enjoy holding a real book. It’s such a different experience.<br />
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<b><span style="color: purple;">Q: Finally, what are your top three authors of all time? What are your top three books?</span></b><br />
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A: That is so hard to answer! I have a lot of authors and books I really enjoy. I always was a big RL Stine fan (Fear Street specifically), I loved Corduroy as a kid and The Teeny Tiny Woman (it’s an early reader). My parents said that I would act it out while I was reading it. The Hobbit is another favorite. I also am a big Bruce Coville and Garth Nix fan. Oh and can’t forget Jane Austen!<br />
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<b><i><span style="color: #cc0000;">Thank you, Christa, for those very insightful answers!</span></i></b><br />
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<b>For more information about Christa and what she's looking for, check out <a href="http://christaheschke.blogspot.com/" target="_blank">her blog</a> and her <a href="http://www.mcintoshandotis.com/home.html" target="_blank">agency's website.</a></b>Lorenahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17848249911635132594noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3266371808927804670.post-17025032553267237252014-03-16T15:30:00.000-06:002014-03-19T10:36:14.353-06:00Being a Good Critique Partner 101I've been at this writing thing for a while now. Eight years ago I had an idea and I ran with it. It wasn't until later that I realized I had to (*gulp*) let someone else read my manuscript. And thus, I found out about this critique partner thing.<br />
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If you're serious about having your work published one day, there is a vital key ingredient to this ever happening -- you need to eventually have a small group of writers just as serious as you are read your work and be willing to give an objective critique on what you've written.<br />
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This, my friends, is crucial.<br />
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Now, I've heard stories, read stories, have my own stories as a matter of fact, on what goes into being a good critique partner. And each story (much like a written story in real life) contains key elements as to why a critiquing partnership has held together as strong as super glue, has unravelled at the seams, or why it became just a struggle to keep. In case you didn't already know, for the past few years I've been blessed to have two of the best critiquers I could ever ask for -- the other two lovely sisters who participate in this blog, Lorena and Stephanie. I have a couple of fringe readers who may or may not read my work if the mood strikes them, but at the core I know I have these two. (You guys are awesome by the way!)<br />
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You might be asking how I managed to snag two great critiquers. Well, I'm going to give you a few pointers on how to go about looking for someone who matches what you're looking for. It's kind of like dating, but the expectations are very different (i.e. no small talk necessary, no dinners to be bought, and no wondering if he/she will call you the next day).<br />
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<li><b><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #783f04;">Are they even a writer?</span></b> -- You might think this is an easy one to pick up on and, yeah, why wouldn't you choose a writer to read your work. Surprisingly enough, there are many unpublished writers out there who do anything but let writers read their work. I think, especially in the beginning, there's a lot of anxiety attached to having anyone read your book, let alone someone who really knows the craft. One way to ease out of those anxiety-filled thoughts is to enter a few contests that give you some sort of feedback. Any small amount of feedback will be helpful, plus it will help you get over that I-can't-let-a-soul-read-my-work hump.</li>
<li><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #783f04;"><b>What's a good number of readers?</b> </span>-- Like that saying about too many cooks in a kitchen, the same goes for critiquers. If you have so many, all with differing input, then you will be forever lost in the swirling typhoon of revisions. You won't know who to believe or what is the best route. For me, three is a good number. Why three? Well, if two partners have different opinions about an important scene, then the third will usually lean one way or the other. Anything beyond three and there's too much input for me to properly digest. Personally, I need information that will lead me in a solid direction and so far I've been fortunate enough with the readers I have.</li>
<li><b><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #783f04;">Is it a good idea to have family members as critique partners?</span></b> -- This one is a slippery-slope, my friends. At first, you might be inclined to have a mother, brother, or sister read your masterpiece because, hey, don't we all want our ego stroked once in a while! The fact of the matter is that you need objective readers. Family members tend not to be objective. They tend to be nice. They don't want to see you fail, so why not be a cheerleader instead. This can be one of the most harmful things for your writing. You will fail to grow if all you hear is loving feedback and that, yeah, your work is perfect, perfect, perfect!</li>
<li><b><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #783f04;">Does a critique partner have to write in your genre?</span></b> -- Better yet, do they even like to READ in your genre? Let's say you write horror. You meet a new friend at a writing meeting/conference/on the bus who loves inspirational romance. She finds out you're a writer and BAM! wants to read your work. You're so excited that you forget to mention you write horror. After you hand your book over to her, a day later she calls you and says she can't read such a dark, horrific storyline. You're crestfallen. The first thing you want to find out is if a critiquer has the ability to even make it through your book. Don't waste your time with grabbing up the first person willing to take a look at what you've written. Ask the pertinent questions first.</li>
<li><b><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #783f04;">Do I really have to read their work in return?</span></b> -- Um...yeah! That's the whole point in the critique partner relationship. After all, you're PARTNERS. This means you read what they have and they read what you have. Not that you both have to be finishing a novel at the same time to make it even-Stephen, but you do need to always be willing to take on what they've written. But don't act like they have to constantly make time in their schedules every week to read the newest novel you've started. There is a natural ebb and flow to any partnership. It's good to feel out the group, see what is expected of everyone, and make plans accordingly. As time goes by, the rules may get looser, since every writer works at his/her own pace. Never throw a snit fit if someone has to put off reading your work due to other circumstances. If you feel at some point that they are deliberately avoiding reading your work, then it's probably time to look elsewhere for a new critique partner.</li>
<li><b><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #783f04;">What if I don't like the advice my partner(s) gives me?</span></b> -- After any critique, you should first listen to what your partner has to say concerning your work. Don't get argumentative with them, just listen. Take it in and give it time to process. Chances are you won't agree with everything your partner says (after all, a lot of writing is subjective), but really take in what they've told you. If it's crucial critique pertaining to your plot (Is it messy? Does it flow? Is it too boring, too fast, too blah, etc.), to your main characters (Are they fleshed out properly? Does the conflict match up with them internally and externally? Are descriptions off or don't make sense?), or even dialogue (Is it boring? Is it realistic?) then pay attention! They're trying to show you where the main work needs to be done. If someone has gone to all that work to thoroughly read your manuscript, don't blow them off! Even if you hate your own book and never want to see it again. Always listen to your critiquer. Don't waste their time. After all, you chose him/her to read this book for a reason.</li>
<li><b><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #783f04;">Should I follow through with changes?</span></b> -- The simple answer here is yes. If you've done your homework properly and have chosen critique partners who enjoy your genre, are good at finding your problem spots in the manuscript, and aren't patting you on the back and giving you nothing useful in return, then take into account everything he/she has told you. If you have multiple critiquers telling you changes need to be made concerning the same problem spots, then you definitely should be making changes. The little bits can come later, but if you have a definite issue with plot structure, then sit down, chart out your plot, look at the critiques you've been given, and work it out accordingly. If you turn around and have that same partner read your manuscript again and you've done nothing to heed his/her advice then they will only be annoyed and chances are not have any interest in reading your work again. Don't burn your bridges!</li>
