Did You Miss Me?

Reader! Hello! How are you? My computer has been working on her breathing and affirmative visualization exercises and has managed to overcome the trauma of the hurricane.

In other words, Curt figured out that some knobs had gotten loose and so we tightened them and the computer turned back on.

No, I'm not joking.

So, here is a mishmash of things from my head for your Tuesday evening enjoyment:

1.I am officially an aunt! Should I insist on being called "Auntie"? No, I don't think so, though it's tempting. I got to hold my niece and it was pretty cool. I'm still not really into the whole baby thing. I prefer kids once they can talk and walk but oh well. As babies go, my new niece is as cute as they come!

2.I was coming down with a cold but it seems to be going away and it's only been a few days! This may be the first time that has happened since I got mono way back in 2005. HA! Take THAT, Sickness. I have triumphed over thee!

Sadly (or perhaps not so sadly, depending on your tolerance for gross posts), my returning health means you will not be treated to another Consumption joke or another gruesome post about eye seepage.

3.Here's a link to the blog The Art Order, which ran a contest for artists to interpret the LOTR scene in which Eowyn fights the Nazgul. It's really fun to scroll through. I kept finding more and more that I loved, in all different styles. Here are a couple of my favorites:

4. Rhetorical Question: How can I ever enjoy Orson Scott Card again after reading this????

Answer: I just can't. I can't love you anymore, OSC. Not when you spread hate and ignorance and homophobia and bad retellings of Shakespeare. No. Just stop before my newfound indifference towards you sours into something darker.

Editor's Note: From now on OSC shall be struck from my Ongoing List of Favorite Authors. Sad Face Party.

5.Today I went to the campus HR Office to fill out paperwork because I'm helping out at the bookstore for the book rush. I was filling out my W4 and I stopped because there were three options: Single, Married, and Married but file as single. I was puzzling over why I might want to file as Single since I'm married. Kindly remember that I've been fighting a cold and haven't been particularly sharp the last couple days.

The HR woman helpfully leans in and goes, "Single. Single. Single." Three slow blinks and slow oh-so-very-slow chugs of the brain gears later and I realize she thinks I'm single. "I'm married," I tell her.

Here we go, I think. She sits back in shock. "So young!" she shouts.

Lady, go on and ask me how long I've been married. Go. Ahead. I love it when they do that. Then I can see them trying to run the math without actually asking me how old I am. Because what I really need is the freshmen looking at me like I'm as old as Death while the adults in HR think I'm a child bride. What is up with that??

And finally: the Happy Song of the Day. Get up out that seat and DANCE!

There is No Joy in The Serious

The other day, I blogged about "literary" fiction's prejudices against genre fiction. To be honest, I've got a pretty big prejudice against "literary" fiction myself: That it's all DEPRESSING.

Which is why I avoid it unless a particular book has been recommended to me.

It's funny, because I do love tragedies. I suppose you haven't ever seen the amazing Bollywood film Devdas, have you? I adore it—one scene in particular, which always makes me cry. Always. I also love Hamlet. I haven't quite figure it out, though I do find there's a difference between a grandiose, epic tragedy and a wear-you-down, life is hopeless depressing story.

The thing is, I'm very good at depressing myself without any outside help.

Why is it that Art has to be serious to be taken seriously?

People used to mock me for loving Sara Teasdale's poetry, despite my contention that she can be just as piercing and pensive as Sylvia Plath.

I was teased at the publishing house for selecting a holiday book (yes, every year we each got to choose a book that was then wrapped and opened in front of the entire company) about Maxfield Parrish (ever heard of "Parrish Blue?").

This is "Ecstay" my favorite Parrish painting and the first one I ever saw.

One editor told me I might as well like Thomas Kinkaid. Everyone laughed. At 23 and lowest on the company totem pole, I was mortified.

Similarly in college I struggled to enjoy dance class, which had been one of my primary loves up through high school. But there was no more Fosse, no more tap, and very little ballet. Dance was not to entertain and express a range of emotions. No, because it was college and so there was only Modern Dance and Modern was ONLY for the purpose of talking about Serious Topics.

Even the folks who made White Christmas knew that. ("Instead of dance it's choreography.")

Last night I attended yet another modern dance performance. I never learn, I guess. The entire time I kept thinking, "Where is the joy??" One piece after another featured stressful music, serious themes, and hardly any dancing at all. One piece that explored a little shred of hope (I'm not asking for sequins here, folks), would have stood out like a beacon of light.

