Dear Author:

March 1st, 2012

You have seven (yes seven!) main characters. Five are boys, two are girls. You have introduced all five boys with action, either in the present or a quick flashback. Well done.

Of the two girls, one is described as having an “athletic body with curves in all the right places” who “should not be allowed to walk around school with normal guys”. The other girl is only described as being the first one’s friend. This is not just sexist, it’s bad writing.

You created a completely flat character (except in the chest department) and another who is so thin on the page she almost doesn’t exist. And don’t give me the that’s-what-the-protagonist-perceives crap. Any protagonist who isn’t a complete asshole or profoundly mentally disturbed will notice a woman’s actions just as well as they notice a man’s. I’m not saying boys don’t notice girls’ bodies, but those two girls are not constantly posing in hopes your main dude will look at them.

This is a book for teens, damn it. You have a responsibility to write female characters as actual characters. Our society dehumanizes women enough. It doesn’t need your help. You don’t have to make them Buffy the Vampire Slayer or Alice from Resident Evil (rah!), but you do have to make them human. Also, you are a writer. Fleshing out characters is your mother-fucking job.

In conclusion, I will finish reading your book. I want to write a critical essay on how otherwise competent writers don’t bother to write their female characters. You aren’t mentioned by name here, but you will be there. Frankly, the only reason I’m not mentioning your name here is because I haven’t finished the book yet. I’m holding out some hope that part of your protagonist’s character arc is to realize that the girls are people.

Sincerely,

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Bikes Are Better Than Railroads

May 3rd, 2011

In an effort to get into better shape, I bought an exercise bike for Will and I. I’m not someone who can coast through a workout on the wave of endorphin bliss, so I signed up for an audible.com membership and downloaded some audiobooks.

First off, it’s easily ten degrees hotter in the upstairs of our house. That’s a big reason why it’s our guest room and not the master suite that the previous owner intended. We have two fans up there to make it tolerable, but I’m thinking we need to invest in a window unit.

In an effort to understand what it is about Atlas Shrugged that gets everyone all “het up”, I decided that would be my first audiobook. Little did I know, it was written in real time.

I lasted twenty minutes. In that time, some guy walked to work, thought about a tree, and told his boss that the Rio Norte line was breaking down about two hundred times. I could have gone longer, but I ran out of water and my ass fell asleep.

As I descended into the luxurious cool of the house’s first floor, I realized that Taggert & Co. were going about their rail problem all wrong. Instead of dicking around with fancy steel, they should have dumped the railroad and set up a dirigible line. Or maybe invented the trucking industry.

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Xanadu!

April 21st, 2011

So, last night I revealed my secret love of Xanadu to the entirety of the internet. Or maybe just the few people who actually read my Facebook status. And found out that I am not alone.

Will has never seen Xanadu, and since he’s not six anymore, he probably wouldn’t recognize the genius of Olivia Newton John’s nuanced performance. I picked this up after having the following conversation.

Me: Xanadu is awesome!

Will: Have you ever seen Citizen Kane?

Me: Does Citizen Kane have Olivia Newton John? In roller skates?

Will: Er, no.

Me: FTW!

Will: *confused frown*

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Is that a lizard?

April 6th, 2011

The hermit that lived in the house next door to us moved out at the beginning of last month. As the new owners began to dispose of the hermit’s furniture it became apparent that he had been a lover of cats, but not litter boxes.

A few weeks pass. More cat urine drenched furnishings pile into a portable dumpster mercifully placed on the far side of the house. An unsuspecting me comes home for lunch one fine Florida day. I’m listening to Neko Case and, yes, singing along when I see what appears to be a cat huddling in the shadows of the empty house.

I pull into the driveway, not really thinking much of it. We have a couple of neighborhood cats that like to hang around because Will is an easy mark when it comes to handing out ear-scratches. As I step onto my porch, I get a better look at him and drop my keys.

The poor guy looked bad. He’d lost enough hair that I could pretty much see the folds in his skin, and that wasn’t good for either one of us. He was thin. Scary thin. So thin that it hurt me to look at him, and I am not one of those aw-poor-little-kitty women.

I scooped out a cup of Oscar’s food and left it in a little pile in the corner of the porch. Within ten minutes, the cat was chowing down. That night, Will and I decided that the very least we could do was feed the cat. Our reasoning was that even if he never let us near him, at least we wouldn’t have let him starve to death next door. If he was sick, at least he’d have a full belly.