<li><b><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #783f04;">How do I leave a bad partnership?</span> </b>-- I guess it depends on the maturity level of the other writer(s) in your partnership. Personally, I feel it's best to be straight with the individual. Don't be mean or angry about ending your critiquing partnership (you can still be friends, right?), but make sure he/she understands that this is a partnership that just isn't working. If you feel your work isn't progressing, or maybe there's more give than there is take on the other's end, then you need to move on. Eventually, though, you need to know what's best for your writing.</li>
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I was fortunate enough to meet both Lorena and Stephanie through a local writer's association. I didn't know if I would hit it off with either one of them. With my first critique group, I was the new one in the group, but that group eventually dissolved and a new one formed. Again, a member left and a new friend joined. Critique groups aren't written in stone. We all take different paths with our writing. Be willing to be flexible in your search for the right mix. If you feel damaged or thoroughly pissed off you are no longer part of a partnership, then take some time to rethink this writing thing. As writers willing to share our work, we have to be able to take on the tasks I listed above -- share your work, give productive feedback, take the advice given you, and rework your manuscript accordingly. After all, the point is to grow, and not be stuck in novice mode!Mary Maryhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09429769115085903305noreply@blogger.com11tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3266371808927804670.post-32140024438095182482014-03-09T19:51:00.002-06:002014-03-10T07:35:09.939-06:00Listening to StoriesWhether you're talking about hunter-gatherers sitting around a fire, or a toddler nestled in the crook of daddy's arm at bedtime, people first absorb stories through their ears. Humans are listeners before they are readers. It is curious, then, that people tend to look down on audiobooks, isn't it? My son prefers audiobooks, but his friends tell him "that's cheating," as if he's getting away with something. One of my own friends said to me, "You're not <i>really</i> reading books," when I confessed (why was it a confession?) that I listen to books as often as I read them. Of course, audiobook fans are less likely to have this prejudice, but I know I feel slightly embarrassed to admit I listened to, rather than read, a given book. Why do we give audiobooks so little credit?<br />
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One reason is an assumption that because audiobooks are "easier," you get less out of them. I found little data to support this theory. It hasn't been well studied, but <a href="http://www.forbes.com/sites/olgakhazan/2011/09/12/is-listening-to-audio-books-really-the-same-as-reading/2/" target="_blank">Forbes</a> reports on one study that indicated no retention difference between audio and visual books. "In some cases, listening offers major advantages over reading, even with material as tough to parse as Shakespeare," the article states. "That’s because an audio book pre-determines an aspect of language called <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prosody_(linguistics)">prosody</a>, or the musicality of words. Prosody is how we known that someone is being self-reflective when they ask aloud if they left the gas on (or when Hamlet asks whether 'to be or not to be')."<br />
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<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: left; margin-right: 1em; text-align: left;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://cdn5.openculture.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/03/george-saunders-tenth-of-december.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="http://cdn5.openculture.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/03/george-saunders-tenth-of-december.jpg" height="224" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Saunders narrates his own book: a rare success</td></tr>
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Whatever the reason for it, the bias against audiobooks is fading. Audiobook sales have soared as more and more people become aware of their charms. First and foremost for me is the time component: Because I'm able to combine "reading" with "doing," I nearly double my book-consumption rate. Do you know how much of your day requires little to no engagement from your brain? Washing dishes, vacuuming, folding laundry, commuting, walking the dog, cooking, gardening, jogging. We do a lot of activities by rote. You can liberate hours a week for book consumption. If you're like me, you'll also move around more as you listen, wanting to putter and find things to do so you don't have to leave the story. And less sitting is <a href="http://apps.washingtonpost.com/g/page/national/the-health-hazards-of-sitting/750/" target="_blank">good for your health</a>. See? Audiobooks will help you live longer.<br />
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">An audiobook performance that blew me out of the water</td></tr>
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Now, some books I truly prefer to read in visual form. YA-book narrators are often breathless and squeaky, which reminds me that I am a middle-aged woman listening to a novel for teenagers. I prefer to read those books. But other books really come to life when they're performed. When I first tried Dickens' <i>Hard Times,</i> I found it easy to put down. Then I came across a free version, originally recorded as a book for the blind, on iTunes. I was completely hooked: Alistair Maydon, the narrator, showed me the humor, the pathos, the personalities of the characters. From there I found <i>Far from the Madding Crowd</i> and <i>Wuthering Heights.</i> Those narrators changed the story from mere words marching across a page to a living, breathing thing. A good narrator <i>performs</i> a story, and when you're talking about something dry, or difficult, or written in an older style, a strong narrative performance can change everything.<br />
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The difference between reading and listening can come out in other, odder ways, too. Recently, I was reading <i><a href="http://www.audible.com/pd/Fiction/The-Good-Lord-Bird-Audiobook/B00ECGM2KY/ref=a_search_c4_1_1_srTtl?qid=1394413195&sr=1-1" target="_blank">The Good Lord Bird</a></i> as I was hiking a snowy trail. There's a particular scene in that book, a gritty situation involving slaves being hanged for attempting a rebellion. I can picture exactly the spot where I was stepping as I listened to those events unfold. When I return to that spot—the 10-foot-tall rocks on the side, the patch of ice that never melts in the shadow, the way the trail curls around the rocks like a cat's tail around its paws—the scene from the book replays in my head. This happens to me frequently when I listen. The heightened emotional state seems to cause me to take mental snapshots of the scene around me, which probably has something to say about the relationship between emotions and memory.<br />
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<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: left; margin-right: 1em; text-align: left;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://img.gawkerassets.com/img/18mundqf2jnfppng/ku-medium.png" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="http://img.gawkerassets.com/img/18mundqf2jnfppng/ku-medium.png" height="320" width="270" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Rewind, Scrubbing, Bookmarks: apps make it easy</td></tr>
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One common complaint of audiobooks is that it's too easy to lose your place in a story, or space out and miss what's happening. The Audible app has a bookmarking function, which helps with this. But more critical is the 30-second rewind button. Most listening devices have this, and I use it often. I've learned to catch myself spacing out before I lose more than a minute. Another complaint is the books are too expensive. They can be: Neal Stephenson's <i>Cryptonomicon</i> is $47.55 on Audible. (It's also 42 hours long, so that narrator deserves every penny, plus maybe a medal.) But the Audible membership makes the books much more affordable—if you buy 24 credits, it amounts to $12 a book, which is no more than a paperback. Amazon, which owns Audible, often offers the matching audiobook for a discount when you buy an e-book. This allows the reader to go back and forth between reading and listening: each device even remembers where you left off, so you don't have to hunt for your place: I love <a href="http://www.amazon.com/gp/feature.html?docId=1000827761" target="_blank">this feature</a>. I also pick up audiobooks from the library and from the iTunes store. <a href="https://librivox.org/" target="_blank">Librivox</a> is a site offering free classic novels read by volunteer narrators. If you're a Nook sort, <a href="http://www.barnesandnoble.com/s/?aref=1518" target="_blank">Barnes and Noble</a> has its own audiobook store, with its own special deals. Money doesn't have to be an impediment.<br />