Instead we were treated to one piece in particular, which involved a woman making upsetting noises, stomping her feet, and randomly spinning a top, all with her back to the audience.

I don't go to a performance to watch someone else's self indulgent display of emotion. Ditto for reading a book. I go to have emotions evoked in ME through the work. The artist shouldn't try to control what that emotion/ reaction is. Interestingly, that piece also required several paragraphs of explanation in the program, something about the world's sadness. Sad was not how I felt. Anger was more like it.

It seems to me that the only people who like this stuff, are the ones making it, be that certain literary fiction or modern dance or any other art form. It reminded me of a strange moment last summer at the Bread Loaf Writer's Conference wherein a couple literary magazines informed everyone that, "If you expect us to publish your work, you need to subscribe to our magazine." The implication being that otherwise the magazines would fold. You know, because no one wants to read that stuff, not even the people who are WRITING it!

As Curt said so eloquently, "That's not art, that's a bunch of people masturbating on each other."

I like to think of this crassness as my influence on him.

Please don't misunderstand, I'm not saying I want everything to be sunshine! rainbows! and jazz hands! But everything needs balance. Without an understanding of the hope a character might have for the potential joys they might experience, I can't then truly comprehend the meaning of their loss when/ if those hopes are not realized. I can't appreciate darkness without a candle, nor can I appreciate these long, lazy summer days without the dark, cold winter nights.

Besides, there's nothing wrong with a little joy. Mock me all you want. Shake your head all you want. Snub me all you want Mr. Snobby Narrow-minded Literary Agent, who doesn't have a clue what my writing abilities are. Dismiss my thesis or my dance composition piece or my holiday book selection.

For a serious person like me, exploring life's capacity for joy is far more difficult and meaningful than exploring its capacity for despair.

Editor's Note: I guess I think about this a lot. Here's a post from last year as a refresher.

Super 8 - Not So Great For Female Characters

**SPOILERISH ALERT**

I think enough time has passed that I can weigh in on this movie, which I actually saw on opening weekend!! Yes, that's worth additional exclamation points. I'm notoriously behind on movies.

Anyway, the movie was nice. I mean, the best part was that it felt like the people who made it actually cared about the movie and also cared whether or not I enjoyed it. It's just too bad that this is a rare enough feeling nowadays that I noticed it at all.

I am not going to talk plot, I just have a feminist complaint. As per usual, the women in this film act merely as a moral compass, a Reason to Go On, and as someone in need of rescuing.

Early in the film, the J.J. Abrams stand-in director kid decides to add a new character to the zombie film he's making: the detective's wife. "Why?" asks his friend. To which the director kid replies that the audience needs a reason to care about what happens to the detective. And the reason is that his wife loves him.

And that is the function the "real" women characters fill in the rest of the movie.

There's the main character's mom, who died--leaving both her child and husband bereft and unable to connect with each other. The mother is seen only in loving film shots wherein she is cuddling the main character as a baby while making doe-eyes at her husband, who is filming. She also serves as the Moral Compass for her coworker, a drunk for whom she was covering at the Plant the day she died. And for the rest of the movie, he tries to make it up to her, because she was the only person who Believed in Him. The drunk's daughter is the pretty blond girl who gets cast in the movie and becomes not only the main character's and director kid's love interest but also the Girl in Need of Rescuing.

Meanwhile the boys--all white, of course--run around filming a movie and narrowly avoiding getting blown up and whacked in the head with shrapnel. It's all just so typical. Why can't there be a girl in the mix of boys? Why can't there be some minorities, who are main characters rather than just the Smart Scientist with the Heart of Gold, who happens to be....black!! And of course the black soldier who follows the big bad white man's orders to kill the scientist.

I don't think I'm asking too much here, World...am I??

Note to Men: Women do NOT exist simply to give your lives--and your movies--meaning.

Edit: Here's another review by Daniel Walber at IndieWIRE that shares my opinion on this subject.

BEA 2011: Wednesday...no, Tuesday again!

Okay, Reader. BEA 2011 feels like it was a bazillion years ago, at least in blog years. In my defense, things have been a little crazy here. Please forgive me.

After my epic Tuesday recap, I realized that Wednesday and Thursday couldn't really compete. Therefore, they are getting smooshed into one post. And they are going to like it!! And so are you.

So, now that a bazillion blog years have passed, I'm thinking back to BEA 2011 through the haze of nostalgia. That means that all those little annoyances are fading.