So we’ve fed him for about a week. The change has been remarkable. Instead of looking like a lizard with a cat’s head, he looks like a cat who’s a little scruffy, but doing okay for now. He checks me out when I bring out his food, but doesn’t really want to cuddle or anything.

The next step is getting him to a vet. I suspect he may have worms, and he certainly needs to be fixed, as he’s rather prominently male. After that, I’ve decided that I’m happy feeding him as an outside cat if that’s what he wants. If he’s healthy and gets along with Oscar, he might receive an invitation to join us in the house. If not, I’ll just take him over to our friend Sandra’s house. (Just kidding!)

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Writing is fun?

April 1st, 2011

I wrote 1000 words today. To be fair, they weren’t all fiction. Most of them were, though. It occurs to me that writing has become easier lately. It’s like I relaxed back into telling stories. I know exactly the reason why. I’ve started writing in the present tense.

I’ve been reading a lot of young adult novels. I thought it might be a good idea considering that I’m writing one. Something I’ve noticed is that several of them were written effectively in the present tense. I used to hate reading present tense, but I didn’t even notice in these novels until I went back and looked for it.

I just realized that I’m babbling. Anyway, I’m reading and writing at a rate that I haven’t been able to meet for a while. The best part is, I’m enjoying it.

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Too Close to Home

November 18th, 2010

For the past week, I’ve been following a news story about a two women, a thirteen year old girl, and an eleven year old boy who went missing. On Sunday, the girl was found bound and gagged in the basement of a man who had moved to the area 18 months earlier. The man was arrested. Today, the remains of the two women and the boy were found in garbage bags that had been stuffed into a hollow tree.

This didn’t happen in Detroit. It didn’t happen in New York or Los Angeles. It happened in Mount Vernon, Ohio. That may not mean much to a lot of people, but it’s very close to the place I call home. The survivor was the daughter of one of the women killed. The boy was her brother. They were taken from their home at Apple Valley Lake, which was where my brother and his family lived until recently.

I’m angry. My aunt lives not far from there. My father, grandfather, brother, sister-in-law, nieces, cousins, aunts, and uncles all live about five miles away. My dad used to take us on boat rides in my uncle’s boat on Apple Valley Lake. I’m not saying Knox County is a magical land where nothing bad happens, but this predator came from somewhere else because he thought it was a place where he could find prey.

It’s possible that this was the first time he had killed, but I doubt it. I think he had a plan. He thought because Mount Vernon is rural and people don’t always lock their doors that he could get away with killing three people and kidnapping the fourth. Maybe he assumed he was dealing with a bunch of rubes who couldn’t catch a smart guy like him. What he didn’t realize about small communities is that people notice when someone’s missing. When an employee doesn’t show up for a shift, they don’t shrug and let it go.

So the local police force – probably not the most experienced with this kind of case – ruined his plans. They busted into his house, took his surviving victim away from him, and then carted him off to jail less than four days after he set his plan in motion.

He got about three days of things going his way. Three days where he got to feel the power over life and death. Three days that shattered the idea of a safe haven I carried around with me. And worst of all, three days that saw the deaths of three people whose only crime was standing between him and what he wanted.

I hope he pays for those days with his life, however long it lasts.

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Top Ten Albums

July 30th, 2010

I’ve recently been looking through Rolling Stone’s 500 Greatest Albums of All Time list. I’ve always been hesitant to pick my own favorite albums, so I’m instantly skeptical that the list means anything more than a list of albums the panel thinks are good. And really, how can you quantify the greatest album of all time? You can argue the technical merits of song writing and production, but there’s an indefinable quality that comes from the music itself and that is personal to the listener.

For example, I hate the Rolling Stones’ “Wild Horses.” There’s nothing wrong with the song, but I do not buy Mick Jagger singing those words. Every single time he sings, “Wild horses couldn’t drag me away,” I think to myself, “Unless they happen to be underage models.” The first time I heard a cover version of it, I couldn’t believe it was the same song. What I’m trying to say is that these lists say more about the person or people making them than the music.