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A final drawback can be terrible narrators. If someone last dipped into the audiobook world five or more years ago, you may remember some pretty bad renditions of novels. Try again. Narrators are usually professional actors, and while there are some stinkers in the bunch (review before buying), most narrators really add to a book. Some of my own favorites are Davina Porter (the Outlander novels), Fanella Woolgar (Life After Life), Jim Dale (Harry Potter), and Neil Gaiman, who narrates his own novels. Um, I just realized these are all Brits. Yes, I think I have a preference for those narrators, but I'm listening to the very American Oliver Wyman narrate an <a href="http://www.audible.com/pd/Fiction/Billy-Lynns-Long-Halftime-Walk-Audiobook/B007VQXMNS?source_code=GO1DG9048SH080912&gclid=CPO2vs3nhr0CFYsWMgod_U4AaA&mkwid=s1z9coEyT_dc&pkw=PLA&pmt=broad&pcrid=36223458129" target="_blank">Iraq-war novel</a> right now, and I can tell you: he is just as talented as any of my beloved UK-folk.<br />
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So what about you? Do you listen to audiobooks, or do you think they're "cheating?" If you like them, how often do you select them over a visual format? Do you have any favorites?Stephaniehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02187854108656107958noreply@blogger.com6tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3266371808927804670.post-90157832635204424512014-02-28T07:32:00.001-07:002014-02-28T13:03:20.134-07:00Cephalopod Coffeehouse Review: WaveWelcome to the Cephalopod Coffeehouse review, a cozy gathering of book lovers. Each month we gather to share our reviews of the <b>best book</b> we read in the last month. It's also a blog-hop, so thanks for hopping by!<br />
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">"I am in the unthinkable situation most<br />
people can't bear to contemplate."</td></tr>
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I read two really excellent books this month, so I'm sharing one here and one (<i>A Constellation of Vital Phenomena</i>, by Anthony Marra) on my personal blog, <a href="http://stephstuph.blogspot.com/">Words Incorporated</a>.<br />
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<i><a href="http://www.amazon.com/Wave-Life-Memories-after-Tsunami-ebook/dp/B009Y4I4QU/ref=sr_1_1_title_0_main?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1393543473&sr=1-1&keywords=Wave" target="_blank">Wave</a></i> is a grief memoir, a genre exemplified by <a href="http://www.amazon.com/Year-Magical-Thinking-Joan-Didion/dp/1400078431/ref=tmm_pap_title_0?ie=UTF8&qid=1393543375&sr=1-1" target="_blank">Joan Didion</a>, <a href="http://www.amazon.com/Paula-A-Memoir-Isabel-Allende/dp/0061564907/ref=tmm_pap_title_0?ie=UTF8&qid=1393543338&sr=1-1" target="_blank">Isabel Allende</a>, and <a href="http://www.amazon.com/Year-Magical-Thinking-Joan-Didion/dp/1400078431/ref=tmm_pap_title_0?ie=UTF8&qid=1393543375&sr=1-1" target="_blank">CS Lewis</a>. I dunno—I think Sonali Deraniyagala might trump them all. Not that this is a competition anyone wants to win. She lost her entire family (two sons, a husband, and both parents) in <a href="http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2004/12/1227_041226_tsunami.html" target="_blank">2004's horrific tsunami</a>. Hundreds of thousands of people died that day, but here, we are focusing on this family, this particular loss. It is a stunning book.</div>
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The story crashes in on you immediately, locating you with the family the morning of the devastation, just as the sea was coming in but before anyone realized what was wrong. I read this first chapter in one gasping go, my heart pounding, unable to look away or think about anything else till it was done. You don't really want to diminish such an experience by calling it a "hook," but by god, I was hooked. From there, the pace slows a bit as the author walks you through the aftermath, but it never really lets up. Strangely, I didn't want to put it down for a second.<br />
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I would say "I can't imagine what it must be like to lose your entire family," but that's what this book does. Makes you imagine it. I also have a husband, two kids, and two parents, without any of whom I'd be unmoored, but ... the kids! To lose your babies in an instant like that. Grief isn't something you can recount easily, it doesn't fit in the frame. It's like those blue whales she observes from the boat ... too big to fathom. You can only get bits at a time. If ever you needed a reminder to be grateful for what you've got, for every mundane second of what you've got, Sonali will remind you.</div>
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There's a little gift buried in this memoir that doesn't get mentioned in reviews: the glimpse at a life that is both so similar to and so very different from my own. Sonali is Sri Lankan, upper middle class, and married an Englishman. She raised her family biculturally, across continents. That alone was interesting to me. The physical descriptions of Sri Lanka—the sea, the jungle, routine hoards of cranky elephants—were colorful and fascinating. I felt like I was getting a cultural education right along with the Job-like horror story. It almost seems in poor taste to mention it, like you're not supposed to notice how <i>interesting</i> her family is. Or was. </div>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Steve, Vik, and Malli</td></tr>
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And that's part of what makes this book work: you get caught up in how interesting they are. Malli in his tutu, Vik's fascination with eagles, Steve cooking dinner. She fleshes them out slowly; you get to know them after they are firmly established as dead, and it becomes ever-more difficult to believe they could possible BE dead. How could such real people be dead? They had futures, each of them, and you find yourself rooting for them impossibly, hoping somehow it'll all turn out all right in the end.</div>
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I was struck by the "army of friends and family" who kept Sonali from killing herself that first year. In the US, our ties to our nuclear family are often strong, but our ties to our extended family and community can be remarkably weak, relative to other cultures. I don't think I have "an army" of people who could watch over me 24/7 for months on end. In my culture, if I were in that position, I'd be committed to an institution. That's what we do. In George Packer's <i>The Unwinding</i>, which I reviewed <a href="http://stephstuph.blogspot.com/2014/01/cephalopod-book-review-unwinding.html" target="_blank">here</a> last month, I noticed how alone Americans are, relatively speaking; the only person who could rely on extended family to help her out during financial crisis was an Indian immigrant. <br />
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Sonali Deraniyagala</td></tr>
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Some reviewers have complained that the book is too sad to be borne. I didn't feel that way: I struggled much more with <i><a href="http://www.amazon.com/Leaving-Sea-Ben-Marcus-ebook/dp/B00DXKJ2DK/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1393544232&sr=1-1&keywords=leaving+the+sea" target="_blank">Leaving the Sea</a></i>, a book of short stories I finished right before I started this one. I don't know how <i>that</i> fiction could be bleaker than <i>this</i> reality, but there is an intimation right from the start that Sonali is going to be OK somehow. Maybe simply because she is there, writing this memoir—she couldn't do that if she wasn't a little bit OK. Some people survive but never do come back to life after tragedies; they remain shells for the rest of their days. This writer (and how is she not a professional writer? Her writing is amazing) seems like she has a shot at being all right. That resilience is what makes the book bearable.</div>
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<i>Note: Much of this review is shared from my review over at Goodreads. Feel free to join me there.</i></div>
Stephaniehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02187854108656107958noreply@blogger.com19tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3266371808927804670.post-7672166936634652252014-02-23T11:27:00.000-07:002014-03-01T15:39:02.002-07:00Interview with Author Delilah Dawson (and Book Giveaway!)<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
Here at the<i> The Writing Sisterhood</i> we're always happy to welcome other writers and share their successes with our wonderful readers. Prolific author Delilah Dawson has just released her latest novel, <i>Wicked After Midnight </i>and has agreed to answer some questions about her work and her publishing experience. The best part is that Delilah is giving away 3 copies of her e-novella THE DAMSEL AND THE DAGGERMAN! All you have to do is leave a comment below, fill out the quick form and you'll automatically enter the giveway. The contest ends on Saturday, March 1. Good luck everybody! <b>UPDATE: Winners have been chosen. Please scroll down to see if you're one of our winners!</b><br />