For example, I decided to take my time getting coffee before I got to the booth on Wednesday. This is because on Tuesday I had been the SECOND EMPLOYEE to show up at my booth and I'm not even technically an employee. The first employee was a sales rep, who immediately asked how old I was.

Reader, do you know of a charmingly clever way of deflecting this question?

You see, I will be THIRTY in less than a year's time and that is apparently a kiss of death for women. It's as if our uteruses stop working and our boobs fall off and we are no longer technically women at all. That's the sort of reaction people seem to have about this particular birthday.

I guess I don't look like I'm almost thirty and that's supposed to be a good thing or whatever. But, it's awkward. And it's rude when people ask. I bet men never get this question. You know why? Because they don't have a society-imposed expiration date. So when a well past middle aged man bluntly asks my age and hears "29" he looks horrified and do you know how this makes me feel? It makes me feel like one of my boobs just started to fall off. Not a good feeling.

Okay, I just realized I am getting caught up in Tuesday again. Bad, naughty Tuesday! Not to mention all those little annoyances that had supposedly faded into the haze of nostalgia.

Let's start over...NEW POST! NEW CUP!
(original John Tenniel illustration for Lewis Carroll's Alice's Adventures in Wonderland)

Let's Play a Game: Compliment or Insult?

I noticed a middle aged woman watching my kickboxing class as I finished up last night. She was stretching at the barre before Zumba started. That plus her slim, tall physique implied that she was a ballet dancer.

(Only ballet dancers make a big show of stretching at a barre whenever there is one nearby. I swear they would do this if we put ballet barres in line at the supermarket. Trust me: I'm a ballet dancer.)(Case en Pointe: Ballet dancers stretching in Central Park)

Ballet Dancer asked me what I taught and I told her Cardio Kickboxing. She asked me to explain it so I said it involved combinations of punches and kicks but no sparring (people are always freaked out by the thought that they might have to hit each other). Here's how the rest of the conversation went down:

BALLET DANCER: So do you lift weights in class?

ME: No, but we do push ups and use our body weight for many exercises, and that plus the punches and kicks do strengthen your muscles.

BALLET DANCER: I can tell--you look very muscular.

ME:. . . thaaaanks.


Dear Ballet Dancer, may I suggest the word "toned" in the future? I don't think many women like to be described as muscular especially by a woman who looks like she's never had to shop for a size above a 2, not never ever ever in her long legged life.

To be fair, I think she really did mean it in a complimentary way. But even so....

Compliment or Insult?

The Value of a Girl

The holidays must have kept me mellow, or at least kept me distracted by family enough so that I haven't been fired up about anything in the last week or two.

FEAR NOT. Today I have hit upon something new at which to fling my outrage.

And it involves Twilight. Well, not so much Twilight itself as people's complaints against Twilight and what that tells me about the different expectations that readers (especially male readers) have for female versus male characters.

A common criticism about Bella Swan is that her appearance is never described in detail and therefore she is an empty shell, existing only as a conduit through which (female or gay male) readers can live out their Edward fantasies.

You've heard this before, yes?

This cartoon from The Oatmeal by Matthew Inman is what has set me off. Let me provide an excerpt:

"First off, the author creates a main character which is an empty shell. Her appearance isn't described in detail; that way, any female can slip into it and easily fantasize about being this person. I read 400 pages of that book and barely had any idea of what the main character looked like; as far as I was concerned she was a giant Lego brick...By creating this 'empty shell,' the character becomes less of a person and more of something a female reader can put on and wear."

Now, maybe you have your complaints about Bella. I know I do. Mostly I don't like how carelessly she throws away her humanity and her human life, because you know I happen to be human and I like it very much. But the girl does have a personality. She makes choices. She is in no way a lego brick.

And anyway, Bella's appearance IS described. I don't have a copy of Twilight at hand, but according to Bella's Wikipedia entry (I know I know...great sources I'm citing here...) she is described as being, "very pale with brown hair, chocolate brown eyes, and a heart-shaped face."

That counts as description in my book. Can you, for example, tell me in greater detail what Jay Gatsby looks like? How about Holden Caulfield? Ender Wiggin? Romeo Montague? Mr. Darcy?

No one complains about these famous fictional men being empty shells for lack of bust, waist, and hip measurements, as far as I know. So what gives?

Why, the difference is that Bella Swan is a girl. And the value of a girl is measured by her appearance. How can we know anything about her personality and value as a human being without first knowing her cup size??

