Back to business

I stole this hilarious picture from Angie the Anti-Theist, whose writings I find fascinating and insightful. Go check her out! The caption for this picture makes me laugh more each time I read it.

I have been gone for a while. It's Wednesday, I know it, and I haven't updated once since last week. For shame. :( I am hanging my head (over my cup of coffee so the delicious hazelnut smell wipes out any feelings of guilt I may be experiencing). I'm back, we're good. Coffee = the solution to 99% of my problems (the other 1% just take a lot more work).

I had a fabulous weekend at home -Jonah and I went to a wedding where I met the rest of his awesome family, watched his mom shake it on the dance floor. And I saw her give a man titty twisters (not even kidding -Jonah's family is beyond cool). Jonah and I busted out some dancing as well -while we certainly weren't Dancing with the Stars quality, I had a lot of fun (and I don't like dancing, as a rule). I also got to hang out with my family and surprise my mom, who didn't know I was coming home on Saturday. :)

The downside to the weekend was that, in order to get back in time to hand in a paper for my business law class, Jonah and I had to leave Findlay at 4:30 in the morning. I consider myself to be something approaching a morning person...I might stand corrected. Getting up at 3:30 is hell. I spent the rest of the day in a good-natured haze, not really understanding anything that was said to me or accomplishing much of worth (except writing 4 articles). It wasn't pretty. Today is much better.

As far as books go, oh boy oh boy!
Jonah brought me a bunch, and I gave him one too (more proof of his good taste: We've both read "The Lives of Christopher Chant" and neither of us know anyone else who has read that book. I gave him my copy of "The Chronicles of Chrestomanci," which contains "The Lives of CC" so he can re-read it and read "Charmed Life" for the first time. Has anyone else heard of these books?). I'm already 170+ pages into "A Swiftly Tilting Planet" -a book I've not read before. I've read "A Wrinkle in Time" but I'd forgotten how much I liked L'Engle.

As much as I dislike being preached to, "ASTP" is doing a good job of not irritating me with its semi-religious undertones (or overtones, depending on how you read it). I like the message of the book, and it's not overly pedantic in nature. It's just a good story.

I also read the book "Weslandia." 3 times. It's a children's book, but it is fabulous. In fact, I'll be writing an Examiner article about it in the next few days, so you'll have to wait and read about it there (and here, again).

I'm still working on getting submissions for Leaves & Flowers. So far I've received 3, and I'm loving them. It's such a fun process. Maddeningly exciting. However, I've gotten about 20 queries and only 3 people have actually sent work so far...I wish I was getting more! I also wish more people were asking for information, but that's just me getting gluttonous. ;) I am quite thoroughly enjoying this process, and if anyone wants to contribute, I'd be more than happy to work with them... spread the word! Bring me work. I'll love you forever and ever, even though I can't pay you.

Leaves & Flowers and the concept of a book trailer

I love this comic so much.

I'm updating about my literary journal/magazine again. You'll get used to it, I promise. Or you won't, and either way it's not really my problem. I think this is interesting, and I think it translates into the blog, so read it, love it and click on ads. Put me through school that way.

Anywho, I got my first submission (aside from one I got from a Power of the Pen student of my mom's, I don't think I can count that one although I'll probably include it)! The submission was of two poems, previously written that nonetheless still fit the prompt (which you can read here). The first submitter was the lovely Lydia, who runs a website called The Little Fluffy Cat. I'm not sure what it's about, because I've only been looking at it for like 20 seconds, but it seems pretty cool to me. Check it out, give her props for being the first one to get stuff in!
Awesome stuff, I must add (I'm sure I'll be saying that a lot, but seriously, I really like these poems! I can't wait to publish them!!!!)

I love those words, too -that I get to publish things and contribute to someone else's writing career. I can't pay these writers -they are just giving generously of their time and talent to some nobody who's setting up a small journal (which is also why I'm not asking for any kind of publication rights. I just want the opportunity to get work out there -I don't want any claim on it after that. All rights belong to the writer -I'll have a full post on this tomorrow when I have more time to devote to it).

Today I want to talk about book trailers.
Seriously, have you guys started seeing these? They're like little miniature movie trailers...but for books. What?