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<b><span style="color: purple;">Hi Delilah, welcome to <i>The Writing Sisterhood</i>!</span></b><br />
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Thanks so much for having me!<br />
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<b><span style="color: purple;">Q: Please tell us about your new book. What is it about?</span></b><br />
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A: Wicked After Midnight<i> </i>is the final book in the Blud trilogy and can be summed up as steampunk vampire Moulin Rouge. The series takes place in a fantasy world where most of the animals and many of the people drink blood, where pets are clockworks and fashion is dominated by thick corsets, high collars, and gloves. Demi Ward is a blood drinker and circus contortionist from our world who sets out to become a star in the cabarets of Paris. It's a dark, twisty, glittery, sexy adventure.<br />
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<b><span style="color: purple;">Q: Could you share what your publication process has been like?</span></b><br />
<b><br /></b>A: I didn't grow up knowing I wanted to be a writer—I assumed that writers were called to their destiny, like doctors or nuns. Then, in 2009, when my second child was almost a year old, I was living on three hours of sleep a night and basically broke my poor brain. All the signals that told me I couldn't write a book disappeared, and I knocked out my first draft in a couple of months. After exhaustive online research and edits, I queried that book, a quirky women's fiction, receiving over 50 rejections and some kind agently feedback that the writing was solid but the story was fatally flawed. I scrapped that book and wrote a middle grade. After over 30 rejections, I received offers of representation from two amazing agents. It was a difficult and painful decision, but I chose the one who handled lots of different genres, since I knew my next book was fantasy for adult audiences. My agent didn't sell the middle grade, but we worked on the fantasy, turned it into a romance, and sold it to Pocket at auction in a three-book deal. That book was Wicked as They Come. Since then, I've sold three e-novellas, a Big Six anthology story, a commissioned comics e-novella, three YA books, and several short stories and comics. I love being an author and finally feel like I'm doing what I was meant to do. More books are always in the works!<br />
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<b><span style="color: purple;">Q: Everything supernatural/fantastic seems to be more popular than ever. Why do you think that is? </span></b><br />
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A: What I want most in a book is an escape. I don't want to think about mortgages and cancer and PTA dues. I want to be transported away from my worries and straight to a magical place full of possibility and adventure. I like the fast pace and creative worldbuilding of fantasy, and supernatural elements tap into the accepted cultural shorthand to make strange creatures seem familiar. Almost all of my books are built on fantasy, so I hope the trend continues.<br />
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<b><span style="color: purple;">Q: Could you explain what exactly is “steampunk”?</span></b><br />
<b><br /></b>A: Steampunk has as many definitions as it does admirers. Some people describe it as Victorian science fiction or like the Wild Wild West movie but... good. Even if people can't describe it, they usually know it when they see it: corsets, top hats, and technology based on gears. The steampunk in my books arose naturally from the worldbuilding. Since all the prey animals, including horses, are vicious predators, the people must travel using trains, dirigibles, submarines, and horseless carriages and keep clockwork animals as pets. The best steampunk, in my opinion, go deeper than just the aesthetics of the Victorian world with cogs glued on and helps to inform the society, mores, fashion, and everyday life throughout the story.<br />
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<b><span style="color: purple;">Q: YA has recently become a crossover genre, with more and more adults reading it. That's put pressure on YA authors to write for two distinct audiences in one book. Do you feel that pressure?</span></b><br />
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A: Yes, but I don't see it as a negative. I like the immediacy, feelings, and excitement of YA books, along with a bit of snark and humor. And I like writing romance with themes of feminism, independence, and falling for men who balance passion with intelligence. Therefore, getting your YA peanut butter in my Romance chocolate is not a bad thing—it's a great thing. I did need some coaching regarding YA dialog, as my brain is definitely stuck in the 90s crossed with now. But I think people who like the Blud series will find the same dark whimsy and adventure with a touch of horror when they read my YA books.<br />
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<b><span style="color: purple;">Q: What inspires your stories?</span></b><br />
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A: Every story is different. Wicked as They Come was inspired by Buffy the Vampire Slayer and the album Like Vines by the Hush Sound. Wicked as She Wants was inspired by a reimagining of Princess Anastasia as the most dangerous woman around. Wicked After Midnight was inspired by my love for Baz Luhrman's Moulin Rouge. And Servants of the Storm, my August YA debut, was inspired by a combination of a trip to Savannah, a girl's picture from a fashion magazine, a viewing of The Tempest, and an afternoon in the basement during a tornado. My agent says I'm like a gun, that if you point me in a direction and shoot, I'll find a target.<br />
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<b><span style="color: purple;">Q: If you had to define your work in one word, what would it be?</span></b><br />
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A: WHIMSYDARK<br />
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<b><span style="color: purple;">Q: Who are your three favorite authors?</span></b><br />
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A: They used to be strangers whose books I like, but now that lots of my friends are authors, this question is far more challenging! If you're looking very simply at the books I wait for all year and read in a big rush the second they're out, it would be Cassandra Clare, Tiffany Reisz, and Diana Gabaldon. If you want a list of the authors who are my favorite people, we're going to need a bigger boat. ;)<br />
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<b><span style="color: purple;">Q: What advice would you give writers trying to get published? Did you ever feel like giving up?</span></b><br />
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A: My best advice is just a reminder that it's not over until you stop writing. Writing is not like a video game where you get a certain number of guys before GAME OVER, where you have to run a specific course. There are infinite paths, infinite ways to write, infinite times you can query a new book, and tons of ways to level up your skill set. I'm sure I had moments, right after form rejections from “dream agents” or rejections on full manuscripts, when I felt wronged and furious and done, but nothing keeps me going like hope. I would get a rejection and immediately send out a new arrow, knowing that one day, I would hit the target. And, yeah, I still have doubts and down days and times during writing when I feel like an untalented phony who will never succeed. But I keep going anyway, and the great days far, far outnumber the bad.<br />
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<b><span style="color: purple;">Q: Do you have plans for your next novel yet? </span></b><br />
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A: Good gravy, yes! Servants of the Storm debuts in August, and I can't wait to unleash it on the world. I'm working on two first drafts, one a dark and twisty women's fiction and the other a YA Weird West adventure. I have a geeky YA contemporary marinating before its first revision, and we're in talks to shape the sequel of my 2015 YA. And I have an anthology story due in March. I've never been so busy, and I've never been so happy.<br />
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<b><span style="color: purple;">Thanks Delilah!</span></b><br />
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Lorenahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17848249911635132594noreply@blogger.com7tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3266371808927804670.post-11955381562962515062014-02-16T16:26:00.001-07:002014-02-16T16:26:54.078-07:00The Resurrection of V.C. AndrewsA few weeks ago, I had the following conversation with my mother over the phone:<br />
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<b><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #38761d;">Mom</span></b>: I have to go soon. We're going to watch <i>Flowers in the Attic</i> on Lifetime.<br />
<b><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #38761d;">Me</span></b>: <i>Flowers in the Attic</i>? Are you serious? Do you know anything about those books?<br />