It's interesting to note that Edward, more like a traditional female character, is described in loving, worshipful detail from his sparkly jaw to his granite hard chest.

Methinks the menfolk don't like the comparison too much.

In The Flesh

I'm outraged this morning, Reader. Anyone who knows me, knows that this happens fairly regularly. And also if you know me, I will force you to share in my outrage. Thus, share with me now!

A friend of mine directed me to two articles today. One is by Maura Kelly for Marie Claire, the other on author Jennifer Lancaster's blog.

If you want to share in my outrage, you must read both. Luckily Maura's is relatively short and Jennifer's is very funny.

.....(waiting).....

Okay, done? Good! So, really rude, right? I thought Jennifer did a great job of arguing against Maura's article while keeping things classy. Maura's stupid thoughts and--watch me be way less classy and politic than Jennifer Lancaster--pathetic attempts to justify them by blaming it all on her ongoing struggle with anorexia, are not only mean and pointless, but poorly written!

Maura starts out with an interesting premise: Do people feel uncomfortable watching overweight people be intimate on TV?

Instead of following through with this, she makes hurtful comments about how she doesn't like watching fat people do ANYTHING because having to admit that they even exist in the world is GROSS BEYOND ALL IMAGINING. Great, Maura. Did you actually get paid to write this?

It's too bad, because I've often thought about this particular topic. I first questioned it the year I watched both Charlie's Angels (the movie) and Bridget Jones's Diary. Both feature scenes with a main character in her underwear.

In the opening scene of Charlie's Angels, Cameron Diaz dances around in very little clothing:

And it's cute and funny and doesn't feel at all voyeuristic, at least not to me.

At the end of Bridget Jones's Diary, Bridget runs outside in her underwear. I couldn't embed this, but here's the link. This time, I remember feeling embarrassed while I watched (at least until she kisses Colin Firth). Granted, the scenarios are different. But for me is was more because of the way her body looked.

I know Renee Zellweger is NOT overweight here, though much was made of her gaining weight for the role. And I've decided that for me at least, the difference is that Renee looks like a real person in her underwear while I've never met anyone whose body looks like Cameron's.Yes, I do realize that people with Cameron's body type do exist in the world, but they're rare. And the thing is, she's so slim that none of her bits are in danger of popping out of her undies because, well, her bits are pretty itty bitty. With Renee, however, the camera pans over her and it's a very real possibility that we might see more cheek or cleavage than we should, so it's sexy (and in this particular scene, uncomfortable).

Flesh is real and sexy and sensual. I'm always amazed at how little clothing the Victoria's Secret and Sports Illustrated Swimsuit models can wear without looking naked to me. They're like robots or aliens. It's just not the same thing.

Does anyone else want to weight in (pun intended) on any of this?

It's All A Bit Fleshy--I Mean, Fishy

Random Gripe: This gripe isn't exactly revolutionary, which is what makes me so pissed off about it.

I recently ordered a new sports bra and it arrived this afternoon. It's light beige and came with tags that declare the color to be "body tone".

I'm getting really annoyed that a light Caucasian skin tone is considered Flesh Tone--as if that's the only skin tone out there.

The light beige is actually a very good match for my skin tone. See?But Reader, I'm really pale. Pale enough that people always comment on it and I have to chant "Nicole Kidman Gwyneth Paltrow" over and over in my head to make myself feel better.

I can't even imagine how pissed I'd be if I had darker skin and was constantly being told that a shade several times lighter than my own was the Official Flesh Tone. It's like they're saying, "Anything darker doesn't count."

It's all so very ironic when you consider that many pale skinned people covet darker skin and that they are willing to go to great lengths to get it (tanning beds, spray tans, bronzer, etc).

Clothing companies, particularly for undergarments should never ever select one color and call it flesh tone. Why don't they offer a separate line of skin tone bras and underwear in a range of colors?

They do realize people come in different colors, right?I wonder sometimes.

D is for Diamonds. And Devil. And Doom.

It's that time of year! Time for the jewelry stores to pull out their most cheestastic commercials and horribly cheap designs (necklaces that sort of kind of look like a couple embracing--from above, obviously. Necklaces that look like a tail made of cubic zirconium, but which--we are told via said commercials--symbolizes a happy life together. Right.) For some reason, this is the time of year when jewelry becomes very Symbolic, probably to try and hide the fact that it's also Cheap and Tasteless.

