New Moon, The White Queen and other nonsense

This picture of my tattoo (which is reversed) relates to CAKE! Read on for more details.

I write about a lot of "other nonsense" -probably because my life is filled with nonsense. Nonsense is not bad. In fact, it's quite wonderful a good deal of the time. It just doesn't fall under the heading of the Reading Corner.

For instance, Jonah baked me a belated birthday cake with my tattoo done in the icing -not only is that awesome, the cake was also chocolate/peanut butter/hazelnut flavored. Is he the best or what? Or, another example, my little sister got a part in a local production of Seussical the Musical (she's a jungle creature).

Other examples include: what I'm wearing (as much as I love my fashion blogs, I do not follow their examples -jeans and tank tops are about all you'll get out of me. I am comfortable this way, and nobody is interested in seeing me get gussied up every day. Well... some people might be, but I don't have time to make myself look like a million bucks every time I walk out my front door. I'm cute enough as is. :P ), what I've eaten (this and drinks can be filled with one word: COFFEE. If I could eat coffee as a meal every day, I would -chocolate covered espresso beans do not a good meal make, sadly), where I've gone (unless it's the bookstore/library) or what I'm watching (unless I can make it work).

Fortunately, I tell you about most of those things anyway! That's why I allow myself room to write "other nonsense." Because I am more than my face in a book. Not much more, perhaps, but it doesn't hurt to know that I have stuff going on outside writing. It reminds me of it, anyway. I have a lot of cool things going on in my life. :)

So! Books.

New Moon the movie, as you well know, is coming out in November. Holy Jesus am I not excited about this occurring. As a backlash against the ever rising tides of Twilight-related hysteria that I'm seeing with the imminent release of the movie (which I'm sure will suck as much as the original), I wrote a review of the book New Moon and analyzed it from the (accurate) Edward-abuses-Bella (who is an idiot)-standpoint. Fun times!

I also reviewed another book I haven't read (and don't care to) called The White Queen. If you're into historical fiction, this is totally going to be your thing. If you don't give a rat's ass about it, it's probably not. I'm not into historical fiction -the reason for me being that if I want to learn about history, I'll read a history book. Rewriting history and fleshing out characters who were actual people with actual lives to make them best-selling fiction is not something that interests or pleases me. I like my history factual. Why the rewriting? Why the fictionalization? Is it just to get people interested? My high school history teachers did a decent job of getting me interested in history. Which is made up of facts.

Perhaps the only fictionalized historical account I've ever enjoyed was Loving Frank. Mostly because a major portion of the book was comprised of actual letters and journal/diary entries, newspaper reports and other, similarly factual pieces of FACT.

I'm slowly edging onto my soapbox about this one. Can anyone defend historical fiction to me? I'm all for fiction writing, creative nonfiction (which includes some liberal amounts of truth-bending, believe you me) and what-have-you but historical fiction is a genre I just do not understand. Why take an actual story that other people lived a really long freaking time ago and add a bunch of fiction to it? Not only is it confusing and misleading, it seems to smack of intellectual laziness to me. If you're going to go to the trouble of researching a time period and specific individuals in order to write about them, why wouldn't you publish a nonfiction account of it? If the story is that super exciting, it shouldn't be much harder to sell copies.

I just don't like it. I'm not expressing it well, but the genre as a whole pisses me off a bit. I need coffee before I "accidentally" kick someone in the face.

In other news, I've been writing about Halloween. Have a significant other? Want to go to a Halloween party with them in a matching costume? This is the article for you. Want to not die while out trick or treating? This is the article for you.

I need to get something productive done. I haven't written yet today and my writer's guilt is kicking in. Or something.

The learning curve

I learn a lot of interesting things from comments on my reviews -most of them about myself.
For example, "ur r a low life wanna be" was one I received today. I was unaware that I are anything of the sort. :P I also apparently lack imagination, have never been in love, don't know what love is, can't judge other people's taste in books because they like it, so I should keep my opinion to myself (I clearly need some lessons in logic) and I've never written anything in my life and have no idea how hard it is to be a writer.

Seeing as I've written, to date, 3 completed novels and 1 unfinished novel, that one flies out the window pretty quickly. (A side note -if you go looking for these comments, some of them have been deleted as they were accompanied by threats of physical violence. As much as I'd like to engage in a good match of fisticuffs with anyone who wants to go at it, I won't have threats on my page. It's not ladylike). I'd also say that, having written 3 1/2 novels -as well as countless short stories/essays and, oh hey, reviews!, I've got a pretty good sized imagination.

As for keeping my opinion to myself...let me think about that one. No.
It's my job to be opinionated. And I happen to be able to back up my opinions, unlike some people, whose only defense for the series is that...they like it, so I should shut up. Yeah. Not gonna happen.

With regards to having been in love, if they can be in love with Edward Cullen, I can be in love with Mr. Darcy. And Mr. Rochester. And Dr. Juvenal Urbino.
What? I like me some literary men, so sue me. ;)

Also, and this is a new one. I am a crazy psycho. I really can't argue with that, except in the context of my article. Sorry I happen to be right, teenagers on the internet who can neither spell properly nor form a coherent argument so as to prove that I am in fact a crazy psycho/wrong!

In addition, as I learned on another review, I am a goddess. Talk about an ego boost!

Then come the facts that really don't make a damn bit of sense, like the ones I got claiming the author/actress/all around badass of a woman Colette was actually a man. Seriously, what? Are...are you out in your backyard watching for UFOs, too? How many times have you seen Elvis? Or gotten Jesus on your toast? Colette was not a man, sorry to burst your bubble. I looked into it. There's zero evidence anywhere (but if you -any of you- can come up with it, I'd be pretty interested, actually. Especially since she, you know, had a child and numerous sexual partners of both genders and was wildly popular and performed nearly nude onstage multiple times. You'd think someone would have noticed).

The things you learn on the internet can hardly be described. Most of them, however, just prove that people are really, really, really stupid.

Books and houses

Today I'm planning on finishing a fantastic book by Max Barry called "Jennifer Government". If you haven't read anything by him, get on it! He's funny and weird and manages to somehow be dark without being melodramatic -and everything works out in the end. It's pretty cool.

I won't be updating tomorrow, or if I do it'll be late, because I'm going to the Westcott House! I'm a big Frank Lloyd Wright fan (I have symbols relating to one of his quotes tattooed on my ribcage), so I'm excited about the trip. This will be my second visit to the house. I'm hoping to get a book on my man while I'm there, if I do, you can expect a review of it at some point in the near future.

For the time being, here's another review I wrote, this time of Philip Pullman's His Dark Materials.