<b><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #38761d;">Mom</span></b>: Well, I know your sister used to read them when she was in high school. (<i>Which is true. My oldest sister went through a big horror stage at one time.)</i><br />
<b><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #38761d;">Me</span></b>: So, you know V.C. Andrews wrote the series. Do you have any idea what the story's about?<br />
<b><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #38761d;">Mom</span></b>: Abuse.<br />
<b><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #38761d;">Me</span></b>: Among other things.<br />
<b><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #38761d;">Mom</span></b>: What's that supposed to mean?<br />
<b><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #38761d;">Me</span></b>: Let's just say there's a relationship that develops between the older siblings.<br />
<b><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #38761d;">Mom</span></b>: Oh. Hey, it's on I gotta go.<br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh8knYPdVnBdx73JMXzCvwefMvN8-NE5KORJJu28beHHCgZCHJMg2rT9L3Hz-ZiStNQpdO4e2B04kzkavzENzkhlQp9inAnQK-OG1gsIHXhxxbKGqWHyyDe8LL7IkHsmw5-SWF45kSxfz0/s1600/flowers18tvf-1-web.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh8knYPdVnBdx73JMXzCvwefMvN8-NE5KORJJu28beHHCgZCHJMg2rT9L3Hz-ZiStNQpdO4e2B04kzkavzENzkhlQp9inAnQK-OG1gsIHXhxxbKGqWHyyDe8LL7IkHsmw5-SWF45kSxfz0/s1600/flowers18tvf-1-web.jpg" height="213" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><b><i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #38761d;">The disturbing Dollanganger clan hanging out in the attic.</span></i></b></td></tr>
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Who would've thought that all these years later a story like<i> Flowers in the Attic</i> would cut short my telephone conversation with my mother. To say I was stunned is putting it mildly. My mother never showed a shred of interest in books like that when I was growing up.<br />
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But, this conversation got the wheels in my head turning. Like many of you out there, I've read a V.C. Andrews book or two. Okay, maybe only two now that I think about it. I was never much of a fan of hers. By the time I was in high school, her work was no longer popular among the kids in my class. For those of you unacquainted with her novels, Andrews' work had a flair for Gothic horror and strange family saga, usually mixing a forbidden, or should I say taboo, love into the mix. She was, in my opinion at least, one of the few writers back in the late seventies and eighties writing genre fiction for what is now considered the YA market. Her stories had those creepy, forbidden elements that are now found everywhere in YA literature.<br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj8H22TrsKyVJfmGwHF9aFEKXSEuFYtFWnsjC0tdFF4yfo2WtOFAeupPDdV7l9nh6vxcIrPtkCggExdls4N3H3WeFgM7Al7eC7eW3bqkSIUwZlJzEFq7bKXnKAe3gbuBrLZmj9wfi766vQ/s1600/220px-V._C._Andrews.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj8H22TrsKyVJfmGwHF9aFEKXSEuFYtFWnsjC0tdFF4yfo2WtOFAeupPDdV7l9nh6vxcIrPtkCggExdls4N3H3WeFgM7Al7eC7eW3bqkSIUwZlJzEFq7bKXnKAe3gbuBrLZmj9wfi766vQ/s1600/220px-V._C._Andrews.jpg" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><b><i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #38761d;">V.C. Andrews with her<br />first novel</span></i></b></td></tr>
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For whatever reason, I decided to take a crazy trip down memory lane. I visited the local library and perused the V.C. Andrews titles on the shelves. What I discovered was something as eerie and shocking as some of the story elements found in one of her books: Although she died in 1986 from breast cancer, new novels by her are still being published today.<br />
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At first, I was thoroughly confused, because I was almost sure she had died quite a while back. On a whim, I pulled a book off the shelf and flipped to the copyright page. This is what it said:<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<i>"Following the death of Virginia Andrews, the Andrews family worked with a carefully selected writer to organize and complete Virginia Andrews' stories and to create additional novels, of which this is one, inspired by her storytelling genius."</i></blockquote>
I was a bit gobsmacked after reading this. My first thought was, "What a ripoff!" Books are still being published under her name, but she's not even the author? My second thought was, "Why would any author want to publish under some other author's name?" The answer to that is probably a financial one, but that's just my opinion. I ended up checking the book out, because I wanted to see the style of this "other author" and how it supposedly translates to Andrews' style.<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgCWRDCdKpZbWRu2LI_3MY5fJGF-Z4eMaQ1KhAgQ7tlGickie19bs8UC_xcvHWOGInlKKAb-jFSpOChN2EYVS1eT98Tbo3CUPezUCiDwLtdWvBceIH37qu8XhTJqCEM2vpS9oNHyXShjGQ/s1600/9781416530848_500X500.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgCWRDCdKpZbWRu2LI_3MY5fJGF-Z4eMaQ1KhAgQ7tlGickie19bs8UC_xcvHWOGInlKKAb-jFSpOChN2EYVS1eT98Tbo3CUPezUCiDwLtdWvBceIH37qu8XhTJqCEM2vpS9oNHyXShjGQ/s1600/9781416530848_500X500.jpg" height="320" width="320" /></a></div>
The book I chose, <i>Delia's Crossing</i>, is from a Mexican girl's point of view. We follow her from Mexico, after a horrific accident has claimed the lives of her parents, to California where she winds up being the household maid for her screechy, evil aunt. What I found is that although the ghost-writer, (how apropos for an Andrews novel) Andrew Neiderman, uses the same themes as Andrews did (i.e. rape, evil family members, questionable cousins, deep dark secrets, etc.) the story feels repetitive and really brings nothing new to the table. <i>Delia's Crossing</i> is a fast, easy read, but about halfway through, I was tired of the shrill aunt, the shrill cousin, and the almost paint-by-numbers approach to the plot. Maybe I need to be fifteen again to enjoy the salacious content.<br />
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For whatever reason, after I put the book aside, I couldn't shake the V.C. Andrews cult. That's kind of what it is really. Why do we cling the the way this author wrote to the point that we'd read a book that lures the reader in under false pretexts (i.e. Andrews' name)? Whatever it is, her estate found a lucrative foothold. Why would her estate continue to publish books that aren't even by her, but bearing her name, all these years after her death? Because just like the IRS figured out, her name alone is a valuable commercial asset. She is a business, plain and simple, plying the audience with inauthentic versions of the actual product, just like Walmart or McDonald's.<br />
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And this is what I find so disappointing about what's happened with V.C. Andrews' writing. As a writer, my story ideas come from my head alone. I don't care how many notes or half-written books I leave behind when I die, I have no intention of having posthumous stuff published unless it was already on its way out the door to the publishers. I don't want my work to be stripped to its bare bones, passed onto another writer to write as he/she wishes. I want my craft to be just that -- my craft. I have no idea what V.C. Andrews' wishes were concerning her work, but if this was not what she had in mind, then I find it very disappointing. Margaret Mitchell expressed how there would never be a sequel to <i>Gone With the Wind</i>, and look what happened there. J.D. Salinger, as odd as he was, viewed his work in the same light. His will states that none of his work is to be published until fifty years after his death.<br />
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<b><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #38761d;">So, here are my questions to you</span></b>: <i>Are you a fan (or have you been in the past) of V.C. Andrews' books? Have you read the ones written by her ghost-writer? Do they stand up to Andrews' original works? Do you know of any authors whose work has received the same posthumous treatment?</i><br />
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<br />Mary Maryhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09429769115085903305noreply@blogger.com13tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3266371808927804670.post-38824623578775890722014-02-09T21:51:00.000-07:002014-02-10T08:17:49.714-07:00Futureland: Dystopian vs. Post-ApocalypticI love our local bookstore. It's got cushy couches and informed sales staff and is designed to appeal to young adults and is about to open (squee!) a coffee nook. I also like how it's organized: a section for classics, a section for mainstream modern fiction, a tiny mystery section, no thriller section, and <i>lots</i> of speculative fiction. Fantasy is broken down into subcategories: swords-and-elves, urban witches, sparkly vampires, etc. One entire wall is dedicated to our terrible future: it's labeled "Futureland" and contains everything from <i>1984</i> to <i>World War Z. </i><br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjEzHlFxps3DBgsKE5nAaPPB8keud4kYuZ32OXPk9LMV9usq_2H7TNafJjihJArIaILgn05vC1FPHmJWtIjVl6VjwPYj8WxpTv2YdPDHGCYIjkgw3uLFrj0zp8YDjeANTncC_nf50hd0MNK/s1600/Screen+Shot+2014-02-06+at+5.58.52+PM.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjEzHlFxps3DBgsKE5nAaPPB8keud4kYuZ32OXPk9LMV9usq_2H7TNafJjihJArIaILgn05vC1FPHmJWtIjVl6VjwPYj8WxpTv2YdPDHGCYIjkgw3uLFrj0zp8YDjeANTncC_nf50hd0MNK/s1600/Screen+Shot+2014-02-06+at+5.58.52+PM.png" height="226" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><i>No dictator, no dystopia</i></td></tr>