To make matters worse, these commercials play at every single commercial break and, for mystical reasons beyond my comprehension, they make me tear up. Just a little. Despite the wooden dialogue, the overly romanticized setting, and the background elevator music. At the same time they make me vomit in my mouth a little bit because not only are they totally unrealistic, they are also trying to tell us that women can and should measure a man's love for them in carats.

Alas, even I have my weakness. De Beers' always manages to pull my feeble heart strings without also making me want to pull the proverbial trigger. And I'm still not buying what they're selling. I think it's just a hold over from those classic, sillhouette de Beers' commercials that aired in the 90's when I was fumbling towards puberty in a fragile hormonal state.



And somehow they keep on doing it. They must have sold their souls to the Devil decades ago for this sort of marketing genius. (Please note ugly necklace. But it's sparkly! And he loves her! Yeah. Right.



Please, let the torture be over soon.

Women's Fiction

I'm in a bit of a fog today, fighting off a cold that my twin sis kindly offered to share with me (Twins. Always sharing things.) But I was doing a blog roundup and got as fired up as I can while sipping tea and staring, slack-jawed at the screen every few minutes. Once again I'm upset about women's fiction, women writers, and female protagonists.

First of all: What the HELL is women's fiction!? Oh wait, don't tell me. Let's wiki it, shall we? "Women's fiction is an umbrella term for a wide-ranging collection of literary sub-genres that are marketed to female readers, including many mainstream novels, romantic fiction, chick lit, and other sub genres."

Right. Soooo then why isn't Men's fiction a literary term? Oh, right. Because Men's fiction IS fiction. It's ALL fiction. Fiction written by men. Because all fiction IS written for men, by men. Right?

Wrong.

Fiction is fiction. Stop quarantining books with female main characters so that men don't have to read about them or their pink frosted feminine lives. As if "women's fiction" is somehow of lesser quality and simpler themes than regular Fiction. Here's an interesting blog post on that from The Guardian. Men need to get used to reading about female main characters. I ranted about this here, if you need a refresher.

Moving on, there's this angry but interesting post from The Rejectionist, which begins as a book review of Maggie Stiefvater's SHIVER and ends up as a diatribe against weak, lovelorn heroines currently popular in YA literature. Of course Bella of TWILIGHT serves as the symbol for All That is Wrong With Female Protagonists.

Question: Since when does every heroine have to represent how women should act in society at large?? I never hear people complain that a certain hero is too weak/strong/stubborn/boring/brutish/insert adjective here. Why do you think that is? Because men don't have hangups about where they fit in society. For women, we're still figuring that out. We're still trying to find the balance between wanting to be considered equals and the fact that we were born with a uterus built to grow BABIES. And what does that mean? And what if we LIKE baking cookies? Is that wrong? I think the issue is that women have a lot on their plates right now. And we need to remember that one character is just ONE character in a work of FICTION.

When we think too much about what a female character Represents, we end up with two types of characters: the weak woman in love OR the badass, take-no-prisoners woman with NO FAULTS, ever because women are perfect in every way. Writers and readers need to look at women as people just as we look at men. We're all people, just with different parts.

It's okay for one person to get swept up in love, isn't it? In fact, isn't that what happens to Twilight's lovesick hero Edward? He almost kills himself because of his love for Bella. But you don't hear any men--

(granted, this is Women's fiction we're talking about so they probably don't even know that a book called TWILIGHT exists, right?)

--complaining that Edward is too absorbed by his relationship and how unhealthy that is. No, because men aren't terrified of that happening to them. They aren't afraid of getting swept up by love, or letting that be an integral part of their lives. But women ARE afraid, because we're still trying to find that balance in real life. We consider Edward to be just one more character, making decisions and living his life. Bella on the other hand, somehow has to represent Everything a Modern Woman Should Be. That's a heavy load for any character to bear, don't you think?

So let's just try to move--one step at a time--towards a day when women and men are just people, in fiction and in life. We can start by eliminating derogatory terms like Women's fiction, for starters.

Leave Rainbow Brite Alone!

You guys, I seriously feel sick to my stomach right now. I just read on Jezebel that Rainbow Brite is getting an updated look. She's taller, slimmer, and...just WRONG. She was perfect before with her big, giant head (I can relate), and her massive bangs, and her cute, stubby little body (again, I can relate). Ditto for the color kids. People, this has gone TOO FAR.