Mostly, I’m afraid of ranking my favorites. If I go on record saying that The Beatles’ Revolver is my favorite album of all time, it’s not always true. Sometimes The Beach Boys’ Pet Sounds is my favorite. And it isn’t fair to newer albums because part of my criteria for “Greatest All Time” status is longevity. I don’t know if I’m going to still like Neko Case in ten years.

Here’s my list, unranked, because that would take a week…at least. And yeah, there are only nine, but the tenth spot was a four way tie, so I left it alone.

Pet Sounds – The Beach Boys

Revolver – The Beatles

Rumors – Fleetwood Mac

King of the Delta Blues Singers – Robert Johnson

Who’s Next – The Who

Dark Side of the Moon – Pink Floyd

Bridge Over Troubled Water – Simon & Garfunkel

Graceland – Paul Simon

Pearl – Janis Joplin

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Nice Work If You Can Get It

June 17th, 2010

You would think being around 1.2 million books four days a week might blunt the desire to buy books all the time. At the very least, I should be able to tell myself that I can get the books that I want any time. But that’s not how my mind works. Growing up in Glenmont, Ohio, far from a bookstore and not that close to a library means that I have become a book hoarder. Living in close proximity to Chamblin’s Bookmine for the past several years has helped me to let go of books that I have already read, but it hasn’t done much to stop me from collecting more.

I have a night stand that is a small bookshelf. I have a habit of keeping a variety of books near my bed. I thought that a shelf to put them on would keep them tidy and off the floor. I was right about the off the floor part. I still jam in as many as I can. I also have an increasingly wobbly stack on top of the book case.

Right now, I’m reading The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo by Stieg Larson. (meh)

On top of the end table:

New Spirits: Americans in the Gilded Age by Rebecca Edwards

The Collector by John Fowles

Waking the Moon by Elizabeth Hand

Madam Blavatsky’s Baboon: A History of the Mystics, Mediums, and Misfits Who Brought Spiritualism to America by Peter Washington

Talking to the Dead: Kate and Maggie Fox and the Rise of Spiritualism by Barbara Weisberg

A Poisoned Season by Tasha Alexander

A Tree Grows in Brooklyn by Betty Smith

On the shelf:

Rebecca by Daphne DuMaurier

Watership Down by Richard Adams

The Blue Sword by Robin McKinley

The Great God Pan by Arthur Machen

Eleanor of Aquitaine by Marion Meade

Victorian People and Ideas by Richard D. Altick

The Poison Eaters and Other Stories by Holly Black

The Wolves of Willoughby Chase by Joan Aiken

The Rape of Europa: The Fate of Europe’s Treasures in the Third Reich and the Second World War by Lynn H. Nicholas

The Great Influenza: The Story of the Deadliest Pandemic in History by John M. Barry

American Nightmares: The Haunted House Formula in American Popular Fiction by Dale Bailey

Savage Beauty: The Life of Edna St. Vincent Millay by Nancy Mitford

The Years With Ross by James Thurber

Dorothy Parker: What Fresh Hell Is This? by Marion Meade

Southern Daughter: The Life of Margaret Mitchell by Darden Asbury Pyron

H.P.B.: The Extraordinary Life & Influence of Helena Blavatsky Founder of the Modern Theosophical Movement by Sylvia Cranston

With the exception of The Blue Sword, Waking the Moon, and Watership Down, I have never read these books before. Eleanor of Aquitaine, The Rape of Europa, Savage Beauty, and The Years With Ross have been on that shelf for over a year. I will read them, damn it.

I keep buying more books. Soiled Doves: Prostitution in the Early West by Anne Seagraves, Spinsters Abroad: Victorian Lady Explorers by Dea Birkett, and The Victorian Internet: The Remarkable Story of the Telegraph and the Nineteenth Century’s On-Line Pioneers by Tom Standage haven’t made it to the night stand system yet.

Some day, my withered corpse will be found underneath a pile of unread books. My only regret will be that I hadn’t gotten to them yet. If anything, working at the bookstore is only making it worse. And no, that’s not Louise Brooks’ autobiography hidden behind my back.

Tags: Bookstore
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How May I Help You?

May 25th, 2010

Graham takes his duties very seriously. Right here he is pretending that he doesn’t jump around, tail whipping into everything in a six foot radius when someone asks him if he wants to go for a walk.

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Patti 1999 – 2010

May 23rd, 2010