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Based on the selections I've poked through on those shelves, let me tell you: the future <i>sucks</i>. It's either a nuclear wasteland, an overpopulated seething hothouse, or a giant prison camp run by a fey-yet-bloodthirsty madman. But it's unlikely to be all of those things at once. Dystopia and post-apocalyptic fiction are too often used interchangeably when they are not the same thing. They are both "futureland," as my bookstore so cleverly recognized, but with different visions of how things might look.<br />
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Dystopian fiction is usually about life under a repressive government. A utopia is an ideal society; a dystopia is not merely the opposite, but what happens when a government thinks it's got the answer to a perfect world and can only get there if it controls everyone and everything. Dystopias in real life (like the Soviet Union, like Taliban-controlled areas, like North Korea) are the result of rulers who try to bring utopias into fruition. In fiction, sometimes the higher aims of the repressive government are clear, sometimes it's not spelled out, but there's tyranny and the protagonist is trying to escape it. Dystopia is about social and political structures. The theme is revolution. Current examples: <i>The Hunger Games, Divergent, Matched, On Such a Full Sea. </i>Classic examples: <i>Logan's Run, Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?, Alas Babylon, Brave New World.</i><br />
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<tr><td><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjKwRdXHDLuj1c1JTyNjIE7269JJRoc9_kNuNn7MH4cD_AocmmBsvSdyO9rmA8sE1WdOu5Czz-zLq_s6EN4-HXLhyXL7dM8XIeCW86J4l9RecBK7hw4euQLHn8lnC9z5VKrYR6up5VAG_kr/s1600/Screen+Shot+2014-02-06+at+6.03.39+PM.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjKwRdXHDLuj1c1JTyNjIE7269JJRoc9_kNuNn7MH4cD_AocmmBsvSdyO9rmA8sE1WdOu5Czz-zLq_s6EN4-HXLhyXL7dM8XIeCW86J4l9RecBK7hw4euQLHn8lnC9z5VKrYR6up5VAG_kr/s1600/Screen+Shot+2014-02-06+at+6.03.39+PM.png" height="216" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="font-size: 12.727272033691406px;"><i>From Princeton.edu</i></td></tr>
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Post-apocalyptic fiction is about life after catastrophe. Humanity has been decimated. Nuclear war is a popular antecedent, as is a superflu. Celestial events (moons wandering out of orbit, suns dying) are also useful for the end times. Unlike dystopian fiction, post-apocalyptic novels are typically more individualistic. There aren't many people left, so the survivors are trying to scrabble along through a blasted landscape. The antagonist is usually nature, not a government; when there are bad guys, they are usually feral humans, not dictators. The theme is survival. Current examples: <i>The Road, The Age of Miracles, the Dog Stars,</i> the <i>MaddAddam</i> trilogy, <i>World War Z, The Passage, The 5th Wave, </i>the <i>Wool</i> trilogy. Classic examples: <i>War of the Worlds, The Stand, A Canticle for Liebowitz, I am Legend,</i> and (if we include films) <i>Planet of the Apes, Soylent Green, </i>and<i> Mad Max.</i><br />
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<tr><td><a href="http://www.madmaxmovies.com/mad-max-beyond-thunderdome/publicity-and-promotion/australian-premiere-souvenir-ticket/mad-max-3-souvenir-ticket-front.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="http://www.madmaxmovies.com/mad-max-beyond-thunderdome/publicity-and-promotion/australian-premiere-souvenir-ticket/mad-max-3-souvenir-ticket-front.jpg" height="320" width="227" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="font-size: 12.727272033691406px;"><i>Dystopian: too much government</i><br />
<i>Post-apocalyptic: not enough government</i></td></tr>
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There's some overlap. Many dystopian stories arise from the ashes of a catastrophic event: take the <i>Hunger Games,</i> with its vague references to a nuclear disaster. <i>Divergent</i> also seems to be set in a post-disaster world. On the other end, you've got the <i>Wool</i> trilogy, which leans toward post-apocalyptic but has elements of dystopian. The movie <i>Elysium</i>, which I confess I haven't seen yet, seems like it straddles this territory as well. It's not a dichotomy, then: a story can be both. However, most novels/films lean one way or another, and are mislabeled because people just think "crappy future" rather than revolution vs. survival.<br />
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I suspect both genres remain popular because they are so unfortunately relevant. As the western US descends into ever-worse drought, with horrific wildfires blasting our landscape every spring and summer, the end times don't seem so far-fetched. Our climate is changing, an apocalypse that seems to creep up on us like a slow deadly tide. And dystopian: as I read Adam Johnson's near-perfect novel <i><a href="http://www.amazon.com/The-Orphan-Masters-Son-Pulitzer/dp/0812982622" target="_blank">The Orphan Master's Son</a>,</i> about life in North Korea, I couldn't help but think that our dystopian novels describe reality for too many people. Read <i><a href="http://www.amazon.com/Am-Malala-Stood-Education-Taliban-ebook/dp/B00CH3DBNQ/ref=sr_1_1?s=digital-text&ie=UTF8&qid=1392005862&sr=1-1&keywords=i+am+malala" target="_blank">I Am Malala</a>, <a href="http://www.amazon.com/Thousand-Splendid-Suns-Khaled-Hosseini-ebook/dp/B000SCHC0Q/ref=sr_1_1?s=digital-text&ie=UTF8&qid=1392005822&sr=1-1&keywords=thousand+splendid+suns" target="_blank">A Thousand Splendid Suns</a>, <a href="http://www.amazon.com/Half-Sky-Nicholas-D-Kristof-ebook/dp/B002MHOCTO/ref=sr_1_1?s=digital-text&ie=UTF8&qid=1392005789&sr=1-1&keywords=half+the+sky" target="_blank">Half the Sky</a>, <a href="http://www.amazon.com/Long-Way-Gone-Memoirs-Soldier/dp/0374531269" target="_blank">A Long Way Gone</a>, </i>and<i> <a href="http://www.amazon.com/Sold-Patricia-McCormick-ebook/dp/B003V8BRS2/ref=tmm_kin_swatch_0?_encoding=UTF8&sr=&qid=" target="_blank">Sold</a></i>, and you realize that dystopian societies really exist, right now, in this world.<br />
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Both story forms serve as a warning. We are showing you these lives, so that you may take another path. Is it a surprise young people, who are tasked with cleaning up all the messes their forebears have created, are so drawn to this bleak futureland?<br />
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<i>All those moments will be lost in time ...</i></div>
Stephaniehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02187854108656107958noreply@blogger.com8tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3266371808927804670.post-55666913982389960672014-01-30T20:52:00.000-07:002014-01-30T21:02:55.616-07:00The Cephalopod Coffeehouse: The Infatuations<br />
Ever since I started writing in English, I’ve been reading mostly American and British authors. Not only as a tool to become more proficient in the language, but also to understand what’s selling in English-speaking markets and how their stories are told. Once in a while, though, I’ll dig into world literature and look at what’s selling outside the US, mostly in Latin America and Spain.<br />
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This month I ran across a Spanish author called Javier Marías, who is apparently making waves across the Atlantic. From what I understand, there’s even Nobel Prize talk. His latest work, <i>The Infatuations</i> (in Spanish, <i>Los Enamoramientos</i>) is a literary novel (but honestly, what Spanish/Latin American author doesn’t write literary?) with elements of crime, obsession and love—or more specifically, elements of “falling in love,” which is not the same thing, according to the author. As Alfaguara (the Spanish publisher of this novel) indicates <a href="http://www.alfaguara.com/es/libro/los-enamoramientos/" target="_blank">on its website</a>, this is "a book about the state of being in love, which seems to justify everything."<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgs_jLss7qiQCH8mgwdqkZp5yPQW-oS7OvGPqyVL2hEhB2LcjPL8tbxY9N3EvWZ0jBYHzWDYpYaQsSkhh5b2h0rSV1eHJYEKmwvfKt7FCf20C_YKByWbft1N-XVTqWRC-XFYhMUtMDbRag/s1600/infatuations.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgs_jLss7qiQCH8mgwdqkZp5yPQW-oS7OvGPqyVL2hEhB2LcjPL8tbxY9N3EvWZ0jBYHzWDYpYaQsSkhh5b2h0rSV1eHJYEKmwvfKt7FCf20C_YKByWbft1N-XVTqWRC-XFYhMUtMDbRag/s1600/infatuations.jpg" height="320" width="216" /></a></div>
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The plot is simple: María Dolz is a book editor who’s been watching a couple at a café every morning for years (whom she affectionately calls “The Perfect Couple”) until one day, they stop coming. By chance, she learns that the Perfect Husband (Miguel) had been stabbed to death. When María sees the Perfect Wife again at the café, she approaches her for the first time and offers her condolences. The now-widow invites her to her home for a chat and opens her heart to María (known to them as “The Prudent Young Woman”). At the widow’s house, María meets a family friend (Javier) and from the prudent, distant observer she once was, María becomes entangled in the lives of these strangers until their fate lies in her hands.<br />