Someone: Come up with a NEW idea. Rainbow Brite first came into existence as a greeting card character for chrissake so surely some TV writer out there can come up with something new instead of sexing up another perfectly adorable, tough, and spunky 80's cartoon character.

The article compares the Rainbow Brite redux to Sailor Moon, which I have to completely disagree with. The Sailor Moon characters, while slender beyond what is physically possible, are rendered in classic manga style. They also have their own personalities and toughness.

And by the way the Sailor Scouts are in high school not elementary school, and the show was geared toward teens/tweens. BIG difference. The Rainbow Brite redux characters not only look like sexed up fourth graders, they also look dead behind the eyes. Yes, I realize they are cartoons but since when did vacant eyes become cool?

Oh right, when people like Audrina managed to get "careers." Ugh. I swear if/when I have kids I might just have to whisk them away to some cottage in the highlands so I can feed them a steady diet of myths and legends, real fairy tales, and 80's cartoons.

All right then, carry on. Nothing to see here.

[Note: And is this STORMY I see in the "new" Rainbow Brite pic!? That in no way looks like the stubborn, wild girl in charge of thunderstorms and winter. A world of NO!]
[Correction: My twin sis pointed out that the girl on the left is probably Moon Glo, since she has a crescent moon on her belt. And for those of you who don't know, the one on the right is Tickled Pink. As my sis pointed out, they will probably make Stormy a goth or something. Ugh. I am so upset about this. Okay...enough...I'm done. For now.]

Thanks, Mom

I was in a relatively good mood today, I really was. I went for a walk and ignored the insistent pain in my ankle, which reminded me that it's been over two years and the doctor is still telling me not to wear cute shoes and omgIhaven'tworncuteshoesintwoyears! So I had a couple chocolates and that seemed to balance things out. And then. And then.

My mom called.

The following topics were discussed:

1. How I need to stop buying packaged meat and buy my chicken fresh at the meat counter so it doesn't have preservatives because my husband's cholesterol is high.

2. How I shouldn't let my husband go on Lipitor because it causes Alzheimer's...or probably does. They don't know for sure. Yet.

3. How my injuries aren't healed and neither are hers--despite the fact that she is thirty years older than me and has only been injured for about two weeks and I've been injured for two years straight.

4. How the economy sucks. No argument there but it's not like I needed the reminder.

5. How I can't get a job and what if I do but then they have to let someone go and I was the last one hired so...

6. How Sarah Palin is insane and the government should have had her killed because now she's in China badmouthing the President and my mom thinks probably Dick Cheney funded it because he's even crazier than Bush.

7. How my grandpa told her that his uncles lived to be over 120 therefore my grandpa is going to live forever. And so is my mom.


Then she complimented me on how positive I've been lately and hung up, leaving me in a dark, listless depression.

I checked my email and my dad said he didn't like the newest draft of my query letter as much as the last draft.

I am going to crawl into a hole with some chocolate and just pretend to disappear.

Guys Need to Get Used to Female Main Characters

This particular rant has been building inside of me for a while now. It started when my husband complained about Katniss' behavior in CATCHING FIRE. "I didn't think it was realistic. I thought she overreacted." Meanwhile I thought her reactions made perfect sense. Then it dawned on me: she was reacting like a teenage girl would react, not a teenage boy.

The rant reared its head a second time when a male friend we'll call D read the second draft of my WIP, which features 24 year old Maggie as the main character. D said, "Maggie has some pretty weird interactions with [her cubicle mate] and [her sister]." However when a female friend whom we'll call C read it she told me, "I have definitely had coworkers who are irritating in just the same way, and that I have a relationship with in the same way…it’s spot on."

This is when I began to get suspicious of male readers and their relationship with female main characters.

Finally, this weekend another male friend of mine was complaining about TWILIGHT. He didn't mind the book but he couldn't relate to Edward and therefore could not enjoy the book. Obviously he couldn't relate to Bella because she is...A Girl! With girl parts!! You know, the parts that boys don't have!

Seriously, guys?

I have no sympathy for you. You live in a world where "man" is somehow considered gender neutral. Sure some people try to use "s/he" but it's not exactly catching on and--worse--it's super awkward.

Here's the thing, as a girl who grew up reading sci-fi/fantasy, I HAD to see myself as the boy character all the time because a boy was always the main character. The girl was often hovering on the sidelines, flaunting her magical powers, her exotic parentage, and her royal upbringing--all metaphors for the strange, beautiful otherworldliness that is Women, as seen from a boy's perspective. But I didn't see myself as that beautiful girl, I saw myself as the awkward kid venturing into a strange world he knows nothing about while coming to terms with power and responsibility.