That is confusing to me. It's a book. Why are we promoting them via video? I get the whole viral marketing/use the technology as it's available, etc. but I still don't understand how that works. Is text being promoted or previewed in this way? No, not usually- for fiction, it's generally a synopsis of the story, although in cases like that bullshit book Find Your Strongest Life, it's testimonials from people who have read it/are in it/get brainwashed by the guy.

I've seen some good ones (click the fiction link, it'll show you one-I do actually want to read the book, but not because of the video). That's the part I don't get. These videos aren't really contributing any desire to want to read a book for me. I don't need a video to tell me why I should want to read a book. I want to read a book because I think it looks good, usually from reading a sample or the dust jacket/back cover.

My concern is, I think, that we might be relying too heavily on promotion of books to get the word out -by which I mean, if you need a video to promote a book, what's wrong with this book that it needs a video?? I realize how bad that sentence was -it's making a point. Roll with me, here. This is my immediate reaction to seeing a book trailer: why is this necessary? Who puts all of the time and effort into creating a high-quality trailer...for a book? And that is not in any way to mock or take down books -I think books shouldn't need that kind of leg up.

Then I look at the people around me and it all kind of hits home.

You want your book to sell...you have to get the word out any way you can, whether you're Neil Gaiman or Joe Nobody. If that means marketing by spending time on creating a video to promote a piece of written text, so be it. If people read it because of that, then hey. Go for it.

What are your thoughts?

Quick Update, some shenanigans and all the rest

This makes me chuckle. (It came from some scary place online)

All right, all right. I skipped yesterday and today I'm coming on late. So sue me. It's a busy week and I'm grumpy (people who take too long to give me my coffee and then forget to ring up the cinnamon roll I wanted after making me wait in line for half an hour can be blamed). But anyway, I'm here now.

Update time:
The deadline for Leaves & Flowers, unfortunately, has to be moved up a bit to November 5. Due to some scheduling conflicts, I have to have the whole shebang finished by about the 8th-10th at the latest. However, that's still plenty of time for photographers, writers and other artists to send me stuff! The lovely Renda Dodge (about whose book I wrote last time) has already stepped up to the plate, as have Shelby Campbell and my mom (nepotism ftw). I have 10 or 11 others on my list, and I'm hoping to snag several more in the next week or two, so we'll see where this goes.

I'm still very excited and optimistic about the whole thing. :)

Book time:
Has anyone else heard about the whole "bloggers have to disclose when they receive books to review because it's considered compensation" snafu? It's causing quite a hullabaloo right now, and given the double standards that are present in the FTC's 'explanation' for it, I can see why. A book is considered compensation when it's sent to an individual blogger (who may or may not review it in a positive light) and yet not when it's sent to a newspaper/magazine to be reviewed. The guy interviewed says it's not a problem if the blogger discloses the compensation or sends the book back, but his logic and reasoning seem pretty flawed to me. It looks more like blogs and advertisers are being targeted, in some ways.

Thoughts?

Here's another ringing endorsement for my man Christopher Moore: I gave my copy of A Dirty Job (one of my favorite books) to Jonah, and he loves it. Now that I've said that, I'm not sure if it's more exciting because it confirms my opinion that ADJ is awesome, or because it just reinforces how cool my boyfriend is. Either way, high fives all around for ADJ!

As for my own writing, I've been drawing more than anything lately (which is weird, because an artist I am not) -however, that drawing almost inevitably leads me into some sort of creative writing thought process. It's working out nicely. I wrote a weird little narrative poem/story/thingie the other day that I might read at my writing group tomorrow night and, after it's been critiqued a bit, we'll see what I do with it. It's nothing I'd publish, so I might slap it up here and see what you all think.

There are only 24 days left until National Novel Writing Month, so when that hits, you'll all see me do some serious writing.

Who else is doing NaNo?


One last thing, just out of curiosity. What do you all think about the idea of rating books (click the link for more info on what that means)?

Inked

Gasp! Exposed flesh! I'm surprised her ankles aren't showing, the little hussy.