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Oddly, in this novel—which may seem so intriguing and juicy—the plot is <i>not </i>the most important thing. As the author himself tells us through one of his characters (in reference to another novel):<br />
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<blockquote class="tr_bq">
“What happened is the least of it. It’s a novel, and once you’ve finished a novel, what happened in it is of little importance and soon forgotten. What matter are the possibilities and ideas that the novel’s imaginary plot communicates to us and infuses us with, a plot that we recall far more vividly than real events and to which we pay far more attention.”</blockquote>
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The author’s philosophy comes through in his work since, for example, we know very little about his protagonist. We come to know how María thinks and feels, but little to nothing about her past, her family or even her age. We’re stuck in this one anecdote of her life, this brief season where we learn the bare minimum about her (where she works and some of the people she associates with) in order to understand her choices and actions. This is a novel where the human condition (our fear of death, our unfulfilled desires, the things we do for love, the process of grieving after losing someone) becomes the focus of the story.<br />
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I found the novel to be both refreshing and frustrating. While the prose is engaging and identifiable (as I mentioned earlier, the author analyzes in great deal feelings and experiences most of us have had) he repeats his discourse in a way that the plot becomes sometimes static. I did enjoy his reflections and repeated motifs (he uses the same examples to illustrate his views on injustice and grief) but at the same time, I wanted the action to move along, I wanted to see the characters interact in different ways—as opposed to being told what they did and simply witnessing their philosophical conversations in almost every scene, which leads me to my other objection: the characters sounded (mostly) the same in their views of life (sort of cynical) and they all engage in super long monologues. <br />
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Despite my grievances, the novel is also refreshing and here’s why: the story doesn’t follow “the hero’s journey” or any predictable pattern (even though the reader is definitely intrigued to know what will happen and what did in fact happen to Miguel). It’s more of a “slice of life” type of story with no perceivable change in the protagonist or any of the other characters (aside from the end of a natural grieving process). I loved this because I am so tired of books and films that follow a formula as though it was a manual of instructions to install a dishwasher. It seems contradictory, doesn’t it? The same things that made it refreshing (the differences from the traditional storytelling model) also presented a source of frustration for me. In the end, though, the novel touches on much deeper issues than who killed Miguel and why or what will happen with the protagonist’s love life. It talks about how our perspective and memory may affect the truth (or what we perceive as such), it talks about how humans adjust to the loss of a loved one to the point where if that person were to come back, he or she may no longer have a place in our lives, and it talks about justice and impunity. In summary, it’s one of those novels that will leave you pondering for days and perhaps make you examine your own philosophies and fears.<br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgR5aD_SXAiB_CcguqRVPn-K8ZdelZwHLCle7TKVrcBVagD2h7T0dGRjmZy-IeW2YOPpXRQHpTEhcDGXyD1Jab9-eYyyTeMSgV_UsTMqWsUdiA_obsaKr4GFi34nr_whNzlUrhVTphjSMU/s1600/portada-enamoramientos.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgR5aD_SXAiB_CcguqRVPn-K8ZdelZwHLCle7TKVrcBVagD2h7T0dGRjmZy-IeW2YOPpXRQHpTEhcDGXyD1Jab9-eYyyTeMSgV_UsTMqWsUdiA_obsaKr4GFi34nr_whNzlUrhVTphjSMU/s1600/portada-enamoramientos.jpg" height="320" width="196" /></a></td></tr>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="font-size: 13px;">Spanish edition of <i>The Infatuations</i>. Which cover do you like better?</td></tr>
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<b>Have you read this novel? If so, what did you think? Do you agree with the author in his assessment that ideas are more important than events in fiction? </b><br />
<b><br /></b>
Check out these Cephalopod Coffeehouse reviews!<br />
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<tr><td width="5%">13.</td><td width="45%"><a href="http://www.yolandarenee.blogspot.com/" rel="nofollow" style="color: #4d469c; text-decoration: none;" target="_blank">Yolanda Renee</a></td><td width="5%">14.</td><td width="45%"><a href="http://mjfifield.blogspot.com/" rel="nofollow" style="color: #4d469c; text-decoration: none;" target="_blank">M.J. Fifield</a></td></tr>
<tr><td width="5%">15.</td><td width="45%"><a href="http://strangepegs.blogspot.com/2014/01/turn-coat-book-review-post.html" rel="nofollow" style="color: #4d469c; text-decoration: none;" target="_blank">StrangePegs -- Turn Coat</a></td><td width="5%">16.</td><td width="45%"><a href="http://divinesecretsofthewritingsisterhood.blogspot.com/" rel="nofollow" style="color: #4d469c; text-decoration: none;" target="_blank">The Writing Sisterhood</a></td></tr>
<tr><td width="5%">17.</td><td width="45%"><a href="http://eddyandreuben.blogspot.com/" rel="nofollow" style="color: #4d469c; text-decoration: none;" target="_blank">Ed and Reub</a></td><td width="5%">18.</td><td width="45%"><a href="http://strangepegs.blogspot.com/2014/01/vaders-offspring.html" rel="nofollow" style="color: #4d469c; text-decoration: none;" target="_blank">StrangePegs -- Vader's Offspring</a></td></tr>
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Lorenahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17848249911635132594noreply@blogger.com28tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3266371808927804670.post-78041427558295715722014-01-01T13:01:00.000-07:002014-01-01T13:01:20.071-07:00Happy New Year! (And a Blogging Break)<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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To all our writing and blogging family out there, we want to wish you nothing but happiness and good things to come in 2014!<br />
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This has been a busy year here at The Writing Sisterhood. We've been working diligently on upcoming projects, entering contests, and seeing our work go out on submission. We've had some really great moments and then some that have left us wondering just exactly where our writing road is going. Through it all, we've loved connecting with the blogging and writing community and have enjoyed meeting the new faces we've come to know over this last year, especially with the Cephalopod Coffeehouse, which has been a lot of fun.<br />
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Like last January, when we found ourselves thoroughly exhausted from the past twelve months, we've decided to take a break for the month. But, don't worry, we will be back come the last week of January, when Sister Lorena will be posting her book review for January's coffeehouse meeting of book lovers. And we will be busy! We plan on entering the New Mexico Press Women's writing contest again for the third straight year. Keep your fingers crossed that we will be just as successful with it as we have been in the past!<br />
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We hope all of you out there take some time to rest and recharge for the upcoming new year. We look forward to seeing what the next year has in store for you! Have a blessed New Year!<br />
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Best Wishes!<br />
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<i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #674ea7; font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">Sisters Lorena, Stephanie, and Mary Mary</span></i><br />
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif;">P.S. In case you missed any of our posts, feel free to check them out. Here are three of the top ones from 2013:</span><br />
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<li><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif;"><a href="http://divinesecretsofthewritingsisterhood.blogspot.com/2013/03/sunday-book-review-me-before-you.html" target="_blank">Sunday Book Review: Me Before You</a> -- by Sister Lorena</span></li>
<li><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif;"><a href="http://divinesecretsofthewritingsisterhood.blogspot.com/2013/08/spoiler-alert-juliet-dies.html" target="_blank">Spoiler Alert: Juliet Dies</a> -- by Sister Stephanie</span></li>
<li><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif;"><a href="http://divinesecretsofthewritingsisterhood.blogspot.com/2013/09/the-beauty-of-good-documentary.html" target="_blank">The Beauty of a Good Documentary</a> -- by Sister Mary Mary</span></li>