When I read The Hobbit, I didn't even have a female character to admire. There were NONE. When I read The Prydain Chronicles, sure I wanted to be Eilonwy (I still do, fyi) but when Taran was experiencing growing pains, so was I. I didn't just stop enjoying the story whenever I was in Taran's head just because he had something swinging between his legs. When I read Ender's Game, I was Ender not his sister Valentine, who is barely in the story at all. And when I read Harry Potter, in many ways I was Harry, not Hermione, just as we all are.

Basically, guys, I think you've been spoiled. You've never had to see things "our" way, especially in fantasy literature which until recently was very male dominated. (anyone want to read about another farm boy with latent abilities who is destined to marry the princess/sorceress/elf? Yeah, me neither.)

To be fair, I did tone down that coworker relationship in my WIP because I believe that every reader should be able to relate to the characters and situations no matter what parts they've got. But I still think that guys just aren't used to reading through a female lens.

And all I've got to say is: Guys, you better get used to it.

Blond VS Brunette: The Eternal Struggle

I just have to say that I've seen way too many commercials lately for the new ABC Family Show Ruby and the Rockits, which is apparently an attempt to resurrect "happy families that sing together" shows like The Partridge Family. Case in point: David Cassidy is actually on the show.

Anyway, what's weirding me out is Alexa Vega's hair! She's...blond. I didn't even know her name before I googled it, but I recognized her face. It took me about three viewings before I realized she was the girl from Spy Kids. She used to be a brunette. Now she's totally blond...?

Ooooh I get it. Back then she was playing a "smart" kid. Now she's playing a bubbly, pretty, talented teen. Clearly she needed a dye job. It's like that other ABC White, pro life, Jesus Loves You Family show 10 Things I hate About You. The serious, brooding sister is a brunette, the outgoing, popular one a blond.

It's creeping me out!

And no, I do not watch that channel. Just the commercials.

Hot Boxed by God

And another thing: the weather in New England since June has been UNACCEPTABLE. Seriously, it had to be said in caps. We've had nothing but rain and doom and gloom.

Listen you guys, I think I finally figured out what's going on here: We've been hot boxed by God!

Sure it's God so his farts are just fog and thunder and a little rain. Of course they don't smell bad and they give life to flowers and whatnot. Even so, I think we can all agree that this little prank has gotten out of hand.

There's God, sitting on the bed chuckling and slapping his knee and refusing to let us out from under the cloud cover. He thinks this is the funniest thing he's done since tricking his buddy into building that gigantic, ridiculous boat or the time he made his other friend think he was going to have to kill his own son! Hilarious!

But that's the trouble with God. He doesn't have a good sense of humor.

The Curious Case of The Noise Upstairs

I work (re: write) from home on Tuesdays and Wednesdays. After tomorrow, I'll be writing every day (at least until fall). For now I can only make observations about Tuesdays and Wednesdays.

And every Wednesday at 1:00 PM, there is a strange, disturbing rumbling from upstairs.

It does not happen on Tuesdays.

It is not the train.

It is not the upstairs bath water, which tumbles down the pipes as though willfully trying to rip the house apart.

It is not the three upstairs children or their myriad of friends who enjoy tromping up and down the creaking stairs and in and out of the front door, which slams.

It is not the grandfather who practices his singing (I call it musical groaning) from as early as 7 AM onwards in the room directly above our bedroom, but thankfully not above the computer room.

It is something else.

I think it might be some sort of demonic ritual. I have been unable to come up with any other viable explanation for the noises or for any of the above.

Gripes: Genre Fiction

All right, apparently I'm feeling grumpy today and it's time to get it off my chest and out of my system. Also instead of writing this morning I've spent at least an hour reading book review blogs and getting alternately angry that I currently do not have a published book that one might review and frightened that someday when I do have a published book to review it will be scorned and belittled by people all over the internet.

I suppose I should be so lucky.

But that's not even what I'm going to gripe about! I'm going to complain about something near but not dear to my heart and that is the term "genre fiction."

I don't understand this at all. I grew up coveting my sci fi and fantasy-loving dad's books so of course I have gorged myself on those books (my tastes lean way over on the fantasy side, fyi) for most of my life. Then there's the anglophile in me who can't get enough pre 1800's Brit Lit...and basically any Brit Lit between then and Austen's time, more or less, though please keep in mind that I'm friendly with letters and not numbers, people.