No, for real though -that's me. There is, I promise, I reason I am baring my pale and tattooed ribcage at you. I like my tattoo. That's not the reason, I just thought you should know. I kind of want another one (don't freak out, Mom, it won't be happening anytime soon). :)

The reason I'm showing off my little Frank Lloyd Wright-inspired piece of body art is that I'm going to be writing about a book that hasn't even been released yet.

It's called Inked.

It was written and self-published by Renda Dodge, using Createspace.com (the same place I'll be using to publish Leaves & Flowers when the time comes) and it. Looks. Awesome.

The basic gist of the story -I'll let it speak for itself in a moment -is that Tori Liddell has an undiagnosed psychological disorder that she deals with by getting tattoos as her lifestyle and personality change, "but when her widowed mother reveals her battle with AIDS Tori returns to small town Oregon to facilitate her care. At her homecoming Tori faces her own mortality, the inevitable loss of her mother and her new enigmatic neighbor's interest. Tori also confronts the realization that things and people are not always the way she remembers as she searches for the meaning of home in the rubble of her past."

Cool, amirite?
(I am right)

You can even read the first chapter by going to Renda's website, which is awesome (the first chapter and the website both).

The most encouraging thing about Inked to me (aside from the fact that it looks like a good read) as an aspiring author/editor, is how professional this book looks. The cover art is fabulous, the PDF of the first chapter not only has all of the usual information you'd expect from a book, it also has some artwork to introduce the story and it just looks damn good.

For years, big publishers have derided self-publishing as a way for people who couldn't get published to do so anyway. In many cases, that's true. But, but but but, in many (perhaps many more) cases, that is no longer true. Self-publishing is a way for authors to retain greater control over their work -its design, its marketing, its sale -and while self-publishing can have its limits (professional editing can be an immense help to a book), it is quickly becoming a viable and respectable way to publish.

People like Renda Dodge who know their stuff -maintaining a good blog, having a professional website, networking in beneficial and supportive ways -find opportunities to successfully publish a book that would be indistinguishable from one that was worked on for a couple of years before ever seeing the light of a bookstore, if it ever even got that far (seriously, the more I learn about the publishing world as it is today, the further I fall in love with small presses and self-publishing).

I've already ordered a copy of Inked. It comes out the 20th of this month and it's reasonably priced. For a debut novel, self-publishing is a leap of faith -but for somebody who knows their way around the social networking sphere and has a quality piece of work to offer, I think it's fair to say that faith is justified.

Additionally, Renda is writing for Leaves & Flowers!! How awesome is that? I'm really excited to be working with someone who has used the same tools I'll be using and produced something that I can't wait to read. Here's hoping L&F turns out the same way. Be supportive of us both -order a copy of Inked and find more people to write, draw, paint, sculpt or take pictures for L&F. :)

Shameless self-promotion

It's been a while since I subjected you all to a list of links to my articles. Unfortunately, that time has come again. I've built up quite a list and some of it's pretty good stuff (and some of it may not be. You tell me.).
Click around on stuff. Click some ads, read stuff, leave me nasty comments -whatever floats your boat.

Here we go:
Suite101:
Sartre, Kierkegaard and Heidegger
Weight Loss Tips for Teens
Choosing Font for a Tattoo
Taking Ashwagandha as an Herbal Supplement
Proper Cell Phone Etiquette
Where the Wild Things Are
White Ink Tattoos
Fun, Inexpensive Fall Activities
Starting an Online Business
Taking Care of a Tattoo
Web Comics are an Important Art Form
Literary Tattoos are a Big Trend
Geek Tattoos
Simple Thanksgiving Crafts for Kids
Advantages of Dental Inlays and Onlays
How to Choose a High Quality Tattoo Parlor

Examiner:
Ebooks and ebook readers
Sense and Sensibility and Sea Monsters
Banned Books Week
Mackenzie Phillips' memoir High on Arrival
The Prestige
Find Your Strongest Life
Nocturnes, by Kazuo Ishiguro
The Man Who Loved Books Too Much, by Allison Hoover Bartlett
American on Purpose, by Craig Ferguson

Helium:
Is abstinence-only education just?
How to deal with writer's block
What are the benefits of ebooks?
Evolution and how it affects us
How to care for your new tattoo
How to read best-selling books electronically