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Mary Maryhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09429769115085903305noreply@blogger.com6tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3266371808927804670.post-38823545387680904942013-12-27T09:16:00.000-07:002013-12-27T09:17:54.351-07:00Cephalopod Coffeehouse: American Passage: The History of Ellis Island<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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Immigration in the U.S. is complicated. This is a fact. And, from what I've read in Vincent J. Cannato's non-fiction account of Ellis Island's history, it's always been complicated.<br />
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Welcome to December's round of the Cephalopod Coffeehouse! I hope everyone is having a lovely holiday season! If you're not busy socializing with family, watching football, or taking in the season's festivities, then might I interest you in a discussion on U.S. immigration? Sounds fun, doesn't it?<br />
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This past month I dove into a non-fiction account of Ellis Island -- <i>American Passage: The History of Ellis Island</i> -- that little island in New York Harbor that initially threw its doors open to foreigners from all over Europe. Your first question might be why I felt the need to delve into such an extensive history on immigration, and I'll clear the confusion up right away. I'm researching a new book I plan on writing come the new year and the majority of it takes place on Ellis Island around the turn of the twentieth century-- a time when hundreds of thousands of immigrants were spilling into the United States. I found it all so very fascinating!<br />
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Vincent J. Cannato's book takes the reader on a journey that right away makes one see exactly where the growing pains of immigration began. His book is primarily about straightforward facts when it came to laws and regulations concerning immigrants and how to handle the rising tide. This is what Cannato says about it in his Introduction:<br />
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<i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #134f5c;">"Americans need a history that does not glorify the place in some kind of gauzy, self-congratulatory nostalgia, nor mindlessly condemn what occurred there as the vicious bigotry of ugly nativists. Instead, this book seeks to understand what happened at Ellis Island and why it happened."</span></i></blockquote>
And that's exactly what I was looking for when I cracked this book open. Cannato details the history of Ellis Island from it's early days as Gibbet Island, an execution ground for pirates (I know!), through the tumultuous and insanely busy days at the turn of the century, to its waning days as a detention center for Communist sympathizers in the 1950s. Ellis Island was officially closed as an immigration/detention center in 1954. By then, most buildings on the island had been shuttered and the main building had fallen into disrepair with some of the detainees commenting that the place was "a disgusting place," "a prison," met with "bitter disappointment," and "dirty, dingy, and grey with age."<br />
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In its heyday, Ellis Island (but initially Castle Garden before Ellis Island's main building was built) was the main immigration station in the United States, handling and processing some 12 million immigrants from 1892 to 1924. No immigrant could fully say he/she had entered the U.S. until they passed through those final doors and took the ferry into New York City. In many ways, Ellis Island also became a lightening rod for controversy. With the rise of eugenics, many stalwart Americans opposed the idea of letting just anyone into the country, especially the dirty, unwanted foreigners from over seas. On the flipside, immigrant societies and newspapers ripped Ellis Island's administration apart on many occasions, saying that not enough was being done to keep immigrants safe and free from deportation.<br />
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<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhRMqpeeYOEQLvQmrlV44V9oXyZoIIMVjaqqoXg3VWWqr2eJz-lUycWfR0aOq_5Jo870UZcdo_nbg6CDkiwZB-RaiUaacNprlkq9Mn-lrfrMcy8YrUlXBdW_dkGjXNIn76Q1rsBdPpdi0c/s1600/Immigrant.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhRMqpeeYOEQLvQmrlV44V9oXyZoIIMVjaqqoXg3VWWqr2eJz-lUycWfR0aOq_5Jo870UZcdo_nbg6CDkiwZB-RaiUaacNprlkq9Mn-lrfrMcy8YrUlXBdW_dkGjXNIn76Q1rsBdPpdi0c/s1600/Immigrant.jpg" height="320" width="293" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><b><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #134f5c;"><i>"The Stranger at Our Gate"</i><br /><i>A popular depiction of immigrants first</i><br /><i>published by the magazine </i>Our Day<br /><i> in 1896.</i></span></b></td></tr>
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With the 1891 Immigration Act the list of "undesirables" not to be admitted rose. It included "idiots, insane persons, paupers or persons likely to become public charges, persons suffering from a loathsome or a dangerous disease, persons who have been convicted of a felony or other infamous crime or misdemeanor involving moral turpitude, polygamists." As horrifying as it may sound to include immigrants in these categories, this is exactly what they did during the majority of early immigration. The idea was to sift the incoming immigrants and this was the best plan the government could come up with.<br />
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I think at times we tend to think of immigration pains as in the here and now. The truth is that the U.S.'s immigration predicament started long before now. Theodore Roosevelt had a lot on his plate at one time and, unfortunately, the passing of the immigration buck just went from president to president, hoping that in some way a solution would finally be found. We still grapple with that indecisiveness today.<br />
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Cannato does a thorough job with the historical aspects of Ellis Island, and I was happy to find such a well thought-out source. I will say that there were a few times I was put off by the way Cannato produced his facts. It was obvious he was interjecting his opinion at times. For instance, in an interview given by Vera, Countess of Cathcart in 1926, when detained for adultery (yes, that did happen under the moral turpitude clause) after her love interest the Earl of Craven fled to Canada when issued an arrest warrant for the same charge, said the following: "I am not a coward and have not run away, like the Earl of Craven. He has proved himself a coward in many ways." After this, Cannato puts into parentheses: "This was a man who had lost a leg in combat as a young officer during World War I." (Page 262) Um...is Cannato saying that when a man loses a leg in war he is no longer a coward? Or that if the man gives the authorities the slip for an arrest warrant that him losing his leg cancels out his present cowardly actions? I'm not sure, but I came across little tidbits like this from time to time. In all, though, I'd say I enjoyed reading Cannato's dissection of such a complicated piece of American history.<br />
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So, there you have it. A little breakdown on the U.S.'s history of immigration through Ellis Island. A few years ago I had the privilege to visit what is now the Ellis Island Immigration Museum. The main building has been overhauled and is fascinating to visit. What I loved most is the Registry Room where once upon a time incoming immigrants were asked a variety of questions before given or denied entry. It's large, nicely reconstructed and quiet. It's good to just sit there and maybe see if you can hear a conversation or two among the voices of the past.<br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhSttD8Li4U9XEF9YxpxIW2RUBTLSyDS6K_DiJko2Z3TscAkVwkADgXbr7cW3mej8l3aQgfBcbW4AGAimiXsMjMv1eIdeUV1ra1LwslXeQtoDyhPOOxvOqVAQbQlSaWjV7T1GBrllCrjBY/s1600/Ellis_Island_in_1905.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhSttD8Li4U9XEF9YxpxIW2RUBTLSyDS6K_DiJko2Z3TscAkVwkADgXbr7cW3mej8l3aQgfBcbW4AGAimiXsMjMv1eIdeUV1ra1LwslXeQtoDyhPOOxvOqVAQbQlSaWjV7T1GBrllCrjBY/s1600/Ellis_Island_in_1905.jpg" height="252" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><b><i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #134f5c;">Ellis Island in 1905.</span></i></b></td></tr>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg-Eq4-Z40PymGY4abC6Bwg1r5F1FjIYSSAQdp61i3zCC3vZzoGKmJ-HmeDlBzgvATHfnu8svLtCVR2LKi8p3G8VfxPAZ6BeKb2AYgP4YKv6cWXxtAKitJPG9YsmBWVEbmwY9gQV5GP-CQ/s1600/Ellis_Island-27527.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg-Eq4-Z40PymGY4abC6Bwg1r5F1FjIYSSAQdp61i3zCC3vZzoGKmJ-HmeDlBzgvATHfnu8svLtCVR2LKi8p3G8VfxPAZ6BeKb2AYgP4YKv6cWXxtAKitJPG9YsmBWVEbmwY9gQV5GP-CQ/s1600/Ellis_Island-27527.jpg" height="200" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><b><i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #134f5c;">Ellis Island today.</span></i></b></td></tr>
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Make sure to check out other reviews in this month's <a href="http://armchairsquid.blogspot.com/" style="background-color: yellow;">Cephalopod Coffeehouse</a>.
Mary Maryhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09429769115085903305noreply@blogger.com14