Anyway, what really gets under my skin is when people I previously considered friends who also majored in English and who write, draw themselves up and announce, "I don't read genre fiction." Then they look at me in a sort of sad, condescending way as though I'll never quite reach their echelon of Literature--in writing or reading.

Even my beloved Publisher's Weekly, which is the only magazine I read on a zealous, weekly basis separates their reviews by Fiction (silently understood to be literary fiction, perhaps), Nonfiction, and then Genre Fiction (broken out by Mystery,Sci Fi/Fantasy, and...lowest of the low it seems, Mass Market). Umm, correct me if I'm wrong here, but isn't a fantasy novel technically fiction? The implication here is that genre fiction is a lesser form of fiction that must be quarantined for the safety of such literary darlings (with appropriately bloated titles) as "The Story of Edgar Sawtelle" and "The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao." (And yes, I do appreciate the irony that Diaz's book is in fact about a person who reads genre fiction!)

I of course have my own fiction prejudices. To me, contemporary or literary fiction tends to be depressing, often about failed relationships, the inability for people to connect, etc. In my opinion that's the drudgery of life--I live it every day. I don't need to read about it, too. But that's where I make my own assumptions about what a genre (I consider literary fiction to be a sort of unspoken genre) entails. I'm sure, for example, plenty of crime novels are ultimately about loneliness.

Sometimes notice a "genre fiction" book placed in the "fiction" section of PW's reviews. So there seems to be an unspoken acknowledgement that genre fiction is of lower quality, perhaps fulfilling certain expectations of plot and character.

The problem occurs when people judge the quality of the writing by the genre. You just can't judge a book by where it's shelved in the bookstore.

Female Characters

In the past month or so I've read three very different books: China Mieville's Un Lun Dun, Tolstoy's Anna Karenina, and Alan Moore's Watchmen. I really liked all of them. I read them compulsively, which happens in wierd spurts while I'm writing. Some weeks all I want to do is read and it's a struggle to get my own words down, other weeks I don't read anything (except over people's shoulders on the T because I simply can't resist an open book/newspaper/magazine...).

They're clearly very different books but one thing they do have in common is male writers creating female characters. In Anna Karenina and Un Lun Dun the female characters are main characters too. And once again I found myself wondering why female characters are so hard to get right.

In fairness, China Mieville did the best job of the three, in my opinion. His main character is a young girl named Deeba. I can't help but wonder if male writers find it easier to write well rounded female characters when they haven't hit puperty yet. As if once puperty sets in all women become mysterious, unreadable, often irrational people who fall into those two inevitable categories I loathe: virgin or whore.


Next is Tolstoy. I thought his portrayal of Anna was really interesting. To me it felt like he was writing a story about a real person but that his own intentions kept getting in the way of her. Much of the time she was bogged down with Tolstoy's morals, his desire to punish her for her transgressions, his attempts to portray the female perspective. I finished the book and felt angry at Tolstoy for doing that to Anna--as if Anna was independent of the book and Tolstoy as some sort of god-writer had written her fate on purpose just to hurt her.

And finally, we come to Alan Moore. Here's where I got really frustrated. Granted, as a woman I suppose I'm not the target audience for "Watchmen." So what? (Maybe that's due to the lack of well rounded female charaters, but that's for another blg post all together.) That doesn't mean the woman should just go around inspiring and falling in love with the men. I hate when women are these muses, up on pedestals. Laurie falls in love with one man, then another. Her purpose in the novel seems to be to encourage the men (Dr. Manhattan and Nite Owl) to act. Yes, she's badass and she does some figting (though apparently only because her mom wanted her to be a superhero. We never find out what Laurie actually wants). But that isn't enough. I don't just want to see women who are tough, I want them to be people with their own opinions, thoughts, ambitions, and faults. And don't even get me started on the issue of women, youth, and beauty. Dr. Manhattan dumps his previous girlfriend for a sixteen year old Laurie for no apparent reason other than her youth and beauty. Come on guys, I know women have worth independent of their age and physical appearance!!

I think some of my favorite authors are the ones who write men and women as people. Neil Gaiman is really good at this, in my opinion. His stories are populated with all sort of people who have different personalities, genders, and sexual preferences. Thanks, Neil! If only more writers--a least in the fantasy genre--did that.

Hopefully someday someone will add me to that list, too.