That's it for me for the weekend, guys and dolls. I'll be back on Monday with some more interesting stuff than lists of articles I've written. Get to clicking! ;)

Writing on a Friday

So here it is, 4:46 p.m. on a Friday afternoon. I'm a college student. Every time I leave my room, I hear people talking about the parties they're planning on going to. I even looked over the shoulder of the girl standing ahead of me in line at the coffeeshop, hoping to learn something interesting. I found out that Travis told her about a four-kegger somewhere tonight. Considering it's raining, 55 degrees and yucky out, I hope Travis and his four kegs are inside somewhere.

I'm currently writing my eighth article of the day, with no plans to stop or even leave my building again for perhaps as much as 24 hours (although I'll definitely need to get milk and coffee asap).

I don't understand the culture of drinking that pervades college life. I have a friend who parties pretty regularly upwards of 4 days a week -parties, in this case, means getting absolutely trashed. He's not 21. He and his roommate (who is also not 21) built a bar in their room (I am not kidding). He's reached a point where he can drink about 10 beers and not feel them. He's started drinking as early as 10 in the morning.

That looks, to me, a LOT like alcoholism. His excuse? "I'm not an alcoholic, I'm a college student."
And I wonder how that makes it okay.

Drinking to excess isn't something that I imagine being fun, or cool, or exciting. It's certainly not healthy or safe. Wandering around a college campus at night while intoxicated, especially alone, and especially for women, is sometimes very dangerous, as the recent spate of sexual assault reports on campus have proven. I've dealt with enough drinking/drunk/hungover people my age to realize that it's not as cool or as fun as the media or other people make it out to be.

I've been made fun of more than once for staying in on weekends (this is not me boo-hooing, by the way. I can't remember the last time I actually was upset by someone who made fun of me). Mostly, I think it stems from people not understanding what I do all alone up here in my room (and wouldn't they like to know! That sounds so much dirtier when you don't know I'm about to tell you exactly what I do).

I write. I'm making money. I'm making good money, as it happens. Not enough to buy me a Porsche anytime soon, but enough to keep me fed, caffeinated and in school. I'm working. This, people, is my job. And I enjoy it. I would rather stay in my room all weekend getting eyestrain from staring at a computer screen and writing so much that I can't identify a red pepper (I kept calling it a banana). That, to me, sounds like SO much more fun than getting shitfaced, making a fool of myself and not remembering any of it the next day.

Writing is my passion, though. It's my excuse for being anti-social, and more often than not, also my excuse for being social. I don't know how people who don't write occupy their time in many cases, but that's just because it's such a huge part of my life. I guess I should modify that -I don't know what people who don't have a passion do with their days. Maybe that's why kids go out and drink on weekends, because they don't know what else to do with themselves or where to look.

Personally, I think that's sad.
Right now, I am surrounded by people who are preparing to go kill off brain cells, injure themselves and spend the next 2-3 days feeling like they're going to die. In some cases, this is because they just don't know what else to do. How depressing is that?

Granted, I go to the #4 (or are we #5?) party school in the nation, so the whole culture of drinking is much bigger here.

That doesn't mean it's excusable or should be encouraged.

I've had people try to convince me to drink by saying, "All writers are drunks or druggies. You have to give in sometime." My only response to that is to shake my head and sigh, and think of Stephen King (one of my favorite quotes of his deals with treating alcohol like a road to creativity -to him, that's just an excuse to be a drunk. I agree). I've got better things to do with my time.

I wish other people did, too.

----
Some books on this and similar subjects:
Dying to Drink
College Drinking
Pledged

I know I presented a brief (well, actually it's pretty long. Mostly it's rambling) and unspecific look at college drinking, but it's my blog. I'll do whatever I want. Seriously, though; this is just a glimpse at some of the things I've seen and experienced as someone who is within the college culture and yet looking at it from a pair of eyes that isn't seeing things quite the same way a lot of other 20somethings are.
What do you think of all of this? Am I too hard on other people?

Plessy v. Ferguson -and a book I'd throw at a wall

Anybody know that case? That was the case that was overturned by Brown v. Topeka Board of Education. Plessy was the case that established the "separate but equal" doctrine endorsed by law for years -the law that continued and enhanced segregation. When Brown v. Topeka came along, the Supreme Court ruled (thank goodness) that a "separate but equal" doctrine is inherently unequal.

So imagine my surprise when I got an e-mail today that seemed to raise this issue, albeit in another sense. Those of you who follow my blog know that I am, for all intents and purposes, an atheist; however, for whatever reason (laziness), I still haven't unsubscribed from a conservative Christian newsletter that I used to follow closely, about 6 years ago. I'll leave it unnamed for propriety's sake.

Today, I got another e-mail from this newsletter that I was going to delete without reading, since that's what I do with 95% of the e-mails I get anyway...but something in the subject line caught my eye. It was this: "Ladies, you CAN have it all. A DIFFERENT kind of all!"

.....My eyebrows about hit the ceiling. What kind of all, exactly, are we talking about here? And why is this directed at women?

So I decided to check it out.

There's a book out, called "Find Your Strongest Life" that, from the descriptions and the book trailer (something I'll discuss in a subsequent post -basically a movie trailer for a book), seems like Plessy v. Ferguson all over again.

The general idea seems to be this: Women

• "CAN have it all" -apparently "all" is a career, education and independent lifestyle
• BUT women are "less happy than they were 40 and 50 years ago"
• BECAUSE what women need is not what men need (i.e. a career and equality)
  
• THEREFORE women should start staying home and devoting their lives to Jesus/their husband/the kitchen.
  

The message of this book is that what "all" should mean for women is a return to the 1950s era housewife. Give up dreams of an education or career and just get married and spend your time, energy and intelligence working on making your husband and god happy.

I'm pretty sure I'll be picking up pieces of my own skull off the floor and ceiling of my room for weeks, because my head exploded when I read and picked up on the message of this book. Pardon my French, but what the fuck?

In what world does "different" mean "just as good as"? Look at the result of Brown v. Topeka -separate is inherently unequal, and unequally weighted in favor of one side. The exact same thing applies here: "different" in this case implies that women should just give up the fight for equality that's been going on for decades and return to the kitchen and go to church on Sundays wearing a little hat.

"Different" in this case means that women should consign themselves to goals within the walls of the home and let men go out and bring home the bacon, because jobs are making women unhappy.

I think it's fitting that this book was written by a man. I would really like to know where he came up with his numbers, too, because the whole concept of this book is screaming BULLSHIT at the top of its lungs.

For the record, I'm not saying there's anything wrong with stay at home moms (or dads). My mom stays at home (and has a very successful career as a writer online), so I know firsthand that there are a lot of benefits to having a parent at home. But (and that's a but so big it should cover the whole entry) claiming that women shouldn't enter the workforce because "it's making them unhappy" and they should instead spend all their time discussing their at-home roles, worshiping god/their husbands and submit to a male-dominated power structure that our mothers and grandmothers and great-grandmothers worked like hell to get out of is complete and total hogwash.

Men and women want different things -that's true. But not all women or all men want the same things, so claiming that women should strive for a "DIFFERENT" (religiously motivated) "ALL" than the "ALL" men strive for knocks us back into a time when "separate but equal" was an acceptable idea.

I sent an e-mail to the man who runs the newsletter that expresses my feelings pretty clearly:

XXXXX,

I find myself offended by this e-mail telling me, as a woman, that I should strive for a "different" kind of "all" than a man. Claiming that a woman can have "separate but equal" happiness in whatever sense -religious, business or personal -harks back to the era of Plessy v. Ferguson. Separate is not equal -it is in fact inherently unequal in profound and fundamental ways.

I agree with the idea that men and women often want things out of life that may not be identical, but claiming that what women need to be fulfilled and happy is "different" from what men need automatically implies a lessening of the female role in society.

As a strong, independent and intelligent woman, the ideas presented in this book are extremely offensive to me, as was the way the e-mail came across.

Bailey Shoemaker Richards

What are your thoughts on this book? Does it have value for some? Sure, I think it could. But is its message also motivated by a deeply rooted sexist way of thinking based in outdated and intolerant religious ideals? Absolutely.